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1. Embed this notice
   Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Tuesday, 13-Feb-2024 19:36:06 JST Aral Balkan

   • Grow Your Own Services 🌱

   #FediBlock snarfed.org and brid.gy for bridging fediverse folks to Bluesky against their will (and in likely contravention of GDPR in the EU) with typical Silicon Valley techbro sense of entitlement:

   “[O]pt in results in far fewer users, and users are critical for a bridge to be useful.”¹

   Relevant GitHub issue: https://github.com/snarfed/bridgy-fed/issues/835

   ¹ https://snarfed.org/2023-11-27_re-introducing-bridgy-fed

   HT @homegrown

   #bridgy #snarfed #fediverse #mastodon #bluesky #bridging #optOut #optIn #consent #gdpr #eu #SiliconValley #techbros

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Tuesday, 13-Feb-2024 19:49:49 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     PS. I just suspended (domain blocked) both snarfed.org and brid.gy from my personal fediverse instance and saw that there was already one account from one and eleven accounts on the other so my account was apparently already being bridged without my consent.

     Those links are now severed and they never should have existed without my knowledge or approval to begin with.

     #bridgy #snarfed #fediverse #mastodon #bluesky #bridging #optOut #optIn #consent #gdpr #eu #SiliconValley #techbros

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Tuesday, 13-Feb-2024 19:55:58 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Justinas Dūdėnas

     @justinas You’re confused by the ethics of consent? Yes, my posts are publicly accessible. That doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want.

     Here’s a link to The Guardian—all their posts are publicly accessible:

     https://www.theguardian.com/europe

     Now please create your own site, copy the posts there, and let me know when you receive your cease and desist notice.

     Or are you saying there should be one rule for corporations and another for human beings where the former are protected and the latter are not?

   • Embed this notice
     Justinas Dūdėnas (justinas@soc.dudenas.lt)'s status on Tuesday, 13-Feb-2024 19:56:00 JST Justinas Dūdėnas

     in reply to

     • Grow Your Own Services 🌱

     @aral @homegrown

     I'm often condused by such ethics. Aren't fediverse posts publicly accessible on the web by default, without any app or authentication, unless set as private?

     "When signing up to a service inside the fediverse I agree for my data to be shared inside the network. No permission was ever granted to use my data outside of the network, such as with Bluesky."
     - that does not sound truthful at all.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Tuesday, 13-Feb-2024 19:57:22 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Skoop (Stefan Koopmanschap)

     @Skoop Just block the main domains – that’ll be more future proof. (Of course the software is in the public domain so anyone can set up an instance at any domain in the future so it’s likely going to be cat and mouse. Thankfully, it’s more expensive to set up a server than it is to block one.) ;)

   • Embed this notice
     Skoop (Stefan Koopmanschap) (skoop@phpc.social)'s status on Tuesday, 13-Feb-2024 19:57:23 JST Skoop (Stefan Koopmanschap)

     in reply to

     @aral ah, I blocked bsky.brid.gy specifically, but it's better to just block the whole domain?

     didn't block snarfed yet, but I guess that also just federates to commercial platforms? time to block that as well

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Tuesday, 13-Feb-2024 20:00:06 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Sevoris

     @Sevoris It’s not a lack of awareness it’s a sense of entitlement. They’re aware; they know perfectly well that making it opt-in – in other words, making it respect consent – is against their goal of having as many users as possible. They’ve literally said so themselves (see quote in original post).

   • Embed this notice
     Sevoris (sevoris@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 13-Feb-2024 20:00:07 JST Sevoris

     in reply to

     @aral The, ah, discourse on this is going to keep being interesting.

     There‘s at least a subset of people who are really interested in pushing the networks together, even though BlueSky‘s moderation intent is IMHO more than suspect, and there‘s a bunch of communities on BlueSky who would post to the Feddiverse with intent to harm.

     The lack of awareness is… frustrating.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Tuesday, 13-Feb-2024 20:04:33 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Sara Joy :happy_pepper:

     @sarajw You see, I’d be far less inclined to object if that was the only use case. There’s a world of difference between having something appear on a personal blog of some person and on a billionaire-funded libertarian Silicon Valley social network. That said, the latter should also be opt-in. It all comes down to whether or not you respect people’s consent or whether you feel entitled to do whatever you want just because you can.

   • Embed this notice
     Sara Joy :happy_pepper: (sarajw@front-end.social)'s status on Tuesday, 13-Feb-2024 20:04:34 JST Sara Joy :happy_pepper:

     in reply to

     @aral Lots of people use Bridgy for webmentions to get comments from Mastodon or other places under their articles - the discussion about that being murky privacy-wise is definitely underway.

   • Embed this notice
     LeeFromVT 🌎🌌🐈♂️♏🏳️‍🌈 🇺🇦 (leefromvt@masto.ai)'s status on Tuesday, 13-Feb-2024 20:13:43 JST LeeFromVT 🌎🌌🐈♂️♏🏳️‍🌈 🇺🇦

     in reply to

     @aral

     I have only been on mastodon for a year, but i am completely at a loss to find how to block them in the settings.

     I went page by page for all settings and could not find block options.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Tuesday, 13-Feb-2024 20:13:43 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • LeeFromVT 🌎🌌🐈♂️♏🏳️‍🌈 🇺🇦

     @LeeFromVT Unless you’re running your own server, you have to ask your server admin to do it.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Tuesday, 13-Feb-2024 20:16:03 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • LeeFromVT 🌎🌌🐈♂️♏🏳️‍🌈 🇺🇦

     @LeeFromVT (Although you can still block the specific accounts from your account but you have to find the specific accounts so it’s more involved.)

