Threads' New Terms & Conditions Affects the Fediverse
wedistribute.org
Threads, Meta's new microblogging platform, is updating its terms to focus on data collection from "Third Party Users".

This shouldn’t come as a huge surprise. Meta is moving forward with their plans for Theads and the Fediverse, and their adjusted terms reflect a new impending reality for Fediverse users.

  • Ottomateeverything@lemmy.world
    10611·
    3 years ago

    Provided that a Third Party User is followed by or following a Threads account, Meta will ingest these pieces of data specifically:

    Username

    Profile Picture

    IP Address

    Name of Third Party Service

    Posts from profile

    Post interactions (Follow, Like, Reshare, Mentions)

    So if you follow a threads user or even if a threads user just follows you, they pull all this data?

    IMO this seems like reason to defederate across the board. Someone else can leak your info to Meta.

      • El Barto@lemmy.world
        433·
        3 years ago

        It’s Meta. This is just the beginning. Stop them right from the start. Fuck these corporations.

        • Klear@sh.itjust.works
          11·
          3 years ago

          How does defederating them stop them from getting this public information if they want it?

          • El Barto@lemmy.world
            2·
            3 years ago

            Good point. I guess they could just fire up a shell instance and get all the good stuff. I wouldn’t be too surprised, actually.

            • MrScottyTay@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
              1·
              3 years ago

              They don’t even need an instance to get they can just scrape it, like anyone can with public info. They wouldn’t even need to make an account for the scraper.

      • Ottomateeverything@lemmy.world
        154·
        3 years ago

        Public? Idk, maybe. I wouldn’t generally consider my IP to username to be public. Comment and post stuff, sort of. But even if it’s public, I still wouldn’t want Meta consuming it.

        • Durotar@lemmy.ml
          7·
          3 years ago

          I wouldn’t generally consider my IP to username to be public.

          Are they talking about your IP address or the service’s? Does ActivityPub even share the user’s IP address with other nodes in the network? That’d be crazy, so I assume that it doesn’t. Then Meta can’t find out your IP address.

          • Ottomateeverything@lemmy.world
            1·
            3 years ago

            If a Threads user posts an image, and Meta hosts it, and I scroll through my feed and see it, my client will hit their server for said image. And Meta can collect my IP.

            Meta basically invented this shit.

    • jhulten@infosec.pub
      152·
      3 years ago

      Most of this is just part of Federation. When I saw this comment my client/server didn’t have to fetch it from your server. It was pushed when you posted it so I had it locally.

      • Ottomateeverything@lemmy.world
        2·
        3 years ago

        Yes, but if you host an image, and my client prefetches it, it’s going to exposed my IP to your image server. And if you have clauses saying you’re collecting IPs…

        Meta basically invented this shit. They’ll do it again. It’s what they do.

    • Steeve@lemmy.ca
      122·
      3 years ago

      Yeah, no shit, they literally can’t federate without this data, that’s how ActivityPub works lol.

      Why do you think you can see lemmy.ca votes on lemmy.world?

    • csm10495@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      32·
      3 years ago

      … why? All of this is more / less public information about you? Even if you defederate, they could crawl and get all of this info (except maybe ip).

      • OscarRobin@lemmy.world
        23·
        3 years ago

        Exactly. That fact makes the mountains of defed stuff ridiculous because it makes no difference.