this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2025
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Fediverse

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Upvotes seem to just federate as likes and dislikes.

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[–] atro_city@fedia.io 96 points 5 days ago (6 children)

There's no way that isn't going to be abused. Some marketing or tracking agency will setup a fediverse server and just collect all data like this for free. Or worse, take advantage of a friendica instance to bombard it with requests for data collection purposes.

[–] Microw@lemm.ee 85 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Well yes, the whole concept of the fediverse is that of social media as a public service. All activitypub data is public.

[–] FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone 43 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (2 children)

Yes, but as long as you don’t reveal your identity, they can’t do much to track you.

They don’t have access to your IP.

Of course, it you’re using the same username over multiple services, or reveal identifying information (which is much easier to analyse now due to AI) they will be able to track you.

[–] rickyrigatoni@lemm.ee 13 points 4 days ago

My name is actually Ricky Rigatoni and I am King of the Brooklyn Mafia.

[–] Thunderbird4@lemmy.world 4 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Is IP not logged anywhere in Lemmy/ ActivityPub?

[–] mesamunefire@lemmy.world 18 points 5 days ago (1 children)
[–] Draconic_NEO@lemmy.world 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

If image embeds aren't cached by your server they can be abused to gain IP, but that's a hack, it's not intended.

[–] Die4Ever@programming.dev 6 points 4 days ago (1 children)

You can set a Lemmy server to proxy image requests

[–] Draconic_NEO@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Exactly, that's why I said for ones that aren't cached. They can be cached, but it's not a guarantee they will be.

[–] Die4Ever@programming.dev 1 points 3 days ago

Proxying is a separate option from caching. I think it was added in 0.19.5

[–] FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone 12 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

I think server admins can access. It makes sense moderation wise, if for keeping a tab on alts for enforcing permabans.

[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 21 points 5 days ago (1 children)

This feature has been available to all kbin/Mbin users since the beginning, btw.

[–] realcaseyrollins@thelemmy.club 8 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I wanna say it was built into Lemmy originally as well but they removed it from the FE

[–] kate@lemmy.uhhoh.com 6 points 4 days ago

It’s in lemmy but only available to instance admins

[–] fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com 7 points 4 days ago

This is nothing new. Fire up any ActivityPub server and you can see everything over the wire. As a Lemmy admin of my server of just me, I can also see it in the UI.

[–] meldrik@lemmy.wtf 6 points 4 days ago (2 children)

What can they use that data for?

It would only be usable data if they could show personalized ads to the users. They can’t.

All they know is that Meldrik up/downvoted this and that, but outside of Lemmy they have no idea who Meldrik is.

[–] atro_city@fedia.io 8 points 4 days ago

If you think metadata is worthless, I would like to make you aware about Snowden and his revelations. Look them up.

[–] smeg@feddit.uk 3 points 4 days ago

I think the issue is that many Lemmy users will think more carefully about what they comment than what they up/downvote, as a comment appears connected to your username but a vote doesn't. You might decide against commenting on something you disagree with because you don't want to get in a fight, instead just downvoting it, but if people then know if was you who downvoted can still pick the fight.

Basically the issue is you're revealing a lot more information than you might initially have realised if you'd have known votes were public all along. Maybe a disgruntled person uses that to dox you, or maybe a corpo feeds all that information into their fancy computer system to work out who you might be, who knows.

[–] AI_toothbrush@lemmy.zip 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Cant you just defed with them?

[–] catloaf@lemm.ee 4 points 4 days ago

If you can identify all of their instances, yes.