this post was submitted on 25 Jan 2025
136 points (92.5% liked)

Privacy

33149 readers
1389 users here now

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Related communities

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] SinningStromgald 94 points 5 days ago (4 children)

Correct me if I am wrong but most of those "personal stories" are pure fiction right?

[–] [email protected] 30 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

On Reddit I haven’t read a true story since the 💩🔪 story.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 5 days ago

I suspect some are AI and others may be creative writing exercises. Some portion are probably real.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Many of the exaggerated stories are fiction. But there are plenty of Redditors posting pictures of things they saw locally and other information which some could consider sensitive.

[–] SinningStromgald 6 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Based on your question I thought you were referencing subs like confessions, AITAH etc. Not pics of dumb animals or kids.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Don't get me wrong, I was referencing those too. In general, when I visited Reddit there were a lot of personal stories and pictures. These can often provide a unique pov which is not found in the news.

Lemmy is more a forum where people discuss the news. The comments are far more advanced and interesting than Reddit. But because people (including me) are far more privacy minded, I feel like they rarely post personal experiences. This might be an unfixable dillemma.

[–] cmbabul 4 points 4 days ago

I just assume they meant the cum box

[–] njm1314 10 points 4 days ago

99% minimum

[–] [email protected] 36 points 4 days ago (2 children)

My name is Walter Hartwell White. I live at 308 Negra Arroyo Lane, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 87104. This is my confession. If you're watching this tape, I'm probably dead, murdered by my brother-in-law Hank Schrader. Hank has been building a meth empire for over a year now and using me as his chemist. Shortly after my 50th birthday, Hank came to me with a rather, shocking proposition. He asked that I use my chemistry knowledge to cook methamphetamine, which he would then sell using his connections in the drug world. Connections that he made through his career with the DEA. I was... astounded, I... I always thought that Hank was a very moral man and I was... thrown, confused, but I was also particularly vulnerable at the time, something he knew and took advantage of. I was reeling from a cancer diagnosis that was poised to bankrupt my family. Hank took me on a ride along, and showed me just how much money even a small meth operation could make. And I was weak. I didn't want my family to go into financial ruin so I agreed. Every day, I think back at that moment with regret. I quickly realized that I was in way over my head, and Hank had a partner, a man named Gustavo Fring, a businessman. Hank essentially sold me into servitude to this man, and when I tried to quit, Fring threatened my family. I didn't know where to turn. Eventually, Hank and Fring had a falling out. From what I can gather, Hank was always pushing for a greater share of the business, to which Fring flatly refused to give him, and things escalated. Fring was able to arrange, uh I guess I guess you call it a "hit" on my brother-in-law, and failed, but Hank was seriously injured, and I wound up paying his medical bills which amounted to a little over $177,000. Upon recovery, Hank was bent on revenge, working with a man named Hector Salamanca, he plotted to kill Fring, and did so. In fact, the bomb that he used was built by me, and he gave me no option in it. I have often contemplated suicide, but I'm a coward. I wanted to go to the police, but I was frightened. Hank had risen in the ranks to become the head of the Albuquerque DEA, and about that time, to keep me in line, he took my children from me. For 3 months he kept them. My wife, who up until that point, had no idea of my criminal activities, was horrified to learn what I had done, why Hank had taken our children. We were scared. I was in Hell, I hated myself for what I had brought upon my family. Recently, I tried once again to quit, to end this nightmare, and in response, he gave me this. I can't take this anymore. I live in fear every day that Hank will kill me, or worse, hurt my family. I... All I could think to do was to make this video in hope that the world will finally see this man, for what he really is.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago

I snorted, I loves me some Breaking Bad copypasta haha

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 days ago (1 children)

wtf is this a copypasta lol

[–] [email protected] 16 points 4 days ago

It's from the tv show Breaking Bad.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I know I am wary of doxxing myself, there's so many times I've withheld commenting because my stories are too specific. I've probably shared too much already and do think about just starting over with a new account sometimes. This is my 4th account by now?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

do think about just starting over with a new account sometimes.

That's just a good practice. Change the handle with some regularity but it does get annoying to set everything up each time

[–] njm1314 29 points 4 days ago (3 children)

I mean those personal stores on Reddit are all made up

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA 5 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Most of them. The sonnet I wrote about wanting to poop when I was in the hospital with a bowel obstruction? I'm pretty sure that's still there.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

The only post made while not actively pooping

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 days ago

Indeed. What personal stories?

[–] douglasg14b 2 points 4 days ago

Even worse the majority of them are just reposts by bots scraping old personal stories people wrote, in addition to stories entirely made up by bots.

[–] douglasg14b 10 points 4 days ago

I think let me has less personal stories than read it because Lemmy isn't infested by bots writing personal stories.

Or copying personal stories from previous posts, and recycling them for votes.

You underestimate the amount of bot activity on Reddit. Some threads on all are something like 70%+ bot comments, with most being at least half.

