Threads' New Terms & Conditions Affects the Fediverse
wedistribute.org
Threads, Meta's new microblogging platform, is updating its terms to focus on data collection from "Third Party Users".

This shouldn’t come as a huge surprise. Meta is moving forward with their plans for Theads and the Fediverse, and their adjusted terms reflect a new impending reality for Fediverse users.

    • Sean Tilley@lemmy.mlOPMEnglish
      251·
      10 months ago

      Technically, yes, you save metadata of all of those things. However: you are not a company that profits from vast amounts of data ingestion.

      • woelkchen@lemmy.world
        11·
        10 months ago

        However: you are not a company that profits from vast amounts of data ingestion.

        The entire current Fediverse isn’t vast data by Meta, Google, Microsoft, and Apple standards.

        • Sean Tilley@lemmy.mlOPMEnglish
          2·
          10 months ago

          You aren’t making the point you think you’re making. Sure, at somewhere between 8 to 11 million accounts, the Fediverse is a small pond. Meta is a gigantic whale. Ingesting the entire graph of everyone on the network would be relatively trivial for them, storage-wise.

    • El Barto@lemmy.world
      111·
      10 months ago

      Yes, but do you analyse this information to sell it to advertisers? Will you start posting sponsored content based on this information? And will the money you collect benefit the community you live in, or will it buy you another politician?

        • Sean Tilley@lemmy.mlOPMEnglish
          8·
          10 months ago

          Altering the language of a service policy (or, writing a new one) is usually a good indication that something is indeed about to change at a larger level.

          • danielton@lemmy.world
            22·
            10 months ago

            I’m gonna play Devil’s Advocate here…

            What’s to stop them from scraping the Fediverse without federating? If they really want the data, they could very well find a way. At least they’re spelling it out here and announced an attempt at proper federation.

            • JakenVeina@lemm.ee
              3·
              10 months ago

              The article discusses this, a bit. One of the other platforms is considering an enhancement to require request signatures on non-ActivityPub APIs, I.E. Meta can make unsigned requests, where the server doesn’t know who they’re from, but only get minimal (or no) data back, or Meta can make signed requests, and instance owners get to decide what data (if any) they’re okay with sharing to Meta, based on Meta’s privacy policies. Beyond API’s, you’re talking about web scraping, which is something the industry has been handling for decades.

        • El Barto@lemmy.world
          51·
          10 months ago

          It also says exactly what they’re planning to collect for starters. That was news to me.

        • sab@lemmy.world
          3·
          10 months ago

          I wouldn’t put it past them to put tracking images into posts though. Either way… I wouldn’t be happy on a server that is connected to threads.

          Speaking of which… I see lemmy world see still hasn’t defederated from Threads. I guess it’s time for me to kill my account here.