Fediverse

Privacy is a reverse idea on the Fediverse. I know it's a hot take, but by design the Fediverse is never going to be private and people should stop assuming it is.

When you send out a comment/like/post/whatever, you are literally broadcasting a message to any other instance listening. It essentially just says

{
  messageId: 42,
  message: "This is some message",
  action: "comment"
}

and if you want to delete that message it's essentially

{
  messageId: 42,
  action: "delete"
}

While Lemmy and Mastodon respect that, anyone can build any fediverse app and simply choose not to use it. Anyone can build a search engine and can choose to respect the delete or not. Any instance could defederate from them if they don't like that, or they may not care. The point however is that ActivityPub is designed this way, and there really isn't a better way.

If your comment has been sent out to other instances - well then it's there already. You can't delete it without some form of just asking politely that they delete it. They have it already, it could be stored in their DB, duplicated in other DBs, aggregated and sent to AI, searchable, whatever. They have it. There is no concept of "delete" on the fediverse. It's asking nicely for them to delete it.

this seems like nonsense. as if youre going to limit who can see your public posts... the fediverse is opt-out not opt-in. you opted-in when you signed up with an AP federating platform.

if you dont want to federate, dont use a federating platform. if you want privacy, dont use a platform designed for public distribution.

If something is on a public unencrypted website, it isn't private.

Unfortunately certain people have chosen to mislead users about this.

You may as well post your ass on a billboard then complain that people look at it.

Might spund a little conspiratorial but this fubdamentally breaks what federation means and specificly gives enormaus power to larger instances. Also the language of it by calling it consent feels like its meant to evoke a certain emotional reaction almost like its part of a larger phyop.

Also there is no such thing as privacy on the fediverse. There is anonymity if ur carefull.

It’s fine if single instances do consent-based federation that prioritize safety over openess, but why should it become the default for all instances? It will result in instance protectionism and an overall decline in discussion quality. Making it opt-in means people will connect less likely with folks from other instances, meaning people will mainly stay on their instances, meaning it supports tribalism in the Fediverse. More safety usually comes at a cost, too. In this case: less interaction with other instances.

But if you federate with instances that you trust good enough in the first place, constent-based federation is not necessary imo.

I don't expect anything I post here to be private.

Tbh I'm struggling to imagine what this would look like in something like Lemmy. It seems to be describing an extreme form of setting your account to private, but this only really makes sense in a situation where you have followers who are friends and family. How would I decide who to "approve"?