How do you personally feel about anonymity in the Fediverse?
How do you personally feel about anonymity in the Fediverse?
I've been exploring the Fediverse for a bit, and I really like that different instances can interact with each other. But that also leads to some oddities, like how the culture on each instance treats anonymity.
On Reddit, most accounts were anonymous. Personally I always tried to keep any personally identifying information to a minimum.
On Twitter, many accounts are just [Firstname][Lastname], in fact many of the accounts I follow are because of who they are IRL.
In the Fediverse, these different cultures can interact with one another. Kbin users can interact with Mastodon users, etc. I'm just wondering how Kbin users feel about anonymity. Would you be distrustful of an anonymous user? Would you avoid posting personal information incase of doxxing?
In the abstract I would rather not have my up- and downvotes be public information, but in practice I don’t think anyone will have enough interest in me and my doings for it to matter.
Everything you post or interact with on any fediverse instance is public and practically not deletable. I'd suggest keeping anything identifying to an absolute minimum and thinking twice if what you post, boost, favourite, whatever could be used against you.
And is this not also just the case across the clearnet in general? I keep seeing posts about the fediverse and anonymity and I'm wondering what gave people the impression it was necessarily any better in this regard than the internet they're already used to.
Same as on twitter.
On reddit only reddit knew who you voted for (so long as your preferences were set so that votes weren't public).
I grew up with the internet as an everyday part of life from my mid-teens onwards. Back then, we were taught to be careful about what information we give out online because there are no backsies and you can never be sure who you're talking to.
Not sure when that changed to "give out all your personal info and it'll probably be fine somehow" on a lot of these sites, but personally I stick with the former approach wherever I am. I'm not totally anonymous, far from it, but I only share what I don't mind being public.
Depends.
On Mastodon, I do care quite a bit who I follow and why.
On Kbin/Lemmy, not at all, I'm just looking for interesting discussions around a topic I follow.I don't see these things as mutually exclusive.
Yeah definitely agreed. I'm on Mastodon to follow people, I'm on Kbin to follow topics. And either way it's good to be anonymous on the internet