Hey, Evan, this shit isn't okay.

[notthatdelta@furry.engineer]

@alice Some time ago, Google realized they could make super tall stacks of money recording and reselling (with minimal obfuscation) every conversation a person has, be it email, private messaging, one-sided search, etc.

The goal of every "tech visionary" since then has been to find a new unmonitored conversational niche to capitalize on.

Google currently does this with conversations recorded from people in the same general area as a phone (a public conversation, but not one the participants would reasonably expect to be shared with ten thousand advertising companies). But hey, it's cool, it lets Google serve ads for baby clothes/accessories to people who don't even know they're pregnant yet. Progress! Super creepy, but they've coerced consent by being the biggest game in town, so it's okay (legally).

Meanwhile, bottom feeders like Evan are both incapable of respecting consent -and- incapable of coming up with an original idea. He's a tech visionary though! Big time, 4real!!

What a sad little person.

[traecer@techhub.social]

@alice@lgbtqia.space @AltAfterDark @alice_watson@infosec.exchange @alice@masto.thefword.club @alice_watson@mastodon.social I'm glad they (supposedly) honor #nobot, but I absolutely resent the fact I had to go to their GitHub to find out how to opt out. If I want to participate in such, I'll ask to be added! #ConsentMatters

[anyia@lgbtqia.space]

@alice At this point it's looking like a clear case of copyright infringement too ‍️

[bob_zim@infosec.exchange]

@brass75 @bitbraindev @matty @alice When someone asks for the posts with a particular tag, I don’t think it’s unreasonable for them to expect to get the posts with that tag on them. While *an* algorithm, that’s the opposite of what people mean when they say “The Algorithm”.

The way tags work is deeply non-obvious to new users. These are exactly the people who initially rely on tools like tags to help them find new people to follow.

Creating an account for a tag and having that account boost posts with the tag is a naïve workaround, but clearly not a good one. Should have been discussed more broadly to learn of objections first.

[ohir@social.vivaldi.net]

@alice@lgbtqia.space
> don't have permission to share my communities

I left him instructions but IDNK whether the very notion of "in" direction in "opt-in" clicks there, as seen in:

https://github.com/social-web-foundation/tags.pub/issues/37#issuecomment-4867669076

@AltAfterDark @alice_watson@infosec.exchange @alice@masto.thefword.club @alice_watson@mastodon.social

[runningoff@lgbtqia.space]

@alice just adding my voice here that this is bullshit and not okay.

Thank you for fighting this. I'll be keeping an eye out to see if there is anything I can do to support the fight.

This is also nonsense from a technical perspective: It's working around a perceived limitation of how federation is implemented. Why are you doing that instead of working on a proposal to fix that limitation?

[toothpaste_sandwich@mastodon.nl]

@lawyersgunsnmoney @alice I see. Yes, I have also always seen Threads as a Threat to the Fediverse. (Ha see what I did there.)

I was not aware of Evan's involvement with them. That is worrisome. I suppose I just assumed anyone working on the Fediverse was going to be a conscientious person... (And I do realise how that is always a poor assumption in any scenario.)

[heckinteagan@infosec.exchange]

@alice@lgbtqia.space @AltAfterDark @alice_watson @alice@masto.thefword.club @alice_watson@mastodon.social

Great look for someone giving a workshop aye ?

https://social.coop/@dweb/116852145399504187

[wronglang@bayes.club]

@xgranade @ireneista @alice if it smells like "push polling" then it probably is...

Edit: more context: https://bayes.club/@wronglang/116853627591651418

[alice@lgbtqia.space]

@heckinteagan *sigh*

[bob_zim@infosec.exchange]

@brass75 @bitbraindev @matty @alice For example, if he had started with the fifty most popular tags across each of the ten most populous servers, that would have shown people what it does with posts which are already practically guaranteed to propagate. Limited utility, but also very limited potential negative impact. Selecting what tags get included in something like that is what people mean when they talk about The Algorithm, though: somebody else deciding what gets promoted and what doesn’t.

Doing it for all tags is arguably the least Algorithm way. Treat everything equally. But people use tags in ways he didn’t expect or understand, thence harm.

[energisch_@troet.cafe]

@Orca @alice It is like when you get stuff delivered that you didn't order but have to pay for it (automatically) and you have to send it back in time on your own cost to get out of that shitty deal. In social media, in software general - if you use any form of computing - this stuff is sent to you daily and in great numbers and you are fully occupied to block those deliveries.
Opt-IN must become law world-wide with expensive consequenses when one doesn't follow it.

[spanghero@ioc.exchange]

@linuxandyarn @bitbraindev @FinchHaven @winst0nsmith @alice #WillNobodyThinkOfTheBambooSporks

[zanagb@lgbtqia.space]

@toothpaste_sandwich @alice @evan@cosocial.ca no

The point of a hashtag is to organize and label things.

If we are writing our musings on 20th century aviation with a tag nobody used. Because we just want to go back to our musings and keep everything handy so people can mute it. We do not want a bunch of machines ingesting all our thoughts and broadcasting them to the world.

The fact those accounts have the name of the hashtag makes it half a step removed from impersonation. People using their aliases as a tag for art for example now see their name plastered everywhere ***as an account***

This is a violation of privacy and that man can take his bots and go to hell with them.