Meta takes Threads a step nearer Fediverse integration - and updates their Privacy Policy
Meta takes Threads a step nearer Fediverse integration - and updates their Privacy Policy
Threads, Meta's new microblogging platform, is updating its terms to focus on data collection from "Third Party Users".
Threads new 'Supplemental Privacy Policy' (Instagram link) says they'll collect (from fediverse users interacting with Threads users):
- Username
- Profile Picture
- IP Address
- Name of Third Party Service
- Posts from profile
- Post interactions (Follow, Like, Reshare, Mentions)
From the linked article:
"Granted, these sound like basic table stakes for federation to work well within the Fediverse. Most Mastodon servers collect roughly about the same amount of data for basic features to work correctly. But again, Meta is first and foremost an advertising and data harvesting company..."
Fuck them
I realize we're all on the "fuck Meta" train (and yes, fuck 'em), but I will note that my kbin instance is also collecting all of that from y'all just due to how federation works (except for IP address I believe).
I knew you glowed.
You definitely have access logs that contain IP addresses.
Access logs, sure, but I'm thinking of like federated user logs. Because for example, you're not accessing the.coolest.zone, you're on lemmy.world. I wouldn't have your IP address, and even if you dipped over to the .zone I'd not be able to associate it with your account.
I assume what they mean by IP address collection is in fact access logs, as opposed to everything else which comes thru standard ActivityPub protocols. And, Meta being Meta, they probably have enough info and tracking pixels on us all to be able to correlate all that data together.
And this is exactly why I swapped instances, because
- I don't want my family seeing my masto account, it's a safe space online for me and
- I don't wanna support threads being apart of the fediverse.
Which instances are recommended to migrate to?
I personally migrated to toot.site, but any of the instances listed on fedipact.online aren't federating with threads if you don't wanna go on toot.site for whatever reason.
I don't want my family seeing my masto account, it's a safe space online for me and
Wouldn't it be better to open one without your name in that case?
Honestly, Meta federating is probably the best chance of Mastodon becoming accessible to the larger public, and I’m all for anything that brings us closer to a world where Twitter isn’t top dog.
And I say this as someone who’s rooting for BlueSky/ATProto, not Mastodon.
Meta isn’t connecting to Mastodon to make Mastodon better, it’s doing it to get free users for Threads. As soon as it has enough Treads-first users, it will break or stop supporting Mastodon and most users of Mastodon will wonder where all the content went.
This is behind lots of tech companies’ support for open standards. The adopt, modify, dominate, and then drop the open standards and move on.
Another opinion would be that the Fediverse is currently so small that Meta doesn't really care about it. Its a nice feature with which they can set themselves apart from Bluesky and apear as the good guys to the public and regulators. I don't necessarily think Meta has a plan to destroy the Fediverse or suck all energy out of it. Mark Zuckerberg said he wants to bring micro-blogging to billions of users. Mastodon is only penuts there.
Regarding the IP address, how are they going to get it? I assumed that servers wouldn't pass them along to other nodes, isn't that the case?
I thought IP addresses are accessible to all 3 instances (where the account is, where the post is made, and where the post is viewed)
Otherwise it would be hard to deal with spam bots from an instance, and the only avenue would be to defederate.
The issue here is that other instances use the IP address to prevent spam and they don't track it unless they need to