- cross-posted to:
- mildlyinfuriating@lemmy.world
- tech@lemmy.fmhy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- mildlyinfuriating@lemmy.world
- tech@lemmy.fmhy.ml
In the few short hours since I started using #Threads, #DuckDuckGo has already blocked over 200 data tracking attempts. These include things like “headphone status” and “screen density.”
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Why anyone would try a ‘new’ Facebook product at this point is mind boggling.
What does Threads do that Mastodon doesn’t? Aren’t they basically just a different app for the same thing? What am I getting wrong here?
the brand and million of dollars for ads. They’ll push it as the main hub to browse mastodon content and then slowly try to make it a walled garden.
I’m trying to figure out if there’s content there you can’t access via Mastodon or what’s the catch. They say it’s not ActvityPub compatible yet however it’s still somehow up so what’s going on.
looking at the app it seems it’s launched with just local content feed with a promise of being mastodon compatible in the future. I guess specifically to generate some unqiue content so people join.
FYI here’s how you can block threads from Mastodon:
https://mastodon.social/@joenepraat@todon.nl/110661775869857597
It’s so they can say “Look, we LOVE competition, we even follow a protocol!” in court
Threads automatically adds all your instagram follows so for creators they don’t have to try and rebuild their audience on a new platform where as for users they don’t have to find all their friends/family/and creators on a new platform, its just there. There is also the ease of signup, if you have an instagram account you just log in, if you don’t it’s really simple. For Mastodon there’s different servers to pick and then you have to find your favorite creators again and it’s another login to remember.
TLDR people are lazy so go with the option that is easiest for them
That’s your fault for using threads
Meta is a threat to the privacy of fediverse users, if there are fediverse instances that remain federated with Meta.
Ross Schulman, senior fellow for decentralization at digital rights nonprofit the Electronic Frontier Foundation, notes that if Threads emerges as a massive player in the fediverse, there could be concerns about what he calls “social graph slurping." Meta will know who all of its users interact with and follow within Threads, and it will also be able to see who its users follow in the broader fediverse. And if Threads builds up anywhere near the reach of other Meta platforms, just this little slice of life would give the company a fairly expansive view of interactions beyond its borders.
https://www.wired.com/story/meta-threads-privacy-decentralization/
You got a good point. I minimized my usege of Facebook to the
minimummaximum.Does that mean you maximised your usage? 🤔
Lol I meant the other way around ahah
- The name of your first crush.
- Your religious beliefs.
- Your innermost fears.
- That thing you did in June of 2007 that you must never speak about.
Hey shut up about the spaghetti incident
You just reminded me of the random surveys that used to sometimes come in the mail for my Mum back before the internet was a thing. I flipped through a couple and it asked things like if you have a pet and what brand of cat food you gave them and all this totally random shit. I wonder what benefit to the home owner there was for filling such a bullshit survey in.
These days, Facebook would probably just use some AI to scan your photos and figure out if you have a cat and what brand of food it eats. You’d never know, and you gave away any defence the moment you uploaded the image.
I’ve recently started taking a lot of international flights for work.
Now the ad algorithms thinks I’m some international jet setter and I get ads for luxury boats.
i get that these are jokes, but doesn’t the app store description literally include religious orientation in the list?
yep
It’s unbelievable that an app which collect this many data points, including voice, is legally allowed. Insane. Yes, people should not use it and should care, but come on… this is just mass surveillance and collection.
including voice
how else would facebook live and such work?
i mean some of these makes sense
but its also a question of … does the app use all these things, all the time?
do we know?
