this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2023
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It seems like an easy way to share users across multiple instances without having to deal with actual registration / bots.

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[–] DoubleCore 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I believe this is against the whole idea of the federation. Users are local to an instance on the federation.

[–] sorwin 2 points 1 year ago

I don't understand why it's against federation. It's no different than an instance offering sign-ins which are federated across all instances. In fact, it's worse, anyone could create an instance and create malicious users.

[–] FineWolf 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

It seems like an easy way to share users across multiple instances

... but you don't need to have users in multiple instances. Register once, and use your home instance to interact with any content.

[–] sorwin 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Except until that instance shuts down, goes down, etc. There goes all your posts, history, etc.

[–] FineWolf 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not really. That content still lives on servers with which that instance was federating with.

As opposed to when a large centralized platform (Reddit, Twitter) shuts down, in which case you do truly lose your history.

[–] sorwin 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Large centralized platforms are far far less likely to shut down than small, compartmentalized instances....

edit: Take Lemmy for instance, there's tons of new instances starting up, but many will likely end up shutting down, because the reality is, hosting a service is serious work. Most people don't actually know what's involved in hosting something like this.

[–] FineWolf 1 points 1 year ago

The solution for that is simple. Either self-host your own instance OR choose an instance where you can support (with money) the team hosting the instance.

[–] ghariksforge 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

SSO is the enemy of privacy.

[–] sorwin 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Why is that? It's not like there's any privacy when you sign up to any Lemmy instance.

[–] ghariksforge 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

SSO allows you to be tracked across platforms. There is nothing that ties my Lemmy account to any other account I have somewhere else.

[–] sorwin 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

undefined> O allows you to be tracked across platforms. There is nothing that ties my Lemmy account to any other account I have somewhere else.

huh? How does it track across all platforms? Your SSO token is completely private, and the lemmy instance can do whatever it choses with it. How can any platform track what you are doing? lol.

[–] FineWolf 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

How can any platform track what you are doing? lol

Do you seriously think Google doesn't track which applications you use when you login using your Google account via social login?

Whatever social login provider you use, for them, providing that service allows them to collect data they otherwise wouldn't.

[–] ericjmorey 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What about posting to publicly accessible federated platforms? Seems inherently not compatible with privacy.

[–] ghariksforge 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] ericjmorey 1 points 1 year ago

The doesn't seem to address the incompatiblity of privacy on public and federated forums. Perhaps SSO exacerbates the incompatiblity but you haven't really made that case well either.