VincentNov 14, 2022

I see that @[email protected] has made it to Mastodon. I have suspended it from religion.masto.host, and will suspend any other content scraping bots I become aware of.

Thread readers scrape content without the consent of the creator, move it to a website outside of the creator's control, and sometimes monetise it, as discussed here:

https://twitter.com/erynnbrook/status/1099086911463800832

Erynn Brook on Twitter

“Why I don’t like thread compilers: a thread. Please do not compile. I’ve blocked threadreaderapp and it won’t store my threads.”

Twitter
Show threadJuan LuisNov 14, 2022

@amv In case others agree with this take, is there a way a "thread-unrolling" bot would look appropriate to folks? For example if the content was ephemeral and the site ran no ads?

Many people used the bot on the birdsite not because they wanted to exploit creators, but because they found it genuinely useful. I'd love to see discussion of how those useful features can be baked into the #fediverse in a consensual, friendly way.

Show threadVincentNov 14, 2022
@astrojuanlu Yeah, I understand that why those tools are attractive. Ephemerality and a clear commitment to non-monetisation would help, but the real problem is lack of consent.
Show threadMark Derricutt (talios)Nov 16, 2022
@amv @astrojuanlu Given how the web works, and given Mastodon has different toot privacy levels - is a public toot with a permalink, not in some manner - expected to be seen without explicit consent ( otherwise the federated timeline seems a giant-violation of consent).
Show threadkasilasNov 16, 2022

@talios @amv @astrojuanlu if that is not the case, republishing e.g. boosting could be argued to be copyright infringement.

As that would be silly, I assume (but have not checked) that like most online services, the Mastodon ToS state content may only be uploaded on the condition that the site and its users are granted a license to reproduce the uploaded content.

You would have to read the ToS to see now limited the license is e.g. is it restricted to within Mastodon.

Show threadJuan LuisNov 16, 2022
@kasilas @talios @amv Well, it's clear from this converation that whoever implements this, they have to do it in a way that the content is not copied over anywhere. Likely a client-only extension, with some JavaScript magic, that displays the thread in a simpler way. Consent would not be needed and IP concerns wouldn't be there anymore.
Show threadkasilas
@astrojuanlu @talios @amv yeah that sounds a reasonable solution that avoid most IP concerns.
Nov 16, 2022 at 1:49pmWeb
Show threadMark Derricutt (talios)Nov 16, 2022
@kasilas @astrojuanlu @amv that would probably work for threads (the original topic) but maybe little else
Show threadkasilasNov 16, 2022
@talios @astrojuanlu @amv I'm going to guess that some solutions are also patented, whilst this is almost irrelevant for workarounds, it might stop mastodon rolling out a solution.