“It's not that big of a deal that users don't understand how their privacy settings work” they said.
ANYWAY, for those who haven't heard, Mastodon recently changed how private posts work. I wrote up a quick overview of the changes, which you can read HERE: >>>> https://marrus-sh.github.io/mastodon-info/everything-you-need-to-know-about-privacy-v1.3-020150428.html
Here are my more political thoughts about this change: [thread]
ANYWAY (1) This change should have been announced to everyone, and MOST IMPORTANTLY to client developers, AT LEAST A WEEK before implementation. Right now Amaroq (for example) still says that private posts only federate to "followers on your instance", even though THIS IS NO LONGER TRUE, because the app hasn't had time to update to reflect the new changes.
This just REINFORCES the impression that Mastodon devs don't care about client devs enough to warn them about things ahead of time or (ideally!) give them a way of knowing which features a particular Mastodon instance supports. AFAIK Amaroq has no way of notifying users if their instance is running the 1.3 update or not.
(2) Changing the name from "Private" to "Followers only" might be a helpful and good change, but I FEAR that it is being used AS A COP-OUT for not better implementing real privacy features before shipping. People WANT private posts. And by "private" I mean "as private as e-mail, or Facebook". They don't want "followers-only-and-I-abdicate-all-responsibility-for-what-happens" posts.
(3) Requiring users to exert labour to vet and background-check literally everyone who follows them AND maintain a locked account if they want to share things privately is a bad solution to the problem and like literally Twitter wouldn't dare implement that it's so awful
The amount of tech-literacy which is required to have any semblance of privacy on Mastodon right now with the 1.3 change is waaayyy overboard. You have to already be incredibly fluent in how federation and servers and whatnot works to even UNDERSTAND THAT THERE IS A PRIVACY CONCERN IN THE FIRST PLACE.
*waves arms around in the air*
I kept all of these criticisms out of my blogpost because really I just want people to know what's going on and what's changed and not everyone will necessarily agree with me on all of these points
BUT if you aren't 100% sold on the new changes, **Mastodon is open software** and you can and should demand better accountability from devs in the future, and also express your frustration (in a civil, respectful manner!!) through GitHub or official channels if you have something to say. The PR which led to this change is here fyi: https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon/pull/2111
If you are an instance admin, you can of course keep your instance at v1.2 until things get sorted out a little better or better privacy settings are put into place.
@u2764 well said! and, excellent post, too!
...yeah, this pretty much persuades that for whatever is going on 'round here, federation is a privacy nightmare.
Also, following @u2764 now. Smart, smart criticism, with a side of understanding why the more server-fluent are so wary of Mastodon in the first place.
I'm not here for privacy, mind. Mission statement remains consistent: I'm here to talk, and I'm here to listen. I'm here for whoever wants positive dialogue. And a lot of that hope IS for what happens in the open.
But: having privacy settings and not having the means to actually enforce privacy on other federated servers is something that should be A LOT more transparent.
Mastodon HAS NO HELP CENTER and this information ISN'T PROVIDED IN THE WELCOME MODULE, SOOOO………