Hey, Evan, this shit isn't okay.
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@alice@lgbtqia.space tech bros really don't understand the difference between access and permission. Or consent in general
As far as I can tell, anything with #capitalists at the helm doesn't understand consent. And capitalism and sexual assault share a lot in common.
'Keep asking until they say yes.'
Or
'Do it anyways, and apologise if caught...and keep doing it'
Or
'Ignore criticism and keep doing it cause they cant stop you' -
Hey, Evan, this shit isn't okay. You and your bots don't have permission to share my communities outside of Fedi (or at all).
Again, I didn't even know you were doing this, because you *didn't ask*—you just assumed you had the right.
I know I blocked you and defederated all your projects already, so maybe one of your friends or bots can let you know you should delete these (and any other @alice, @AltAfterDark, @alice_watson@infosec.exchange, @alice@masto.thefword.club, and @alice_watson@mastodon.social posts).
@alice@lgbtqia.space @AltAfterDark @alice_watson@infosec.exchange @alice@masto.thefword.club @alice_watson@mastodon.social let's say nothing changes: is the only way to stop this nonsense to campaign across all major instances to get the tags server blocked?
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@NathanMurdock being forced into "followers-only" posting by someone else's lack of boundaries is a shitty user experience, and likely to be the eventual death of queer and BIPoC Fedi if we let it slide.
@alice @NathanMurdock This would also destroy the fragile and precious ecosystem of Disabled people/people with disabilities on Fedi. We use hashtags to speak with each other, to share life-saving information, to learn, to spread joy and courage. We shouldn't need to all follow each other to do this.
On Fedi, using "public" hashtags, we have the same kinds of conversations we would have if we were to encounter each other on the streetcar, in a park or at the doctor's office. We see each other. We share life-saving information. We admire each other's cute FFP3 masks.
I encounter ableism here, but it's similar to the ableism I experience on the street, when one ass-hat shouts nonsense because they're afraid of a person in a wheelchair existing.
What Evan is doing is providing a tool for mechanised hate, manufacturing a bigotry machine, creating a beacon, inviting a murder of bigots to swarm me on the sidewalk.
Do. Not. Want.
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Hey, Evan, this shit isn't okay. You and your bots don't have permission to share my communities outside of Fedi (or at all).
Again, I didn't even know you were doing this, because you *didn't ask*—you just assumed you had the right.
I know I blocked you and defederated all your projects already, so maybe one of your friends or bots can let you know you should delete these (and any other @alice, @AltAfterDark, @alice_watson@infosec.exchange, @alice@masto.thefword.club, and @alice_watson@mastodon.social posts).
Do you consider this to be something you have given permission for?
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AS much as I thought Evan's "Claim a hashtag (Issue # 50)" was just a troll, he seems to be going all-in on it
Going back:
"Sometimes people create personal hashtags that they are the primary or only person to use."
Oh really. "the only person to use"?
Who enforces that?
His replies today:
"No, it's giving people who feel like they have exclusive use of a hashtag a way to tell us "
And this is interesting:
"Is there a legal complience email I can contact to exercise
my rights under the australian privacy act 1988?Send it to contact@socialwebfoundation.org"
Yeah
Send your "legal compliance notifications" to Evan and he'll take care of them himself
He really is too, too full of himself
Here: https://github.com/social-web-foundation/tags.pub/issues/50
cc @alice
@FinchHaven @winst0nsmith @alice this "claim a hashtag" kinda gives off NFT vibes. I should shut up otherwise I give some people ideas
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@alice@lgbtqia.space I think you aleardy know but someone did request for it to be Opt-In on the Git Repo which unfortunately, Evan isn't taking it on board and still pulling the "Yeah... BUT, their post is public and they could.. blah-blah-blah"
@matty @alice here is my problem with the "it's posted public so it's for everyone to do whatever they wanna do with it" argument: there is something like an unwritten social etiquette in the fediverse based on mutual respect and especially on decency. Automating this all away for the sake of algorithms and reach is effectively throwing all that into the bin, removing the human factor from the loop. That's not why I joined the Fediverse...
