Post #2296644

2023-06-21 18:53 UTC

@emberquill@tech.lgbt @simplenomad@rigor-mortis.nmrc.org @joshbressers@infosec.exchange like somehow getting ads on the feed for my current mastodon account? wouldn't be any different than muting or blocking the irrelevant posters in the hashtags I follow, since there's no way they'd be able to do actual sponsored posts, as far as my understanding of Mastodon goes. Or so you mean using what i post on mastodon to serve ads to me elsewhere? Because again, they already can do that and I have extensions and methods to circumvent that.

Replies (1)

@emberquill@tech.lgbt 2023-06-21 19:27

@trekman10@union.place @simplenomad@rigor-mortis.nmrc.org @joshbressers@infosec.exchange There are many things they could do. Most of them would immediately out them as trying to kill or seriously twist the Fediverse but I'm always suspicious of large companies entering environments where there doesn't seem to be a market for them. After all, how does Meta plan to profit from entering the Fediverse? Until I know the answer to that question, I'm suspicious by default. They're developing their own application, not just a Meta-branded Mastodon instance. They can inject all sorts of garbage into the federated timeline. They can decide not to allow federation for posts they don't like, or repeatedly boost posts they *do* like. They could use any username on their instance or create new ones on the fly to circumvent user-level blocking. They could send out ads disguised as posts from users you follow. A lot of the way Fediverse servers behave is based on trust in admins and an agreement to not abuse the system. I don't *trust* Meta.

Open ##2296645