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update: Searchtodon meta, scraping related :boosts_ok_gay:​ 

Since then multiple others have mentioned these concerns to him, but they're dismissed just the same.

Yet again a recently joined twitter techbro is writing a scraper, but this time it's couched in language about "consent" and "privacy", it's still effectively building a centralized search index across users on his single server. Opt-out is also not actually consent, both legally (GDPR) and morally.

He keeps dismissing it as just a non-ideal stopgap-solution but that doesn't matter. it's about what's happening right now. random users logging in thinking there's *anything* private about this service, and feeding their entire following to the machine

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they cannot seem to appreciate the value of nestling down among a small group of friends and sharing genuine things about yourself

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for real though these tech guy types seem to live in a different fucking world, where being visible + discoverable and indexed is some kind of virtue in and of itself

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Just published my article/devlog about FediFox Shield, my project for a nicer public Mastodon frontend

It goes deep into some technical details I had lots of fun implementing, but also explains the overall motivation, and next steps for the project

cthu.lu/projects/fedifox-shiel

re: Searchtodon meta, scraping related :boosts_ok_gay:​ 

it's kinda weird seeing how even normally more critical people are responding to this. There's a thin veneer of "consent" and "private" but his service is still building a giant searchable index across everyone who uses it. like wtf. The software has merit when part of an instance but why would there ever be a centralized setup

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oh fucking hell, i was midway typing a reply to someone before I realized this was definitely not good-faith and then I went to their posts/replies and the only interactions they have with this entire instance is shitty techbro sealioning

ah because I still had a lot of local changes I didn't push..

47 files changed, +2,134 −1,044

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let's get to the bottom of this

*points toward camera*

(non)consent, techbros 

is the techbro understanding of consent really just "you didn't say no, even though you weren't aware what I was going to do"

fuck

re: Searchtodon meta, scraping related :boosts_ok_gay:​ 

also for fucks sake

> That said, I think the Mastodon community will have to have to come to terms with “trust they follow me” and delegating that trust to third parties that are fun or useful.

chaos.social/@janl/10967764097

No we fucking don't. We've been posting fine here for YEARS without having to come to terms with that. Figures now that this account is a recent join too.
Why do they always bring the "it's the inevitable future" arguments when **they're the ones making that ""inevitable"" future**

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re: Searchtodon meta, scraping related :boosts_ok_gay:​ 

From chaos.social/@janl/10967715259 and chaos.social/@janl/10967716408 and the kinda evasive responses to mine and others concerns, it seems he's only intent in listening if it's something a [larger part] of "the community" rather not have, so it's worth chiming in on the original thread

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re: Searchtodon meta, scraping related :boosts_ok_gay:​ 

note: the Mastodon "Opt-out of search engine indexing" setting is not a suitable proxy for consent here, it's hidden away in the settings unknown to most users, and it's also wrongly opt-out instead of opt-in.

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re: Searchtodon meta, scraping related :boosts_ok_gay:​ 

His stated goal is to run this as an 'experiment' to 'have this conversation', but in my opinion that could've happened (and was already happening) without publishing a tool, or at the very least making people explicitly **opt-in** to indexing of their toots like this

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Searchtodon meta, scraping related :boosts_ok_gay:​ 

I mentioned these concerns in the announcement thread but wanted to reiterate them here separately. social.pixie.town/@f0x/1096775

It does a lot of things right, and advertises itself as built with privacy and consent in mind.

However, while a user's search results are limited to content they could've otherwise seen pass by in their home timeline, all these toots are stored and indexed on the central Searchtodon server, indefinitely.

This means he technically has access to the combined timelines of all the users, and unlike public content scrapers **also followers-only and even DM posts** sent by **any user a Searchtodon user is following**.

There's only an opt-*out* mechanism based on setting your profile to be non-search-engine-indexible, or including a few specific hashtags.
Without opting out though **all your toots** will be stored if *any* of your followers use this tool.

While this for now remains just a technical possibility, with him stating he has no intent of misusing it, there is no way to guarantee this now or in the future, or when this data changes hands (sold off or hacked).

A services like this could have merit, but should absolutely be hosted by yourself or your own instance, since it already has control over all this data, meaning there's no extra party to trust.

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