Federated instances can track which users have upvoted & downvoted on all federated content, which crawlers can't see (unless they're crawling Kbin which specifically shows this data in the UI).

In the early Websocket version of Lemmy's UI you could see all this data for yourself, it would be a treasure trove for Facebook/Meta especially if they're able to link it back to your ad profile. They'd be able to monitor real time activity of users outside the platform just by subscribing to communities, and wouldn't need to waste time developing scrapers.

Knowing Meta's addiction to data, they can infer a list of your subscribed communities by looking at which ones you are active in the most (using these to then identify your interests), and identify what timezone you're in based on when you're active on Lemmy. There's a lot more they can do with the federated data though, some of which admittedly can be done using your public data.

Scraping a public profile is one thing, but presumably stalking users en masse with pseudoprivate vote data is a bit far IMO, especially with the likelihood of Facebook using this data for building ad profiles

[–] woelkchen@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

it would be a treasure trove for Facebook/Meta

Given the tiny user base compared to Threads: No.

They’d be able to monitor real time activity of users outside the platform just by subscribing to communities, and wouldn’t need to waste time developing scrapers.

They're "wasting time" developing ActivityPub support when they could just as well deploy a Mastodon Docker image on an inconspicuous domain name.

stalking users en masse

Maybe all Fediverse instances should block every single Chrome and Edge user. Also every instance hosted on AWS should be blocked. Google, Microsoft, and Amazon are every bit as stalkery if not more.

[–] lemann@lemmy.one 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Given the tiny user base compared to Threads: No.

True.

In my opinion though, the majority of these are just Instagram accounts - that originally signed up for an image sharing social network. While a lot of them are going to try Threads, a lot of them are likely to just lurk.

They're "wasting time" developing ActivityPub support when they could just as well deploy a Mastodon Docker image on an inconspicuous domain name.

And be on the hook for releasing the source code a la Truth Social?

To me this sounds like a whataboutism IMO. You don't need much to create an ActivityPub data ingest program - you quite literally ask the server to always send you updates. Facebook has probably already got something like this set up on Mastodon anyway, and used the NDA'd instance owner meetings to keep it whitelisted.

Maybe all Fediverse instances should block every single Chrome and Edge user. Also every instance hosted on AWS should be blocked. Google, Microsoft, and Amazon are every bit as stalkery if not more.

Just because online tracking is normalised does not mean you should just accept it IMO. Although looking at your response, I'm assuming you just don't care about it 🤷‍♂️ which is fine if that works for you.

Facebook is literally doing everything they can to stay intrusive and relevant, even if those things are kinda shitty, while just giving everyone "we care about your privacy" lip service and empty "we're sorry" apologies in Congress.

My issues with FB specifically:

Access to your contacts via WhatsApp, and their real names if they're saved as such
Run social experiments on users without prior consent, such as filling feeds with negative content
Swallowed the low end VR market with the affordable Oculus headset, having a negative effect on VR game quality for users with high end headsets (see "Onward"). The community has coined the term Questification for this
Cambridge Analytica 🙄
Copying Snapchat's stories and ephemeral image messages into both Instagram and WhatsApp after Snap Inc turned down their purchase offer
So many data breaches & leaks that people have stopped caring

There's a bunch more but you probably are already aware of them. It boils down to Facebook not being a company that I believe is worth trusting.

Google is the closest analog to FB, but they're not running social experiments on you without your consent (unless you want to speculate on YouTube's algorithm), and they've kept user data safe. Don't get me wrong, I do not like Google either.

Amazon's antics are mainly confined to online retail, same goes for their ads service if that still exists.

Microsoft is very, very easily avoided, with the obvious exception of work environments. They're kind of irrelevant as a company outside of Azure cloud, Xbox and Windows computers. There's ADO but that feeds back into the work environment thing.

If you are interested in continuing the conversation, I'm curious as to what your opinion of Facebook is? I don't really have any other response so just interested in hearing your perspective.

[–] woelkchen@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

And be on the hook for releasing the source code a la Truth Social?

No modifications to the upstream source means that no modified sources need to be released. Lemmy also just points to the Github in the footer.

Although looking at your response, I’m assuming you just don’t care about it 🤷‍♂️ which is fine if that works for you.

Tracking is not fine for me but it's also something that each user should decide for themself. One should be aware that public content is really public and anyone can see it. If I don't want to accidentally like something in Threads, Mastodon allows me to block entire domains. The instance does not need to pretend to be my parent and protect me.

My issues with FB specifically

And nothing is about blocking federation with Threads.

Google is the closest analog to FB, but they’re not running social experiments on you without your consent (unless you want to speculate on YouTube’s algorithm)

As someone who recently got very funky stuff on YouTube which disappeared on a private tab: There are experiments going on.

Not sure what experiments on Facebooks have to do with federation but this underlines my thought that people just look up for excuses because blocking Threads feels right to them even if there is little technological reason for this, especially considering that ActivityPub support is not even there and nobody can make an informed decision about the effect of Threads on the network.

Don’t get me wrong, I do not like Google either.

So blocking all Chrome users then?

Amazon’s antics are mainly confined to online retail, same goes for their ads service if that still exists.

And everything hosted on AWS.

Microsoft is very, very easily avoided, with the obvious exception of work environments.

Threads accounts can also be easily avoided on Mastodon because users can just block entire domains, therefore the instances don't need to patronize its users.

If I were a Chrome or Edge user and synced all my history to Google/MS, this is literally tracking.

I’m curious as to what your opinion of Facebook is?

facebook.com is lame. The Meta corporation is run by a soulless robot but there are some smart engineers employed there who do good work on open source projects. My workplace wants me to use WhatsApp so I have it on my work phone only, I decided on my own not to install it on my private phone but would not want an Android ROM where the maintainer decided for me that I must not ever install WhatsApp because people should be able to decide for themselves which content they consume. Their VR products look interesting but AFAIK they mandate an account which is against my conviction to not be patronized by I product I paid for.