this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2023
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Found this post super informative as it relates to Mastodon, and thought Lemmy might also benefit from this perspective. I'm not sure I share his optimism, but his points seem sound to dampen some of the alarm bells over Meta joining the Fediverse.

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[–] [email protected] 102 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (28 children)

They didn't even address what will happen when Facebook starts aggregating data from instances federated with Threads:

  • Vote/Like data
  • Follow relationships
  • Text sentiment analysis
  • Behavioral patterns
  • Periods of activity
  • etc

Heck, not only did this post not address it, it seems like they tried to downplay it.

Facebook is an analytics company. Even if it's not mission critical to the function of Threads, they will scoop up data sent to Threads, they will use it to create profiles on every single non-Threads user they can, and they will sell that data.

It doesn't even matter if it violates privacy laws; the laws are toothless to companies as large as Facebook. They'll just be made to pay a fine and carry on as they are.

Yes, interoperability would be a win, but not when it comes from a company that has routinely demonstrated they abuse every crumb of data they can get their hands on.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (6 children)

I've posted this elsewhere in the thread so hopefully it doesn't feel spammy, but this is from their privacy policy:

"Information From Third Party Services and Users: We collect information about the Third Party Services and Third Party Users who interact with Threads. If you interact with Threads through a Third Party Service (such as by following Threads users, interacting with Threads content, or by allowing Threads users to follow you or interact with your content), we collect information about your third-party account and profile (such as your username, profile picture, IP address, and the name of the Third Party Service on which you are registered), your content (such as when you allow Threads users to follow, like, reshare, or have mentions in your posts), and your interactions (such as when you follow, like, reshare, or have mentions in Threads posts).

We use the information we collect for Threads for the purposes described in the Meta Privacy Policy, including to provide, personalize, and improve Threads and other Meta Products (including seamless personalization of your experience across Threads and Instagram), to provide measurement, analytics and other business services (including ads), to promote safety, integrity and security, to communicate with you, and to research and innovate for social good."

https://help.instagram.com/515230437301944?helpref=faq_content

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

So Meta can gather your profile information, likes and follows, as long as you instance federate with Meta’s instance and somebody follows you? Are your likes and follows available through the public api? If they are not publicly available then the federation with Meta gives them an easy access to you information

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

What's worse their privacy policy states that they believe that being connected to their network gives them the right to monetize your data (messages, boosts, likes, and follower graph).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

jfc read the article. He addresses that.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I am assuming you are referring to Eugene's post. The way he addresses it is actually fairly misleading. The Threads privacy policy explicitly states that they believe they have a right to monetize any data on any nodes connected to their network.

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