Skip to main content


Friendly reminder that you should consider everything you say on the Fediverse to be publicly available and archived by your adversaries, who can and will use it against you.

"Quiet public" isn't saving you from that. "Followers-only" isn't saving you from that. Don't assume your DMs are private either.

in reply to Veronica Explains

It would not be unreasonable to apply this to every human interaction you have, to be honest.
in reply to Veronica Explains

This is the correct take: the Fediverse isn't "dark social", it's just not algorithmic, and that isn't the same thing.
in reply to Veronica Explains

the advice I was given years ago was that don't say anything online you that wouldn't say to a room full of people and I think that still stands

I'm quite vocal about certain things online but its nothing I wouldn't say in person and there is so much I just don't say on or offline

in reply to Veronica Explains

Nothing on the internet should be thought of as private unless you yourself took steps to explicitly make it so - and even then I'd be careful, metadata is logged everywhere.

The way I heard it described best is to think of the internet as about as private as a public bulletin board at your supermarket or library. Even if you don't sign your notes, some people can see you put it up and who reads it.

in reply to Veronica Explains

so what you're trying to say is everyone knows I'm a closet Windows 11 fanboy who enjoys hacking the registry? 😅
This entry was edited (9 months ago)
in reply to Veronica Explains

I mean, it's social media, not encrypted messenger. Assuming privacy on public platform is kinda stupid. You use Signal for that, not Mastodon or Lemmy...
in reply to Veronica Explains

I feel like this is the internet in general. I feel like whatever you say on private or public, someone is bound to be offended by it and use it against you. I also think it’s why you need to be careful who you befriend and message online too.
in reply to Jonathan Lamothe

@me there is some sort of confusing hack of a timeline mention that is called private but really isn’t, yeah. A regular old inbox would work better. Or just work at all. The current solution feels very dodgy
in reply to Veronica Explains

With that said running your own instance gives you ownership of the data at its source. You can destroy the posts and the cache leaving at the very least deniability. I won't say legal standing as I don't think the courts in the US actually function any more.

That's better than anything you're going to get anywhere else including BlueSky.

This entry was edited (9 months ago)
in reply to Veronica Explains

I choose carefully what information I put on souau media, but I don’t care much for it.
Now, LLMS are a problem for my morals haha I wouldn’t want my fedi data being used to train LLMS. But it’s probably a reality
in reply to Veronica Explains

The old rule, what you put on the internet, stays on the internet for all to see, is still a good one.
in reply to Veronica Explains

I type a lot of my posts with that in mind, and also some "I hope those assholes see this."
in reply to Veronica Explains

How does this relate to the threat model? If you want a private social media account for followers only that doesn't show up in search results, but you don't need strong privacy against hackers / state actors, can followers-only be considered ok privacy?
Unknown parent

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source
Jonathan Lamothe
@Ben (he/they) @vkc (Veronica Explains) Because of the way the fedi works. There's no end-to-end encryption. At a minimum, all your messages can be read by the admins of both your instance and the admins of every instance it's being sent to. This assumes every server is operating as it should (which is by no menas a safe assumption).
in reply to Veronica Explains

Instead of all-or-nothing, I see it as means to delay the leak. If you maintain a "closed" profile with follower requests and investigate before accepting those, there is still a temptation to share something with followers only - but you should never feel pressured to do this, it's not the objective. DMs on most fediverse platforms are glorified forum PMs with admin's hand eventually itching to snoop around.
This entry was edited (9 months ago)

This website uses cookies. If you continue browsing this website, you agree to the usage of cookies.