Thinking about how to enable full-text searching of a useful subset of Fediverse posts in a way that is controlled by post authors and has humane unsurprising defaults.
The current yes/no binary toggle under Settings/Other (that most people have never seen) probably isn't going to do the job.
The problem needs a long-form write-up (coming), and is controversial, but I’m pretty sure won’t go away, so the community should get in front of it.
@timbray This sounds to me like the social graph interoperability debate and how classic web ideas clash with modern ideas around privacy.
Regardless of how useful it is to others, people have the right to opt out of their data being used. The GDPR effectively bans social graph interoperability between services given this principle. Mastodon seems to ignore this which is itself interesting.
The same philosophy should apply to being able to search people’s content.
@timbray @ramsey The social graph principles are framed in the context of services (e.g. Twitter sharing social graph data with LinkedIn or vice versa via some friend finding API).
I’m not a lawyer so can’t comment on whether my Mastodon instance having an API that by default lets anyone query my friend list without mentioning it when I signed up violates or is in compliance with the principle. If a social media app/service did this then it definitely wouldn’t be.
Tim Bray
Dare Obasanjo
Ben Ramsey