I think most of us are aware of the shady history of Reddit when it comes to respecting privacy (and if not, here is but one example: https://techcrunch.com/2023/09/28/reddit-is-removing-ability-to-opt-out-of-ad-personalization-based-on-your-activity-on-the-platform/)
I’m wondering what you feel are the pros and cons of Lemmy in this regard?
On the one hand, Lemmy is structurally very different. There’s no single corporate entity building detailed behavioural ad profiles, most instances run minimal (or no) tracking, and you can choose an operator whose logging, retention, and analytics policies align with your risk tolerance.
Hell you can roll your own (yes, with black jack and hookers).
In theory, that alone removes a huge chunk of the surveillance-capitalism model that platforms like Reddit depend on.
On the other hand, your posts, comments, and votes are not confined to one database - they propagate across multiple servers, each with their own admins, logs, and retention practices.
Deletion is best-effort, not guaranteed. You’re effectively trusting a network of operators, not just one. I dunno whether that makes it better or worse.
Any deep thoughts on this conundrum?
PS: I’m leaning towards “don’t say anything you wouldn’t in a court of law” model these days. If its online - and you don’t own the infra - there’s always a risk.
Good analogy.
Yeah, I wonder that too. I think the mindshare Lemmy has (such as it is) comes from being seen as a sort of middle-finger, privacy-respecting, libre alternative.
That positioning clearly attracts a lot of people (myself included). But at the same time, it’s occurred to me that the nature of the Fediverse means you can’t really have true “privacy.”
I can’t speak to what each instance retains (IP logs? metadata?) or how long for - and I assume it varies widely from place to place.
“Bad guy Reddit, good guy Lemmy” may be an oversimplification…or just wishful thinking.
I use lemmy not because of privacy since public forums aren’t private, but to move away from corporate social spaces profiting off their user base. And also getting back third party apps.
Lemmy feels more like old school Internet of people discussing and talking because they want to as opposed to the whole spaces end goal being to figure out how to IPO.