On my mac i have to allow discord to record my voice etc. if i dont, i can still use the app but i cant talk in a voice call, and such.
i’d like if apps did similar, on phones. they’d work but some functions would just be unavailable
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Actually, apps can check how many times other apps have been opened without any special permission. You can create a Work Profile with applications like Shelter and install all of these spyware there!
i’d like if apps did similar, on phones. they’d work but some functions would just be unavailable
Both Android and iPhones let you do this last I checked
Well, that’s how Cambridge Analytica scandal happened
Ross Schulman, senior fellow for decentralization at digital rights nonprofit the Electronic Frontier Foundation, notes that if Threads emerges as a massive player in the fediverse, there could be concerns about what he calls “social graph slurping." Meta will know who all of its users interact with and follow within Threads, and it will also be able to see who its users follow in the broader fediverse. And if Threads builds up anywhere near the reach of other Meta platforms, just this little slice of life would give the company a fairly expansive view of interactions beyond its borders.
https://www.wired.com/story/meta-threads-privacy-decentralization/
If you block them from collecting even one of those things, they’ll lock you out of your account until you show them your ID and SSN. It should be illegal for social media to spy on you THAT invasively.
Ah, so it’s a stupidity test.
Yep
What I don’t understand is why people wound even want to use this app…
What possible appeal could it have?
Even if you don’t have Threads app installed. Meta is still a privacy threat for fediverse users. If there are fediverse instances that remain federated with Meta. And there are already millions of people who joined Threads in just a day.
Ross Schulman, senior fellow for decentralization at digital rights nonprofit the Electronic Frontier Foundation, notes that if Threads emerges as a massive player in the fediverse, there could be concerns about what he calls “social graph slurping." Meta will know who all of its users interact with and follow within Threads, and it will also be able to see who its users follow in the broader fediverse. And if Threads builds up anywhere near the reach of other Meta platforms, just this little slice of life would give the company a fairly expansive view of interactions beyond its borders.
https://www.wired.com/story/meta-threads-privacy-decentralization/
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I’d guess you have to like Twitter in the first place to understand the appeal. Some people like it, some don’t, but the Twitter format has been pretty popular over the years, and this comes at at time when Elron has been making twitter dramatically worse for anyone who doesn’t share his political views. Meta gives the appeal as “having a platform that is sanely run, that they believe that they can trust and rely upon for distribution”. At this point, even if I thought Elron was a great guy I sure wouldn’t invest much in building my twitter account as the future of the site seems shaky. Also though, on the other hand, who knows if this will be a success for Meta and whether they’ll still support it 3 years from now.
I do have a Twitter account but I almost never use it anymore because it has become such a cesspool…
I just don’t think another copy of that cesspool run by a different asshole is likely to really be any more interesting than the original.
I did have an account, until the API changes made Twitteriffic unusable and all the people I follow left. Then I started using Reddit.
Now I use Mastodon and Lemmy. I will not go back to using a Social network that does not have; A) an open API which allows my choice of third party apps. B) a way to migrate my data and content.
The exceptions are Apple Messages (for family and close friends), SMS (for family and close friends who do t have iPhones) and Facebook under a fake name, sandboxed in FireFox Focus.
We all have our exception (s)
I deleted my twitter account from 2009 once it was apparent what a clusterfuck Elron was going to make it. I never really used it that much until a few years ago, but I started in 2020 as it was the platform with the most recent and close to real-time news on what was going on with the riots and stuff (I was in downtown Portland when the Floyd protests started). I found a few niche communities I enjoyed and liked some of the humor accounts, like Roz Chast or NYT Pitchbot. I thought it was cool to see posts from people like Sandra Boynton. Buy yeah, no way I’m being on there in the Musk era.
I don’t have high hopes for Threads either, of course, considering I don’t like or use IG or FB and have very little respect for Meta as a company, and their weird-ass founder. The privacy concerns are horrifying - I will never install the app on my phone, so if there isn’t web access I will literally never even try it.
There is a percentage of people who are fucking weird bro.
Yeah, about 9 out of 10.
Umm… That’s a fraction, not a percentage… /S
the sad truth seems to be that vast majority of people just don’t care about the threats.
Brands almost instantly jumped over (likely due to a mix of instagram integration and a good deal on ads/boosting). Which is what the vast majority of twitter users cared about.
Yeah, we all love Dril. And everyone loves all those hot memes. But the reality is that people want to know “the news”. No, not what is going on in Ukraine (I think journalists embraced Post months ago?) or the further erosion of civil rights in many western governments.
