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| author | Hannah Isopod <me@bathynomus.xyz> | 2025-05-10 03:03:58 -0600 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Hannah Isopod <me@bathynomus.xyz> | 2025-05-10 03:03:58 -0600 |
| commit | eb61c1bae2ffad114e17393d91d86fb00d7ac8cd (patch) | |
| tree | 4f997d73e0843dab760e5d988679a1a86b76f5da /blog/posts/fediverse_dms | |
| parent | 4b9500ddeedbea21f80f41dfe4149cf3bf9be4c3 (diff) | |
Initialer commit
Just remade the repo because I don't *need* need a comprehensive source history for my personal website and this is easier than getting filter-repo to work good
Diffstat (limited to 'blog/posts/fediverse_dms')
| -rw-r--r-- | blog/posts/fediverse_dms/bg.svg | 17 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | blog/posts/fediverse_dms/index.md | 19 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | blog/posts/fediverse_dms/index.php | 1 |
3 files changed, 37 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/blog/posts/fediverse_dms/bg.svg b/blog/posts/fediverse_dms/bg.svg new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5f04313 --- /dev/null +++ b/blog/posts/fediverse_dms/bg.svg @@ -0,0 +1,17 @@ +<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="196.52mm" height="196.52mm" viewBox="0 0 196.52 196.52"> + <path fill="#a730b8" d="M47.9242 72.7966a18.2278 18.2278 0 0 1-7.7959 7.7597l42.7984 42.9653 10.3182-5.2291zm56.4524 56.6704-10.3182 5.2291 21.686 21.7708a18.2278 18.2278 0 0 1 7.7975-7.7608z"/> + <path fill="#5496be" d="M129.6645 102.0765l1.7865 11.4272 27.4149-13.8942a18.2278 18.2278 0 0 1-4.9719-9.8124zm-14.0658 7.1282-57.2891 29.0339a18.2278 18.2278 0 0 1 4.9728 9.8133l54.1027-27.4194z"/> + <path fill="#ce3d1a" d="M69.5312 91.6539l8.1618 8.1933 29.269-57.1387a18.2278 18.2278 0 0 1-9.787-5.0219zm-7.1897 14.0363-14.0022 27.3353a18.2278 18.2278 0 0 1 9.786 5.0214l12.3775-24.1639z"/> + <path fill="#d0188f" d="M39.8906 80.6763a18.2278 18.2278 0 0 1-10.8655 1.7198l8.1762 52.2981a18.2278 18.2278 0 0 1 10.8645-1.7198z"/> + <path fill="#5b36e9" d="M63.3259 148.3109a18.2278 18.2278 0 0 1-1.7322 10.8629l52.2893 8.3907a18.2278 18.2278 0 0 1 1.7322-10.8629z"/> + <path fill="#30b873" d="M134.9148 146.9182a18.2278 18.2278 0 0 1 9.788 5.0224l24.1345-47.117a18.2278 18.2278 0 0 1-9.7875-5.0229z"/> + <path fill="#ebe305" d="M126.1329 33.1603a18.2278 18.2278 0 0 1-7.7975 7.7608l37.3765 37.5207a18.2278 18.2278 0 0 1 7.7969-7.7608z"/> + <path fill="#f47601" d="M44.7704 51.6279a18.2278 18.2278 0 0 1 4.9723 9.8123l47.2478-23.9453a18.2278 18.2278 0 0 1-4.9718-9.8113z"/> + <path fill="#57c115" d="M118.2491 40.9645a18.2278 18.2278 0 0 1-10.8511 1.8123l4.1853 26.8 11.42 1.8324zm-4.2333 44.1927 9.8955 63.3631a18.2278 18.2278 0 0 1 10.88-1.6278l-9.355-59.9035z"/> + <path fill="#dbb210" d="M49.7763 61.6412a18.2278 18.2278 0 0 1-1.694 10.8686l26.8206 4.3077 5.2715-10.2945zm45.9677 7.382-5.272 10.2955 63.3713 10.1777a18.2278 18.2278 0 0 1 1.7606-10.8593z"/> + <path fill="#ffca00" d="M93.4385 23.8419a1 1 0 1 0 33.0924 1.8025 1 1 0 1 0-33.0924-1.8025"/> + <path fill="#64ff00" d="M155.314 85.957a1 1 0 1 0 33.0923 1.8025 1 1 0 1 0-33.0923-1.8025"/> + <path fill="#00a3ff" d="M115.3466 163.9824a1 1 0 1 0 33.0923 1.8025 1 1 0 1 0-33.0923-1.8025"/> + <path fill="#9500ff" d="M28.7698 150.0898a1 1 0 1 0 33.0923 1.8025 1 1 0 1 0-33.0923-1.8025"/> + <path fill="#ff0000" d="M15.2298 63.4781a1 1 0 1 0 33.0923 1.8025 1 1 0 1 0-33.0923-1.8025"/> +</svg>
