@JamesGleick @ricmac @blaine I'd argue that the safety of those who have historically been targeted by trolls using such indexing trumps that.

Of course being instance-specific lessens the impact but also the usefulness.

But rather than bend Mastodon into something it’s not designed to be the better question is “is Mastodon the right place for such discourse?”. The answer might be “no”, which is absolutely ok.

The web is not short of platforms, you may find one better suits that use case.

@wiredfire @JamesGleick @ricmac @blaine

Exactly. No point building yet another platform/network, spexes based on a few hundred million people's comfort. Meanwhile around 7.5 billion potential users' critical needs would again be sidestepped.

"I would love for everyone to search in everything that I have tooted" = they have never been & are unlikely to become seriously bullied & have no marginalized near & dear = globally a minority.

@JamesGleick

TL;DR: if a feature can be used, including indirectly, for massive surveillance, for stalking an individual or group, or similarly harmfully, that feature should not exist.

@ronja I’m sincerely interested in this issue. I’m a Mastodon newbie. And I acknowledge that I’m a member of privileged groups that suffer less abuse.

Will you explain? If everyone has the ability to keep all their posts (or any, as they choose) invisible to search, how would the existence of the search feature make them vulnerable to stalking etc.?

@JamesGleick, forgive me for butting in. I’m a friend of @ronja ’s from way back on other platforms that were subject to persistent, abusive stalking and targeting of vulnerable people.

Say Alice runs excellent op sec so that Bob cannot stalk her and cannot search her posts, which are not indexed; all well and good. But Bob may have prior knowledge which may be able to establish Alice’s previous interests or connections, or provide a link to one of Alice’s friends or relatives, say, Carol.

@JamesGleick @ronja
Suppose that Carol doesn’t always think of protecting herself or others from stalkers; if Alice’s posts aren’t available to Bob, perhaps Bob will search through Carol’s posts which *are* indexed, for anything that might give him a clue about Alice.

Humans are social beings, so even if you’re targeted by abusive trolls, is the solution to go “deep stealth” and forgo all of your previous friendships and relationships just to avoid giving a clue to the trolls?

@JamesGleick @ronja

In some cases where there is a threat to life (e.g. domestic violence stalkers, overwhelmingly men) this is exactly what the targets do, and try to completely suppress all traces of their previous and current life.

So I do see a case for a platform like Mastodon giving the user control for what is searchable, with an opt-in model (use a hashtag if you want it to be searchable) rather than an opt-out model (if you don’t protect your posts then it gets indexed by default).