No, the news people want is that Grimace is feeling sexay and Macky D’s has a new menu item. And that Netflix still wants you to watch Season 3 of The Witcher because even they know that show is fucked.
So with brands jumping, that means many influencers also jumped. Because they need to embrace those brands for sponsorships. And then users follow the Green M&M and Pewdiepie’s streaming notifications and so forth.
It will be interesting to see how quickly companies will substitute the “follow us” troika of icons on their website and brochures from a blue f, camera and blue bird to a blue f, camera and stylised black T.
I assume that printing companies will make a packet reprinting all those brochures, or selling little stickers to cover up the little blue bird.
What is Dril?
A guy on twitter who’s kinda funny.
I googled him/her/it just in case it was a leggy, smoking hot “influencer”.
Yeah no. Maybe a kind of influencer?
That’s just the tip of the iceberg. I can’t relate to anything in that comment.
Well the majority was clearly him being facetious
Hey now, Grimace can’t feel sexy?! Let the purple monster be!
If your using facetious does it track you?
And *you’re
My phones Swype function feels horrible.
“Okay so it’s basically Twitter, but with like… Facebook features…” Is literally a joke I have made about annoying app ideas people have when you tell them you’re a software developer.
I have made this joke a few times, because it killed every time.
I’m stunned. Out of material, and stunned.
Your responsible for this you willed this evil into the world I cast you out to the sea and rocks below to you and your twitter with Facebook features
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Had a dude tell me he wanted to ‘disrupt’ social media by creating a LinkedIn alternative that allowed posting videos.
He just needed a couple ‘techies’ like me to get it off the ground.
Haven’t heard from him in a while. I hope rehab worked out for him.
If you are already eating out of a dumpster, even the worst fast food looks appetizing.
There’s a lot of dumpster divers out there, too. According to an AP article Threads “has drawn tens of millions of users since launching this week”.
That’s nuts. And depressing.
They probably funneled them in with an ad from Instagram.
Using Threads knowing it’s a product of Zuck, is like voting for Trump in 2024 cause he wore a different style suit.
The best comparison I saw:
Threads is Romney. Twitter is trump.
Romney can come across as downright sane in a lot of situations. Yeah, he is a batshit loon and sometimes says stuff, but mostly he has “decorum”. Whereas trump/musk are 5 seconds away from masturbating on stage while screaming about hitler. But at the end of the day? They all vote the same.
You say that, but if he went out on stage in a pink sequins suit with assless chaps because it would somehow “own the libs”, a tragically high number of people would be all over that.
The Proud Boys leader fucked a dildo to own the libs. So you’re not wrong.
Oh God I forgot about that lmao, what a fucking idiot. I wonder how many of his fellow Proud Boys tried it out too 🤣
Bro, put one up mine too! Come on man we gotta own them!
Remember kids; assless chaps don’t exist, it’s just chaps. If they had asses, they’d be pants!
Hey, if a bloke happened to be a waist-down amputee, I’d say he’s an assless chap. They can exist.
As a member of the local #42069 Union of Chapless Chaps, I waggle my fingers and blow a raspberry in solidarity.
I’m not really sure, but then again I also didn’t really understand the point of Twitter, so I’m a bit biased.
Latest news, with spirited discussion attached
I always say: Almost like Reddit, but instead of following topics, you follow idiots
Edit: I should add that reddit is now down the drain, that’s why I’m here now, lol. Federated Internet for the win!
Social media fomo
It works, unlike this place.
Other than GPS coordinates, what’s the problem?
It’s pretty standard stuff that every app collects.
I’m actually asking what specific thing is the problem.
The problem is the “why”. Why does it need headphone status? Why does it need to know “music playing” status? It uses all this information to build a larger picture of the user. If the user is browsing sad memes standing in McDonalds while listening to music, there’s a chance they’re in a vulnerable state. So let’s show them ads related to weight loss or even the opposite - something to entice them so they might feel good momentarily. That’s the kind of headfuck these guys have already built using their machine learning models. So no, you should totally reject any and every app collecting this information.
