Mike Masnick ✅Here's a first: did a Google search on something and one of my own Mastodon posts came up as a result.
Beginning to think that the cultural norm here of not allowing search isn't going to last all that much longer.
Smalls@mmasnick Instance admins can opt their users out of search engine indexing, but individual users can opt-out themselves by going to settings on the website and going under Preferences -> Other.
How well that works? Uhhhh… Good question? 😅
Anders Puck Nielsen
Josh@anderspuck @smalls @mmasnick Sure but most people probably aren't victims of pile ons, or getting threads filled with trolls the moment they talk about e.g. their race, sexuality, gender etc. Not saying all search is bad but saying most people would be happy with it doesn't really address the reason that some people aren't, and doesn't automatically make it ok.
PJ "Vote Green" Coffey@anderspuck @krnlg @smalls @mmasnick
Hmm... so the next cis white man will say
"Oh it's no problem, the people who don't want to be searched can go to a server where that isn't true."
And be blithefully unaware that they've reinvented the ghetto.
Plus this will make fascist/TERF lives easier for stochastic and e warfare by grouping their targets.
Tell me I'm wrong.
@Homebrewandhacking @krnlg @smalls @mmasnick Not sure I get your point. A user can turn off indexing for themselves regardless what server they are on.
@anderspuck @krnlg @smalls @mmasnick
As per this thread when an opt in user talks to an opt out user the opt out user is automatically indexed as part of the reply.
Is that correct or incorrect?
@Homebrewandhacking @krnlg @smalls @mmasnick The post is not indexed by the search engine, but it would be visible if someone finds the parent post.
@anderspuck @krnlg @smalls @mmasnick
So, if someone replied to say a trans person and used the word trans, that would show up?
If you are unfamiliar with Twitter, a lot of the filter bypassing practices like using El*n instead of Elon are due to plain text searches by cultists.
I feel that would be an obvious problem because even an accidental usage could expose someone to a pile on.
@Homebrewandhacking @krnlg @smalls @mmasnick I can see how that will be a problem. Not sure what the solution is, though. Isn't this already the case if a user responds to something on another instance in the Fediverse where things are searchable?