James Cridland

@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] Yes, but it’s dishonest to claim “This is in stark contrast to other social networks which seem to collect lots of personal info.” as you did in the root message. A typical Mastodon server collects a lot of personal information from me (because it kind of has to, to work). Don’t compare a standalone app to a “social network”.

And it’s more dishonest to then show “a comparison of the privacy policies of various official social network apps.” - because that’s not what those policies are. They show the social network privacy details (because they’re one and the same). It’s not a fair comparison.

The point you appear to make is that the fediverse keeps no information about me at all. This is not true.

Is the fediverse better because it isn’t correlating my IP address with ad brokers to work out who is in my household and where I live? Yes.

@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] As @[email protected] pointed out though, the app is different to the server (for the fediverse), which is very different to X, BlueSky, Threads etc, where the app is also run by the same company as the server.

Tracking is undoubtedly possible by instance operators, who can see my 15 most recent connected IP addresses, for example, and find out who else uses the same IP addresses. That’s built-in to the moderation system of anyone using Mastodon. That’s - undoubtedly - tracking a user; especially since my mobile app is pinging the instance every so often for new messages.

I am all for the fediverse, but I’m all for being honest and pragmatic about any issues it has. A privacy comparison between the Apple App Store self-reported claims really isn’t an honest comparison of “the fediverse” vs other social media.

@[email protected] A reminder that the App Privacy section in the Apple App Store is self-reported. Apple doesn’t appear to check, other than “providing resources” to help app developers “fill out this information accurately”. https://support.apple.com/en-us/102399

@ajsadauskas @fuck_cars Worth adding: my local coffee shop has such a strong community, we have a WhatsApp group and regular catchups at the close-by bowls club (“bar” in this instance). We were devastated when it closed (at the bottom of our street) but we all found each other at another one close by. You don’t get that from many amenities like this.

@ajsadauskas @fuck_cars That’s an interesting list. In London I could do all of those except a hospital, a movie theatre, university and sports arena. (I’d also suggest that a café or coffee shop should have been on the list).

In my bit of Brisbane’s suburbs, I can do a café/coffee shop, a park, a bus stop, an elementary school and a daycare centre. And a bar for a few days a week. A bad grocery store is twenty minutes walk away. However, almost all of the above are a short bus ride away.