Profile Privacy Settings · Issue #4223 · LemmyNet/lemmy
github.comI’ve been grappling with a concern that I believe many of us share: the lack of privacy controls on Lemmy. As it stands, our profiles are public, and all our posts and comments are visible to anyone who cares to look. I don’t even care about privacy all that much, but this level of transparency feels to me akin to sharing my browser history with the world, a discomforting thought to say the least.
While the open nature of Lemmy can foster community and transparency, it also opens the door to potential misuse. Our post history can be scrutinized by creeps or stalkers, our opinions can be nitpicked based on past statements, and we can even become targets for mass downvoting. This lack of privacy control can deter users from actively participating in discussions and sharing their thoughts freely.
Even platforms like Twitter and Facebook, often criticized for their handling of user data, provide some level of access control. Users can choose who sees their timeline: friends/followers, the public or nobody. This flexibility allows users to control their online presence and decide who gets to see their content.
The current state of affairs on Lemmy forces us into a cycle of creating new accounts or deleting old posts to maintain some semblance of privacy. This is not only time-consuming but also detracts from the user experience. It’s high time we address this issue and discuss potential solutions.
One possible solution could be the introduction of profile privacy settings, similar to those found on other social media platforms. This would give users the flexibility to choose their level of privacy and control over their content without having to resort to manual deletion or account purging.
I believe that privacy is a fundamental right, and we should have the ability to control who sees our content. I’m interested in hearing your thoughts on this matter. How do you feel about the current privacy settings on Lemmy? What changes would you like to see? Let’s start a conversation and work towards making Lemmy a platform that respects and upholds our privacy.
A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
Some Rules
- Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn’t great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
- Don’t promote proprietary software
- Try to keep things on topic
- If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
- Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
- Be nice :)
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It gets weird fast, because before privacy controls in the Lemmy source code mean anything, we need trusted third party verification of a server’s patch level, and security controls.
That can be done, and I think Lemmy has a shot at getting to that point, but it’ll be awhile.
In the meantime, I suspect the Lemmy developers are hesitant to add and advertise features that you can’t be sure are actually correctly enabled on your instance.
But yeah, let’s not let perfect be the enemy of moving toward better.
Edit: Assuming you completely trust your instance admin, we could start adding some basic privacy to actions taken on your home instance.
But as soon as the user starts interacting via federation, all bets are off - because the federated instance may he malicious.
I think we might see one or more “trusted fediverse” groups emerge in the next few years, with instance admins making commitments to security controls, moderation, code of conduct, etc.
So, in theory, the lemmy software could start implementing privacy controls that allow users to limit their visibility to whichever part of the fediverse their instance admin has marked as highly trusted.
But even then, there’s risks from bad actors on highly trusted instances that still allow open signups.
Anyway, I totally agree with you. It’s just a genuinely complex problem.
There is now at least one system in place for admins to vouch for other instances being non-malicious, and to report suspected instances. It is called the fediseer: https://gui.fediseer.com/
Very cool.
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If all the people complaining would just contribute to the codebase this wouldn’t even be an issue.
Often, you even see the devs coming into threads like this and making suggestions, like “make a pull request.” They want more people contributing.
It’s tons of people whining, very few people contributing. Guess what? While at a certain point, adding developers stops increasing productivity, there’s a small window where adding developers does increase productivity.
If I am correct, Lemmy only has four main developers. That’s well within the range to add more developers and increase the productivity, making new features and security come faster.
So I get it, but things take time, and are complicated, which you thankfully can see.
People whinging about it in threads does nothing to change it. Donating to Lemmy’s development costs or contributing code does.
So much of it sounds like it sounds like its from less-technically-inclined people (some of its valid critique from experts, but they generally… write bug reports and do pull requests…) who just want it to be better but the only way they know how is to “bring awareness.” Well, all that “awareness-bringing” just amounts to spreading FUD.