this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2025
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Upvotes seem to just federate as likes and dislikes.

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[–] [email protected] 103 points 1 month ago (6 children)

There's no way that isn't going to be abused. Some marketing or tracking agency will setup a fediverse server and just collect all data like this for free. Or worse, take advantage of a friendica instance to bombard it with requests for data collection purposes.

[–] [email protected] 86 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Well yes, the whole concept of the fediverse is that of social media as a public service. All activitypub data is public.

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

So you're agreeing with me that it will be abused.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Not them but yes but it's not a feature of the system, it's a failure of the humans.

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

What is it that you mean by that? Do you mind rephrasing your reply?

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Tools do not have morality or ethics, only people do. Some people use tools in a morally and/or ethically questionable manner, either for profit or because it amuses them.

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

True, we perpetuate the unjust systems around us. Systems can be constructed to unfairly benefit some over others as well, like how capitalism unfairly benefits the wealthy.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

It's the age old argument of "It's not Communism that's bad, it's the human element."

Speaking as if any system created by humans will ever be free of the human element, which is of course faulty logic.

Edit:

The downvote button is not an 'I don't like this' button, trogs. Read the rules.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

, which is of course faulty logic

...which is why design systems so that when using them we can account for the human element, right? Come on! We have centuries-spanning systems even industries built on that! Engineering, avionics, Yelp reviews...

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

I think you're forgetting the context of the discussion...

Not them but yes but it's not a feature of the system, it's a failure of the humans.

A system designed to be used by humans has an attribute bound to be exploited by humans and it's the failure of humans for exploiting it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I mean, when the human element is literally not doing communism, yes, that would be a problem.

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

That's the problem: for communism to work, it requires perfect beings that act according to how the system is designed. Humans do not do that.

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

i think we should be accounting for it if we don't wanna get swallowed by shitty interests tbh

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

Like, of course; tho any sort of "accounting" should IMO start from the base that the intent of this entire thing is to publicly share public information.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

has anyone come up with possible solutions yet?

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 month ago

But it has absolutely nothing to do with how it is displayed in Friendica.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

Yes, but as long as you don’t reveal your identity, they can’t do much to track you.

They don’t have access to your IP.

Of course, it you’re using the same username over multiple services, or reveal identifying information (which is much easier to analyse now due to AI) they will be able to track you.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago

My name is actually Ricky Rigatoni and I am King of the Brooklyn Mafia.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Is IP not logged anywhere in Lemmy/ ActivityPub?

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

If image embeds aren't cached by your server they can be abused to gain IP, but that's a hack, it's not intended.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

You can set a Lemmy server to proxy image requests

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

Exactly, that's why I said for ones that aren't cached. They can be cached, but it's not a guarantee they will be.

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

Proxying is a separate option from caching. I think it was added in 0.19.5

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

Oh I didn't know that, that's good. Though I think the point still stands since it's not a guarantee instance admins will use it (unless it's a default).

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I think server admins can access. It makes sense moderation wise, if for keeping a tab on alts for enforcing permabans.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 month ago (1 children)

This feature has been available to all kbin/Mbin users since the beginning, btw.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I wanna say it was built into Lemmy originally as well but they removed it from the FE

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

It’s in lemmy but only available to instance admins

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

This is nothing new. Fire up any ActivityPub server and you can see everything over the wire. As a Lemmy admin of my server of just me, I can also see it in the UI.

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

Wouldn't you be able to see it by curling the outboxes?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

What can they use that data for?

It would only be usable data if they could show personalized ads to the users. They can’t.

All they know is that Meldrik up/downvoted this and that, but outside of Lemmy they have no idea who Meldrik is.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago

If you think metadata is worthless, I would like to make you aware about Snowden and his revelations. Look them up.

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

Cant you just defed with them?

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

If you can identify all of their instances, yes.