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/blog/posts/fediverse_dms/index.md b/blog/posts/fediverse_dms/index.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a12c503 --- /dev/null +++ b/blog/posts/fediverse_dms/index.md @@ -0,0 +1,19 @@ +People who refuse to use the fediverse (often conflated with Mastodon) often cite concerns about privacy with regards to DMs as their reason for avoiding it; "admins can read your DMs" and all that. To be fair, that's technically a true statement, but it's more complicated than that. Now, I have no problem letting these people be wrong - I'm not eager to convince idiots with no capacity for critical thinking to come to my favourite social network - but I'm nothing if not endlessly pedantic, so I felt the need to explain my take on the issue anyway. + +## DMs Are A Lie + +To begin with, the term "DM" as it applies to other social platforms is kind of a misnomer in the case of the Fediverse. Websites like Twitter and Instagram have a dedicated chat-style interface for messaging people directly. If you spend five minutes with most fediverse software, you'll notice that it doesn't have this. + +Sending a DM on the fediverse is generally accomplished by making a normal post and changing the visibility setting to only show the post to people who are mentioned in it. This isn't a case of obtuse UX design, it reflects how DMs on the fediverse actually work under the hood: The underlying protocol has *no concept* of direct messages, and is only able to approximate them with a special flag on an otherwise normal post. + +In other words, when you send a "DM" on the fediverse, what you're really doing is making a public post, and asking the network nicely to only show it to the person it's intended for. All software that isn't actively malicious or *extremely* shitty will comply with this request, and in fact admins can only read your DMs by circumventing the instance software and accessing the backend database directly, but the post is in no way actually private. + +## This Is Fine Actually + +I don't personally think this is an issue; I think it's perfectly fine that the fediverse doesn't attempt to do secure communication. Doing things this way reduces liability for server owners and reduces the complexity of the software for developers, and you really should be able to contact anyone who you actually want to keep in touch with on multiple platforms anyway. + +Besides, it's not like insecure DMs are an issue unique to the fediverse. DMs on [Twitter/Instagram/Reddit/etc] aren't encrypted either, meaning the admins of those websites can read your DMs too. Same for actual dedicated chat platforms like Discord and (mostly) Telegram. Twitter's admins can read your DMs, Discord's admins can read your messages, Gmail's admins can read your emails, and your phone provider can read your texts. And they often do, to sell information about you to advertisers or comply with police requests or what have you. + +It's only slightly less of a problem on those platforms because you're much less likely to know the admins personally, and individual staff members could probably lose their jobs if they used the contents of your DMs to start drama. That said, I've personally never seen evidence of any admin *actually* reading someone's DMs on the fediverse, because doing that is a *huge pain in the ass* involving like, SQL queries and shit, and is much harder than any actual administrative task most fediverse admins will ever do. + +Either way, you should really be using an actually secure messaging service if privacy is important to you. Be the change you want to see in the world and become that person who insists on taking conversations in Twitter DMs to Signal. I'm being completely serious.
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/blog/posts/fediverse_dms/index.php b/blog/posts/fediverse_dms/index.php new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f572f79 --- /dev/null +++ b/blog/posts/fediverse_dms/index.php @@ -0,0 +1 @@ +<?php include("../post.php");
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