YSK: Your Lemmy activities (e.g. downvotes) are far from private
i.imgur.com
Edit: obligatory explanation (thanks mods for squaring me away)...
What you see via the UI isn't "all that exists". Unlike Reddit, where everything is a black box, there are a lot more eyeballs who can see "under the hood". Any instance admin, proper or rogue, gets a ton of information that users won't normally see. The attached example demonstrates that while users will only see upvote/downvote tallies, admins can see who actually performed those actions.
Edit: To clarify, not just YOUR instance admin gets this info. This is ANY instance admin across the Fediverse.
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It is a pretty big deal. What it essentially means is that you are completely exposed, if you pardon the pun.
And yes, absolutely everyone with basic IT skills has access to this data as it is shared across instances. All it takes is a couple minutes to deploy a docker image and boom, I'm somewhat of an admin myself.
The fact that this data is stored in plain is a major security and privacy issue that makes me rethink this platform.
Just don't vote then? Reddit also told advertisers what you're into, it was just over backchannels with money involved.
Or create an account that has no links to your private live, then you can vote as much as you want.
No-one should have to do that, as that information nobody else's business, less it breaks the law
The moment you make votes anonymous (which would theoretically be possible) you open up a million ways in which votes can be manipulated. So congratulations, that ad post from some random company has 12k upvotes now.
Only alternative is still connecting it to a user, but only registering that they voted (but not if it's an upvote or downvote, that's anonymous again), but then you can never change your vote again afterwards. So if you misclick the downvote button there is no way back.
With the current solutions in place, if you want to remain anonymous: Don't create an account, just lurk. Or don't upvote/downvote/comment on things. It's as easy as that.
Just like putting your real name online and then complaining when others can see it on Facebook.. your account is as anonymous as you want to make it.