But, you know the space they operate. That space is limited by profits, what their immense legal team allows, and their immense security team controls. The alternative is, literally, a complete stranger, with no track record, unknown motives, and (as the recent hacks showed) doesn't have the skillset to keep your information secure anyways.
This is true, but it's also a "the devil you know is better than the devil you don't" argument. Which is not to say it's invalid, of course, but it's not a strong argument.
Personally, while I certainly don't trust a random stranger, I trust Facebook even less.
Not that any of this matters, really. My opinion affects nothing.
I trust my grandma to make a good cake, but I do not trust my dad to do the same. But I trust my dad to be there when I call him, whereas I wouldn't of my grandma.
And that level of trust nuance comes from a long track record. To me, there is no other source of trust.
And the long track record I see of Facebook tells me that I can trust them to abuse people any time they can make a dime doing so. They have no benefit of the doubt, because there is no doubt.
A stranger might also abuse people any chance they get, but there is also a chance that they're better than that.
>The alternative is, literally, a complete stranger, with no track record, unknown motives, and (as the recent hacks showed) doesn't have the skillset to keep your information secure anyways.
That's not the only alternative. Another is, literally, me, someone I know very well, with a lifetime track record that I'm intimately familiar with, known motives and the skillset to keep my information secure.
It's called "hosting your own instance."
And it doesn't stop me from following users on other instances, nor does it require me to accept the TOS of other instances either.
That said, I'm not interested in juicing my "follower" count or building/enhancing my "brand," nor am I interested in doing so for others.
That's the alternative. And when someone comes up with an AP hub that can interact with other AP instances like an email client (my Thunderbird[0] can talk smtp, pop3, IMap, xmpp, Matrix, nntp and more) that's a viable alternative for the hoi polloi. Until then, more technical folks like myself can just roll their own.
I don't really care what most other people say anyway, including (well, especially) "influencers", celebrities, politicians, advertisers and other scum of the earth.
So I'll just follow whoever I want to follow from my own AP instance. Or not, if I choose not to federate with other instances.
My understanding is that many popular lemmy instances use an allow list, which means your replies to comments will go to the void. Is this true? I'm having trouble finding a clear answer.
>My understanding is that many popular lemmy instances use an allow list, which means your replies to comments will go to the void. Is this true? I'm having trouble finding a clear answer.
I wish I could answer that question, but I haven't messed around with Lemmy.
I suggest setting up an instance and seeing for yourself what admin/moderation tools exist and how they impact interactions with the instance.