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Hey, Evan, this shit isn't okay. You and your bots don't have permission to share my communities outside of Fedi (or at all).
Again, I didn't even know you were doing this, because you *didn't ask*—you just assumed you had the right.
I know I blocked you and defederated all your projects already, so maybe one of your friends or bots can let you know you should delete these (and any other @alice, @AltAfterDark, @alice_watson@infosec.exchange, @alice@masto.thefword.club, and @alice_watson@mastodon.social posts).
@alice@lgbtqia.space
And Evan is the Research Director at Social Web Foundation, with tags.pub operated by Social Web Foundation.
https://socialwebfoundation.org/2026/06/28/unsubscribing-tags-pub-from-open-registration-relays/
Tells us a lot about what Social Web Foundation is
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@alice @evan I feel like I'm not completely understanding the issue here. These bots boost all posts tagged with a certain hashtag, right? One bot per hashtag. And that's all they do, right?
I assume the point of them is to make it so instances that the original post maybe isn't federating with, now also receive the post, right? But if that's the case, what's the issue? Are there instances you don't want to be able to see your post?
The point of a hashtag is to get more people to see your post, right? I ask this out of genuine curiosity, I hope I don't come across as "just asking questions" while downplaying your concern. That is not my intention.
@toothpaste_sandwich you can see the whole ordeal here: https://lgbtqia.space/@alice/116825829843438277
The bottom line was that @evan@cosocial.ca assumed consent to slurp up my work (in this case a personal hashtag I use for my nude photos...and my posts containing said photos) and share it in a different context.
Also, I have discoverability settings turned off for sites outside of Fedi (and my instance actively blocks domains like X, Threads, Facebook, and BlueSky)—which Evan seems to be in bed with. So when his site was collecting and sharing my naked body with search engines (without asking), that was a gross violation of my consent.
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@alice@lgbtqia.space @AltAfterDark @alice_watson@infosec.exchange @alice@masto.thefword.club @alice_watson@mastodon.social let's say nothing changes: is the only way to stop this nonsense to campaign across all major instances to get the tags server blocked?
@bitbraindev after my public fight with Evan, my instances (and personal accounts) blocked all his domains and his account.
Yet, my stuff was still there on his site today, until I called it out and it appears he removed it.
Blocking seems like a good first step.
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Do you consider this to be something you have given permission for?
@ricci I have a Mastodon.social account, and I share (some of) my posts there, so yes.
I do have them limited (and I screen follow requests from there) though, because like 80% of attacks I get come from Mastodon.social.
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@toothpaste_sandwich you can see the whole ordeal here: https://lgbtqia.space/@alice/116825829843438277
The bottom line was that @evan@cosocial.ca assumed consent to slurp up my work (in this case a personal hashtag I use for my nude photos...and my posts containing said photos) and share it in a different context.
Also, I have discoverability settings turned off for sites outside of Fedi (and my instance actively blocks domains like X, Threads, Facebook, and BlueSky)—which Evan seems to be in bed with. So when his site was collecting and sharing my naked body with search engines (without asking), that was a gross violation of my consent.
@alice I see, thank you for taking the time to respond. I can see how this would circumvent the blocks you had set up, yes. And I agree that having to personally ask him to add exceptions for those hashtags is not particularly workable.
What makes you say he is "in bed with" those companies, though? That seems strange for someone working on the ActivityPub protocol.
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@matty @alice here is my problem with the "it's posted public so it's for everyone to do whatever they wanna do with it" argument: there is something like an unwritten social etiquette in the fediverse based on mutual respect and especially on decency. Automating this all away for the sake of algorithms and reach is effectively throwing all that into the bin, removing the human factor from the loop. That's not why I joined the Fediverse...