It's crazy.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 days ago

I think it might be the case for some, but mostly I think that more people on Lemmy are less focused on themselves and personal anecdotes. More often I see people here reaching for cited resources to support what they're saying instead of "Oh one time my Uncle's friend's cousin...". It still happens here, but not nearly in the same capacity from what I've seen.

[–] DesertHermit 16 points 4 days ago

It might also be that out of 97 million daily active users, if 1/10th of 1% are attention-seeking crazies, that's 97,000 people over-sharing at absurd levels.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 5 days ago

We haven't been infested by the vain Facebook crowd yet.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 5 days ago (1 children)

People that have the need to share "personal stories" with basically strangers are looking for an audience first and foremost. Lemmy has way fewer people so the type of person trying to seek that attention will be going to facebook/twitter/reddit etc. If Lemmy was one of the top-ten most used sites, then we'd see a lot more of that kind of content.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 days ago

Also, people who freely share details about their personal lives are generally not as particular about social media platforms. They're likely to use whichever one they have heard of the most, or the one on which they already have an account, like Reddit. Lemmy is far from mainstream, so they're not likely to think of it first, if they have heard of it at all.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Personally, that crosses my mind. But I came over in the reddit revolt and saw lemmy as a fresh start. Privacy isn't easy, but at least make them work for it.

Also, I figure (if it hasn't happened already) some federated instances out there are nefarious, set up to harvest data.

We just had a helicopter doing low passed over our house and watching the flight on a tracker, it was clear it was casing chosen neighborhoods. The lengths someone went to sell whatever info they grabbed means it's highly valuable. The fediverse is open and waiting for it to be datamined.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 days ago (8 children)

Also, I figure (if it hasn’t happened already) some federated instances out there are nefarious, set up to harvest data.

[Citations needed] or it didn’t happen. There’s precious little extra information that a “nefarious” instance can harvest that any basic web scrapper can’t.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

[Citations needed] or it didn’t happen.

I think this mindset is naïve and unrealistic.

People were saying the same thing for decades in response to a small minority warning about government surveillance, often dismissing them with labels like "paranoid". Eventually, Snowden came along and produced the citations, at extreme risk to himself and his loved ones. It's an anomaly that they were ever revealed at all.

History is replete with examples of bad stuff going on for ages before irrefutable evidence of it became widely known. In general, if something can be abused to someone's advantage, it will be, and likely already is.

There’s precious little extra information that a “nefarious” instance can harvest that any basic web scrapper can’t.

You have a point there, but consider also that effective web scraping uses significantly more resources than having the data you want handed to you. Monitoring Lemmy through federation would be much more efficient.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Can't an instance also collect IP-addreses and device info, if its owner adds some scripts to its web version?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 days ago

An instance owner can only collect the IP addresses/brower fingerprints of users logged in to their instance. In other words, only slrpnk.net could collect that information about you, because you are only directly connecting to slrpnk.net.

load more comments (6 replies)
[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I'd say more likely just:

  • Not enough users to see that many stories being posted
  • Not that many users to make it worth sharing detailled stories
  • Lack of communities for that kind of content

You're just not gonna see a lot of tales from retail in a place dominated by chronically online people, engineers, nerds and somewhat older userbase.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 days ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I'm aware of that one but it's not that active especially compared to the big reddit communities like TalesFromRetail, AITAH, MaliciousCompliance, TalesFromTechSupport, etc which is where all the good stories come out of on Reddit.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 days ago

Settinging asside the likelyhood that many personal stories there are fantacy. There are just fewer people on this platform and probably the many new people from the last little bit are still testing the waters.

But primarily, I think nowadays people understand that if they put their data online anywhere, there is a chance someone could use it against them. Hence, people here are not doing it as much.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 days ago

Nah, throwaways are easy

[–] conicalscientist 3 points 3 days ago

Dear ~~Penthouse Forum~~ reddit, I'm a 20 year-old college student and I never thought I'd be writing to the ~~Penthouse Forum~~ reddit, but...

It's the lowest common denominator of smut entertainment. The tech companies have managed to veil it all in prestige. It should be called gossip media or something.

Instead people think there's some kind of real human connection. Some kind of deep discussions happening.

[–] Damionsipher 6 points 5 days ago

Reddit didn't used to be that way. Slowly over time it devolved into the same self-flagellation that happens more on "share my thought" type platforms like Twitter. I hope we are better able to manage our federations to keep that type of content at bay while remaining open enough to let people speak their truth in the face of oppression.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

We don't mind individual points for a story we like the feedback that people like our story, But most places aren't even counting overall points. It's not some reddit race to the top for who can have 300,000 karma. We're here to actually chit chat and socialize and that's just not conducive to throwing out a bunch of personal stories for shock and awe. Nobody is selling Lemmy accounts with 10,000 karma for bank.

load more comments
view more: next ›