Dear #TwitterMigration folks, an important tip on #privacy on the fediverse:

There is none.

This is a public medium; please treat it as such. Just as you have no privacy on Twitter (Elon Musk can read all your DMs), you have no privacy on the instance you’re on (your administrators can read all your posts).

You can set the visibility of a post but that’s a viewing suggestion, not a privacy guarantee.

Think of your posts as postcards, not sealed letters, and you should be fine.

#fediTips

Even if you run your own instance, like I do, you have no #privacy on the #fediverse.

Only I get to read the direct messages received at my instance but I have no control over who sees the direct messages I send to other instances.

So, again, until end-to-end encryption is mandated by the core protocol (ActivityPub), remember:

Treat all posts on #mastodon / the fediverse as public and use an end-to-end encrypted messaging app like Signal if you want to have private conversations with people.

@aral Other messenging alternatives with end to end encryption are Matrix and XMPP. Those two are even decentralized like the fediverse.
@LunaDragofelis @aral Must we always have this conversation? XMPP and Matrix will unfortunately never reach mainstream. And this post is quite clearly aimed at the mainstream. Signal has the best chance to succeed in this space, by a wide margin too.
@dusnm @LunaDragofelis @aral I don't know WhatsApp is a pretty mainstream XMPP server. They just don't federate.
@kaip @LunaDragofelis @aral They just don't do the one thing that XMPP is supposed to do. Ship of Theseus would like a word with you.
@dusnm @LunaDragofelis @aral My point is #XMPP could very easily become mainstream and in some sense it already is. Maybe even overnight when WhatsApp starts federating when EU legislation forces them to do so.
@kaip @LunaDragofelis @aral Why would EU legislation force WhatsApp to federate? Is there a draft of this act? Why should this be legislated at all?
Europe fit for the Digital Age: new online rules for platforms

Europe fit for the Digital Age: new online rules for platforms

European Commission - European Commission