Post #3154327

2026-05-22 19:21 UTC

@greg@flipboard.social @mike@flipboard.social If this isn't done, or is done as opt out, the service will likely end up blocked from this side of Fedi as a privacy violation. We all take the stance of 'just because someone makes a public post doesn't mean you have the right to help yourself to that post and share or distribute it in another context without first establising consent'. So I can say 100% that if this takes our members' replies and posts them off Mastodon without consent, we'll block the service.

Replies (2)

@greg@flipboard.social 2026-05-22 19:27

@welshpixie@mastodon.art @mike@flipboard.social I appreciate you laying that out clearly. To be specific about what Surf does: when a user logs into Surf with their Mastodon account, they're opting in to use Surf as their client. The posts they see are public posts accessed through the standard Mastodon API — the same way Ivory, Ice Cubes, or any third-party client works. We don't scrape or redistribute posts outside of that user's authenticated session. Where Surf differs from a traditional client is that it also shows content from other networks like Bluesky alongside Mastodon content. But the Mastodon content is accessed through the same API every client uses, on behalf of a user who chose to log in. I respect your community's values around consent and I understand the concern. I also want to be 1000% transparent on what we are doing and how it works. Privacy is extremely important to me (and us) and being transpararent about how this works is a critical component to that endeavor. Happy to keep the conversation going if you have specific scenarios you'd like me to address.

Open ##3154328
@mike@flipboard.social 2026-05-22 20:41

@welshpixie@mastodon.art @greg@flipboard.social To be clear, users using Mastodon on the mastodon.art instance will not see posts from David's Threads account because Threads is blocked. We're working to include David's native Mastodon account as a part of the integration we're doing with The Verge so that users can reply to that account instead.

Open ##3154330