this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2024
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Maven Imported 1.12 Million Fediverse Posts (wedistribute.org)
submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Maven, a new social network backed by OpenAI's Sam Altman, found itself in a controversy today when it imported a huge amount of posts and profiles from the Fediverse, and then ran AI analysis to alter the content.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

Hmmm it was even able to pull in private DMs.

Maybe private DMs on Mastadon aren't as private as everyone thinks... that, or the open nature of Activity Pub is leaking them somehow?

Edit - From the article:

Even more shocking is the revelation that somehow, even private DMs from Mastodon were mirrored on their public site and searchable. How this is even possible is beyond me, as DM’s are ostensibly only between two parties, and the message itself was sent from two hackers.town users.

From what @[email protected] mentioned below, it sounds like this shouldn't be very shocking at all.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago (2 children)

They're called DMs not PMs

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

They're called DMs not PMs

? Did you mean that the other way around? And if you did... forgive me, I don't really use Mastodon. I was never much of a twitter fan. I don't really like how all of my likes are public (although I guess I have had to get used to that with Lemmy).

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago (1 children)

No. They're direct. They're not private.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Ah, I see. So it's the same mistake that Lemmy users make when thinking that Upvotes/Downvotes aren't public.

It sounds like DMs on Mastodon are public, but are commonly mistaken to be private then?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

I don't know why anyone would think any of this stuff is private. It can be pseudonyms, but that's up to you.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

PM never implied any form of end to end encryption. It only ever meant people couldn't see it apart from site operators. I genuinely don't believe people thought it meant otherwise.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

But on a federated system, everyone can see all messages. That's expected.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

No, should just be your instance admin and the admin of the instance your messaging.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The shocking part was less about Maven's methods or lack of ethics, and more along the lines of "How the fuck did they do that?!"

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago (1 children)

What @[email protected] seemed to be implying is that direct messages on Mastodon should be considered "public" rather than "private".

I'm assuming that's along the same lines of how Lemmy users generally think that their upvotes/downvotes are private when in reality, if you know how to look for them, you can see them.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

I don't think we should expect privacy from either. Instead, we need better documentation.

Personally, I'd appreciate to see a public dashboard displaying everyone's DMs and upvotes would help.