BTW, “every app collects” is a bad precedent. Partly because not every app needs this information and partly because they are all selling to Google and FB and even more spurious third parties in the end.
wtf do they even need charging status, headphone status, volume, direction rotation accelerometer wtf
They coded for “everything they can get” and just figure they’ll use it all eventually. Must be a GDPR nightmare for them, if they even honor it vs. just not being caught doing bad actor things.
Must be a GDPR nightmare for them, if they even honor it vs. just not being caught doing bad actor things.
It’s not currently available in the EU I believe.
They likely coded it all in quickly in a messy fashion that they didn’t think about ways to disable any of the tracking in the EU and that’s why is not available there at launch. While Meta has plenty of software engineers to get jobs like this done the speed they supposedly went to get it done(Being start in January launch in July) likely means things got rushed as it supposedly wasn’t planned to launch till later this year but with twitter imploding Meta wants to get as much of the existing marketshare moved over quickly with instagram being the perfect way to make moving seem easy.
To advertise. If your battery is at 17%, they’re gonna advertise a wireless charger. If you listen to headphones at max volume and are jumping up and down at a concert venue, they’re probably not gonna recommend you earplugs.
hell naw
I’d guess that rotation is probably to rotate the video player when you rotate your phone.
Accelerometer is likely for the feature where you can shake the phone to report a bug.
Headphone status may be to pause videos when you unplug your headphones? Unsure.
if i understand correctly this isn’t just grabbing info for functionality but rather is info being permanently collected and stored, so this shouldnt be it otherwsie there would be no need to keep it
How would DuckDuckGo know the difference between grabbing the info temporarily vs permanently? The app would still be calling the same APIs.
in best BfME2 goblin voice: The Eye watches!
200 in a few hours sounds like a lot (well, it is) but is small compared to some apps I use. Revolut tried to make tens of thousands of requests in an hour last time I looked! I expect that particular app is coded badly so when it gets rejected it just endlessly tries to repeat the request.
I highly recommend everyone installs something like the DuckDuckGo android app because it blocks tracking attempts in all apps. It’s a bit horrifying to see how often, how much, and what type of data all our apps are requesting.
What is the app called? Are you referring to their browser?
Yup, their browser. Had to check what apps were tracking stuff when I saw this post and for example Spotify was getting blocked twice every second while I was listening to music.
I have 24 000 blocked tracking attempts since installing the browser a couple of weeks ago.
Thanks! Can’t believe I haven’t heard about this sooner. Cheers
From what I’ve heard the number gets so high because duckduck blocks the app from gathering data. The apps keep pushing requests since they’re not getting any response. In reality the non-blocked requests are less frequent. Don’t quote me on this, just a thing I read on reddit.
But yeah I have duckduck as well and it freaks me the F out seeing what apps are trying to gather. It’s sickening.
I didn’t know DuckDuckGo had the app tracker feature. It was just a browser the last time I gave it a go. Thanks for the tip! I’ve been using NextDNS for my Private DNS on Android for awhile. I had to temporarily disable it for DuckDuckGo to identify the trackers. It looks like NextDNS was doing a good job blocking them.
It might be surprlus to your requirements then, I’ve seen in a few discussions on here there’s lots of alternatives. Some apps it ‘breaks’ so I just disable it for that app. Nuts though the level of tracking that’s going on in our pockets all day!
Oh no! the rats are eating each other.
Thank you EU!
absolutely wild, was going to (naively) give it a go, but I work on telemetry for a big platform and cannot in good faith use this product.
Genuine question: what made you work on that if you see telemetry as a threat?
If I based my concerns off of what I worked on, I’d actually probably be cool with it. Things are generally taken very seriously and the general discourse around how things are handled (at least to my knowledge) are wildly exaggerated. However, knowing just how things work end to end and how Meta tends to handle things, I think accepting something like the terms they lay out will give them freedom to do whatever they want with whatever they want.
That might seem obvious to most folks but I guess it’s more just be saying yeah they’ll take as much as you can give them.
Looking at the data collection categories in the ios app store for Threads is terrifying. Similarly, mastodon collects nothing. General population doesn’t seem to care though given the number of signups that Threads has received in the last few days. People are happy to give their information away.