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Tuesday, 13-Feb-2024 20:26:21 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Justinas Dūdėnas

     @justinas If someone is being abused by a powerful entity, it doesn’t make that abuse ethical. It doesn’t also give you the right to abuse that person while pointing at the more powerful entity.

     You’re right that the architecture of the fediverse is not egalitarian and that hierarchies and power structures exist. That’s been my criticism from the start and that’s why I’m working on the Small Web (where every person is equal). The fediverse is not perfect but it’s a useful bridge.

   • Embed this notice
     Justinas Dūdėnas (justinas@soc.dudenas.lt)'s status on Tuesday, 13-Feb-2024 20:26:22 JST Justinas Dūdėnas

     in reply to

     @aral
     But do you restrict this access to corporations, who can scrape it anyways, or to users, who will have more problems finding it?
     My main problem with fediverse is the powerlessness of users, untill they become admins. Users are rarely allowed to have a say whom they can communicate with or where their content can be used. They are always at mercy of allmighty righteous admins. I won't be surprised when corporate extractionists will lure decentralisation fans simply by being more open.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Tuesday, 13-Feb-2024 20:31:48 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Justinas Dūdėnas
     • craftycat

     @craftycat @justinas We do have to qualify that “nothing” with possibly (a) lack of technical knowledge and/or (b) lack of financial means.

     But yes, there are enough instances at the moment that you can likely find one that fits your requirements even if you lack one and/or both of the two prerequisites above.

   • Embed this notice
     craftycat (craftycat@mastodon.scot)'s status on Tuesday, 13-Feb-2024 20:31:49 JST craftycat

     in reply to

     • Justinas Dūdėnas

     @justinas @aral nothing is stopping you from running your own instance? You don't have to be subject to an admin if you don't want to. Surely you making that choice doesn't mean that the rest of us have to forfeit our legal rights? Because no, I have not consented to Bluesky, which IS outside the network, to handle my information, which means that it's a breach of GDPR for them to do so.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Tuesday, 13-Feb-2024 20:35:01 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Sara Joy :happy_pepper:
     • Hyde 📷 🖋 :debian:

     @hyde @sarajw There always are. But they require a non-colonial approach. This doesn’t come naturally to folks in Silicon Valley.

   • Embed this notice
     Hyde 📷 🖋 :debian: (hyde@lazybear.social)'s status on Tuesday, 13-Feb-2024 20:35:02 JST Hyde 📷 🖋 :debian:

     in reply to

     • Sara Joy :happy_pepper:

     @sarajw @aral There are ways to do it differently. For example:

     https://carlschwan.eu/2020/12/29/adding-comments-to-your-static-blog-with-mastodon/

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Tuesday, 13-Feb-2024 21:48:45 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • bram dingelstad :nb_flag:

     @bram That’s only a useful tool when the entity you’re suing has a lot of money :) I think domain blocks and social pressure should suffice here :)

   • Embed this notice
     bram dingelstad :nb_flag: (bram@gamedev.lgbt)'s status on Tuesday, 13-Feb-2024 21:48:46 JST bram dingelstad :nb_flag:

     in reply to

     @aral makes me wonder if EU admins have the ability to band together and start a class-action lawsuit 🤔

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Tuesday, 13-Feb-2024 22:55:32 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Grow Your Own Services 🌱
     • Sim

     @0xSim @homegrown Literally OpenAI’s only argument :)

   • Embed this notice
     Sim (0xsim@hachyderm.io)'s status on Tuesday, 13-Feb-2024 22:55:33 JST Sim

     in reply to

     • Grow Your Own Services 🌱

     @aral @homegrown "but my business can't work if I have to respect people and laws!"

   • Embed this notice
     Julian Fietkau (julian@fietkau.social)'s status on Wednesday, 14-Feb-2024 03:14:43 JST Julian Fietkau

     in reply to

     • Sara Joy :happy_pepper:
     • Major Denis Bloodnok
     • jon ⚝

     @denisbloodnok @aral @sarajw @yala

     Called it. 💪

     https://github.com/snarfed/bridgy-fed/issues/835#issuecomment-1942046208

   • Embed this notice
     Julian Fietkau (julian@fietkau.social)'s status on Wednesday, 14-Feb-2024 03:14:46 JST Julian Fietkau

     in reply to

     • Sara Joy :happy_pepper:
     • Major Denis Bloodnok

     @denisbloodnok @aral @sarajw I do tend to be optimistic with people. 😄

     Of course I'm not in his head, but I empathize. He was up pretty late last night of his timezone replying to people, and in that time got the two puzzle pieces "move towards opt-in" and "how an opt-in process could work in practice" figured out, only missing the final commitment. I wouldn't have made a big statement at like 2:30am either, I would've gotten some rest and come back refreshed.

     But maybe I'm wrong. We'll see! 🙂

   • Embed this notice
     Major Denis Bloodnok (denisbloodnok@mendeddrum.org)'s status on Wednesday, 14-Feb-2024 03:14:47 JST Major Denis Bloodnok

     in reply to

     • Sara Joy :happy_pepper:
     • Julian Fietkau

     @julian @aral @sarajw That seems optimistic. To me they look like making soothing noises without any intention of changing anything.

   • Embed this notice
     Julian Fietkau (julian@fietkau.social)'s status on Wednesday, 14-Feb-2024 03:14:49 JST Julian Fietkau

     in reply to

     • Sara Joy :happy_pepper:

     @aral @sarajw Going by his GitHub comments, I wouldn't be surprised if Ryan changes the plan to opt-in after sleeping on it. Making a protocol bridge 100% opt-in comes with some thorny interaction design challenges, but the "prompted opt-in" idea that a few people have brought up seems workable. I think that's what I would do in his shoes.