[update: it sounds like the search respects the profile discoverability opt-out, which federates, unlike the "search engine indexing" thing which does not? That's much less bad than we thought. It should still be opt-IN, though, not opt-out. https://oliphant.social/@oliphant/110373855153327649]
so apparently universeodon.com is doing FULL INDEXING on every post they receive, without consent. It sounds like maybe even non-public posts??
"we didn't get people yelling at us, so it must be okay! but now people are? what the fuck?"
source:
https://terrible.city/@wolfe/110367918333706199
https://mas.to/@tokyo_0/110362014921240639
https://social.pixie.town/@joepie91/110361918551656137
https://universeodon.com/@supernovae/110351720627808159
I don't usually make fediblock posts, but uh
yeah if you don't want to be indexed without consent...
#fediblock universeodon.com for fulltext indexing incoming posts.
@IceWolf@masto.brightfur.net you know that akkoma and misskey instances can all do fulltext search on all posts right?
@iro_miya They do? Well they fucking SHOULDN'T!
@iro_miya like
/consent/
it's /not that hard./
@IceWolf@masto.brightfur.net consent for what? displaying posts? isn't that what visibility is for?
why is it different if someone finds a post in search and if someone finds a post in the federated timeline?
@iro_miya Because if they find a post in the federated timeline, that's like... they just happened to see it.
Don't let people SEARCH for whatever kind of people they don't like and harass them.
Also just like, I'm cool with people /happening/ to find my posts, NOT with them being able to /search/ for them.
If you want to search for my posts, ASK FIRST. It being public is NOT CONSENT.
Fedi was never designed to stop people from searching, or viewed searching from instances as bad. You should have been told that when you joined - the fact you weren't informed is the problem.
I agree that freely searchable posts can be easily abused for harassment and that this is a bad thing - but the fact is that ActivityPub (Fedi's protocol) was never designed with privacy in mind. The only consent the protocol considers is your clicking the Post button, with the knowledge that once the post gets out there - it's out of your hands.
For a long time we couldn't even edit or delete our posts - this was only added later and the implementation is not reliable and probably never will be due to the very nature of the system.
The creators of this system never saw search as a bad thing. Which is why almost every Fedi server out there - with the glaring exception of Mastodon - feature some kind of search capabilities.
I think Mastodon's approach of pretending the Fediverse is private and secure is the real problem here - it gave users the false impression that their posts are private, while they are not. It pretends to have privacy settings and tools, but they are barely effective. The truth is, Mastodon is misleading its users. ActivityPub is not private. It never been.
So in conclusion, do I like having my posts searchable? Not really.
But I know that this system doesn't mind searches, and has no privacy tools. So I am fully aware that all of my posts will be fully exposed and treat them as such.
If I want to post something in private... I do it elsewhere.
@Polychrome "You should have been told that when you joined"
No. Fuck off.
We have had TOO MANY PEOPLE, with TOO MANY THINGS, tell us "you agreed, so it's okay!" / other variations of "It's Just Like That, Deal"
No, it is /not/ "just like that", we can make a better world where consent is respected, and... yeah, no. Go with your "but it's Just Like That" somewhere /else/.
@Polychrome Also, there is a MASSIVE difference between "not actively locked down" and "actively searchable".
@Polychrome It is not "just the spirit of things", and just because it was "always here" does NOT mean that it's a good thing to violate consent like this.
@Polychrome You're going "well that's the way it's Always Been so you don't matter, your privacy and control over your own scope don't matter, just deal with it" and I am NOT HERE FOR IT.
Mastodon is the outlier and its making it look like its not, which is misleading people.
This isn't one of those things where nobody does it and then suddenly some mean techbro lands on us and tells us to deal with it. Search was always here.