Edit: obligatory explanation (thanks mods for squaring me away)…
What you see via the UI isn’t “all that exists”. Unlike Reddit, where everything is a black box, there are a lot more eyeballs who can see “under the hood”. Any instance admin, proper or rogue, gets a ton of information that users won’t normally see. The attached example demonstrates that while users will only see upvote/downvote tallies, admins can see who actually performed those actions.
Edit: To clarify, not just YOUR instance admin gets this info. This is ANY instance admin across the Fediverse.
Agreed, I am incredibly confused by what seems to be the majority reaction to this.
I’ve never been particularly involved with the FOSS community, though I do use a few FOSS apps and generally appreciate their view on what FOSS means. I also strongly appreciate data privacy, and it was my observation that the FOSS community was (generally) relatively the same way. So to see this reaction is very surprising. It’s quite literally the same terrible argument of “Why fear it if you have nothing to hide” used against multiple data privacy concerns throughout the years.
I think the worst are the bad faith “But Reddit…!” arguments. For one, we’re not on Reddit anymore, this is about Lemmy’s issues that can be corrected. And for two, whilst Reddit potentially outsourcing that data to the highest bidder is far from ideal, at the very least the data wasn’t outright PUBLIC to anyone who wishes to set up a simple server.
Exactly. When data like that is public, I can guarantee you 10000% that Big Tech and governments are harvesting ALL of it as we speak. If this issue is not resolved and TRUE privacy is not implemented sooner rather than later, Lemmy will not succeed in the Fediverse, period.
If you want privacy you need to use an encrypted chat. You can’t have privacy in a public space. That is like stand in the middle of a market place, screaming out your thoughts and then being upset that someone writes them down. It sure would be nice if our data wasn’t harvested, but that is not the world we live in. So if you want to say something in private you need to choose a private platform. Otherwise assume that Big Tech and World Governments are listening.
There’s a huge difference between what I choose to put out in public vs. data that’s being collected on me just by browsing the site. Saying “it’s just the world we live in” is just an excuse to ignore the real issues. It is more crucial now than ever that we create a system that’s by and for the people, not Big Tech and governments.
You say these issues can be corrected but I am not sure they can. ActivityPub is a protocol managed by the W3C. So to have different behavior You’d have to change the specification there. That is possible but it will take some time. Still you’d need a way to make votes not bound to a user and still hard to spoof. That sounds hard. Apart from that upvotes and downvotes are not really the most interesting datapoints you can gather. You can still collect posts. These can’t be obfuscated. There is simply no way to have an open network where you can share data between servers where you can make sure that no one harvests the data. It is simply not possible. As soon as it is public it is public. This has nothing to do with FOSS. If you have a solution you can implement it. That is what it means. If you have one then go ahead.
You’d have to change the specification there. That is possible but it will take some time.
Then they should do so, these issues need to be fixed ASAP.
Still you’d need a way to make votes not bound to a user and still hard to spoof.
Obfuscating user IDs via a hash or something would seem like the way to make it work. I’m not a professional programmer, I only know a little bit of python, so I have no idea if I’m talking nonsense on that front. And whilst still not an ideal solution, but sharing non-private votes with your own instance admin and have them share only the total vote count with other instances is another solution. That way you need only trust your instance admin, which is choosable and can also be yourself.
That is what it means. If you have one then go ahead.
Putting the onus on me is a shitty thing to do. I’m not the one running this site in any capacity, but this is an issue that many users are unhappy with. If the issue with the site won’t or even can’t be fixed, then I will simply not use the site. I don’t know how many people feel the same on that front, but I’d imagine there’s quite a few.
Putting the onus on me is a shitty thing to do
You are the person who has a problem with that and you mentioned FOSS. It is easy to complain. FOSS gives you the tools to change things. But you have to put in the work. You are the one putting the burden the change something to your liking on others instead of doing to yourself.
Obfuscating user IDs via a hash or something would seem like the way to make it work. I’m not a coder, so I have no idea if I’m talking nonsense on that front. And whilst still not an ideal solution, but sharing non-private votes with your own instance admin and have them share only the total vote count with other instances is another solution. That way you need only trust your instance admin, which is choosable and can also be yourself.
Both of your ideas are not compatible with ActivityPub as far is I can see. So you first need to change the specification and then make everyone adopt the specification. Before that any change would make your software incompatible with the rest of fediverse which is counter the idea.
And all of that because people could be mad about a downvote. I am an instance admin. I was downvoted before. I never even thought about looking up who downvoted me. I know people are different but to be honest if someone looks it up and harasses you then you block them. And I really can’t imagine that your vote on a post with a pseudonym is really a very useful datapoint for anyone.
I agree that these things have to be communicated better but I don’t even know how we would make people aware of this. No one reads disclaimers.
then I will simply not use the site
Maybe that’s what you should do. But don’t do it as a protest. Do it because you don’t want to share that data publicly.
The entire point of social media is sharing things publicly. If you’re worried about people collecting that data, then you shouldn’t have put it in public.
There aren’t good ways to keep a public secret. That’s inherent to how information works and not a failing of ActivityPub. It’s the same reason media will never stop being pirated. If I can see/hear it, I can repeat it.
