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Comment on Bluesky and Mastodon users are having a fight that could shape the next generation of social media

nonphotoblue@sh.itjust.works ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

The other thing, that I see even more people upset about, is that the bridge requires you to Opt-Out, rather than Opt-In for being included.

It’s totally fine if you want to be included, especially if you have friends on BlueSky. But, it’s just a shitty practice that is all too prevalent in new tech. AI companies are doing the same thing - if you’re an artist, you’re supposed to magically know all of these new, obscure AI startups and somehow find how to opt-out of being included in their training data set. It’s ridiculous.

Same concept here, I would have had no idea this was a thing, if not for people speaking up about it. Some people make a conscious choice to join Fediverse communities because they want nothing to do with big tech and want more control of their data and privacy and who has access to it. Why is such a big deal to respect that?

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nutomic@lemmy.ml ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
The bridge is nothing more than another Activitypub instance. You can block it in the same ways that you can block existing Mastodon or Lemmy instances. If users want to opt in to federate with it, they should also have to opt in manually to federate with every single Lemmy instance.

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- nonphotoblue@sh.itjust.works ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Saying that the bridge is nothing more than another ActivityPub instance is very disingenuous.
  
  While it may be built upon the ActivityPub protocol, but its main purpose is to act as a bridge to non-federated platforms, which is unique to that instance. When signing up for a fediverse instance, it should be known to the user that their data will be shared within the fediverse network. But, no permission is given to share on any platforms outside the fediverse network, using non-ActivityPub protocols.
  
  So, no, opt-in should not be necessary for all instances, but in the case of the bridge, it is, because it’s enabling a feature that users haven’t explicitly agreed too and isn’t a core part of the ActivityPub protocol. And since the bridge is being made open-source, should users also be expected to track down any other instances that pick up and use it and manually block and opt-out of those?
  
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  - dameoutlaw@lemmy.ml ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    This asks zero sense as there’s n disclosure on hardly any instance. Also, there’s several non ActivityPub protocols and bridges that have long since been used and peoples content shared
    
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Carighan@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
The situation is not truly comparable, tbh.

Artists very much retain legal rights to the art they create. Hence the current lawsuits against various AI companies. Meanwhile it depends on jurisdiction whether a comment/thought you write on a public-facing website can be considered your legal production for a civil lawsuit. It’d be trivial if it were a closed site with a very selective admission process with some easily evaluated barrier (say, only people who study at university XYZ are allowing on the otherwise private forum of that university), but public-facing it’s more ambiguous.

You can still try to sue someone who taking that content, but it’s not as clearcut that someone violates your rights as with artists and their art. Meaning that there’s less basis for someone wanting this to always have to be explicitly opt-in and get explicit permission. At least right now. This might very well all change as a result of AI lawsuits.

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- nonphotoblue@sh.itjust.works ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Tbh, I wasn’t talking about the legalities of AI or copyright law. I was using that as an example of why opt-out is a shitty business practice that makes people frustrated and upset. Because people commenting on this post and defending the bridge don’t seem to understand that.
  
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0x1C3B00DA@kbin.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I think there's a huge difference in scraping your content to churn out a for-profit "AI" and federating your public posts on a federated network.

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- nonphotoblue@sh.itjust.works ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Ok, then please tell me, in terms of giving one’s consent, exactly how the two are different?
  
  Because I fail to see how opting out in either case is any way a different process than the other.
  
  The developers are putting the onus on the end user that is affected, and relying on them having knowledge that their product exists. Then it is the users’s responsibility to figure out the process to remove themselves from the user group and trusting the developer/admins to actually take any action to do so.
  
  This is the only argument I am trying to make - opt out is bad. Please stop using it when developing technologies that affect user’s data and/or privacy.
  
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  - 0x1C3B00DA@kbin.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    in terms of giving one’s consent, exactly how the two are different?
    
    Because in the second case, the user is choosing to post on a network where any other server can request their posts. A bridge is just an instance that understands more than one protocol. There's no difference in it and any other server requesting your posts. That's how the network works.
    
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    nonphotoblue@sh.itjust.works ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Thank you for confirming my point, because you are still just referring differences in the technology itself. I asked how opting out is different in either case, and the fact is they are not.
    
    The fact that the Bridgy developer is making it a possibility is what matters, and that they consciously chose to make it opt-out. It’s apparent that they already spent time and effort into implementing a system that allows you to add a hashtag to your profile to signal that you want to opt out. Why not just make it the other way around, and make it for opting in? Surely all the people who would want to be able to bridge wouldn’t mind that? It doesn’t matter if you think this is something innocuous or insignificant, because to others, it isn’t. And if you think that’s because of a misunderstanding in the user with the technology, then the developer needs to do better in explaining that and gaining users trust. You don’t build trust in users by using practices like opt-out, which is again, the only argument I am trying to make.
    
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