@bitbraindev are you tring to say we came here to get away from the algorithms and don't want to see them come back? @matty @alice
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@matty @alice here is my problem with the "it's posted public so it's for everyone to do whatever they wanna do with it" argument: there is something like an unwritten social etiquette in the fediverse based on mutual respect and especially on decency. Automating this all away for the sake of algorithms and reach is effectively throwing all that into the bin, removing the human factor from the loop. That's not why I joined the Fediverse...
@bitbraindev totally.
And this "I found it online, so it's fair game" mentality is something I fight against constantly with porn accounts who steal from sexworkers and repost it with the disclaimer "DM me to take your photos down".
It's like "no, asshole, you DM *me* if you want to use my work".
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@ricci I have a Mastodon.social account, and I share (some of) my posts there, so yes.
I do have them limited (and I screen follow requests from there) though, because like 80% of attacks I get come from Mastodon.social.
Thanks, I appreciate your answer and explanation. Pretty much every Mastodon instance has an equivalent page, so for example:
https://berlin.social/tags/LearnLockpickingWithAlice
https://masto.nyc/tags/LearnLockpickingWithAlice
https://beige.party/tags/LearnLockpickingWithAlice
https://mamot.fr/tags/LearnLockpickingWithAlice
(I picked this basically at random, not to single out these particular servers)
Do you consider yourself to have given permission for these?
I am asking this because I want to understand whether the Mastodon software (and other fediverse software) behaves in a way that matches what users understand themselves to have consented to.
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@Shdwdrgn yeah, "exposure" is a currency I've been offered before.
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@crowbriarhexe @alice I mean, when a hashtag literally has the person’s name in it and is used only for their content and is often very sensitive content…it’s bonkers to act like it’s not something personal. Like, okay, most of us aren’t going to or couldn’t copyright our usernames, but it would be weird to have a bot spam a username or something like that and claim it’s not personal or targeted. Just creepy expectations and behavior
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@matty @alice here is my problem with the "it's posted public so it's for everyone to do whatever they wanna do with it" argument: there is something like an unwritten social etiquette in the fediverse based on mutual respect and especially on decency. Automating this all away for the sake of algorithms and reach is effectively throwing all that into the bin, removing the human factor from the loop. That's not why I joined the Fediverse...
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@alice I see, thank you for taking the time to respond. I can see how this would circumvent the blocks you had set up, yes. And I agree that having to personally ask him to add exceptions for those hashtags is not particularly workable.
What makes you say he is "in bed with" those companies, though? That seems strange for someone working on the ActivityPub protocol.
@toothpaste_sandwich several people DMd me to say that he had been working to get Threads into Fedi, and his projects list those socials for contacts.
I can understand the justification for (though I strongly disagree with) having accounts on X, Threads, BlueSky, or Facebook—they're huge, and a lot of people are still (unfortunately) there.
But I considered Threads move to "participate" in Fedi a hostile act by a company known for violating privacy and for removing protections against hate speech from their platform.
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As far as I can tell, anything with #capitalists at the helm doesn't understand consent. And capitalism and sexual assault share a lot in common.
'Keep asking until they say yes.'
Or
'Do it anyways, and apologise if caught...and keep doing it'
Or
'Ignore criticism and keep doing it cause they cant stop you'@crankylinuxuser @zoe @alice consent requires respect. Naturally, the only thing capitalists respects is capital (money) and one cannot make more money by consenting alone. That's where lawmakers need to step in and make violating consent cost capital. Only then capitalists respect consent.
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@toothpaste_sandwich several people DMd me to say that he had been working to get Threads into Fedi, and his projects list those socials for contacts.
I can understand the justification for (though I strongly disagree with) having accounts on X, Threads, BlueSky, or Facebook—they're huge, and a lot of people are still (unfortunately) there.
But I considered Threads move to "participate" in Fedi a hostile act by a company known for violating privacy and for removing protections against hate speech from their platform.
@alice yeah he runs a lot of little polls which ask people's opinions on particular topics around fedi politics and.......
well, like, it's a thing people could do with the best of intentions. in fact, the horribly malicious thing it reminds us of (which we'll skip describing, for brevity) was also implemented by people with the best of intentions
