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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A lot of this needs to annonoymised imo. As you say. This is all product information meta will be looking to sell. I came here to not be a product anymore.
Well you're not a product unless a lemmy instance controller figures a way to become profitable from selling your data.
But realistically i don't see how this is an issue. There isnt any ads on any instance that im aware of, which is what it would be used for, to serve you more personalized ads to your lemmy account. If an instance runner knows that your specific account voted a certain way on any post or comment, how could they even use that information to profit or degrade your experience here. Its just garbage data 🤷♂️
If a celeb joined or did a AMA joined and voted some stuff, they stuff could be made public quite quickly.
What stuff? Lol what their profile voted for? Thats not going to dox anything like a location or address. If Seth Rogan did an ama and upvoted a 420 post literally nobody would be surprised. Again, voting opinions aren't a privacy concern. Y'all are making a fuss about nothing.
Except if you live in Saudi and you voted in support of gay rights. Or HK and voted something negative of China, or if you were a republican and voted something supportive of trans. Voting behaviour can be published to bring detriment to their users.
In the UK, the Labour party suspended members who voted for content from other parties (such as that they had recovered from covid) etc or for voting for content from groups that were proscribed later and they were excluded from the party for this sort of stuff. They had previously hired someone who previously worked for a company linked to the Israeli state and potentially Mossad and they were using this knowledge to crack down on left wingers with in the party. (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/mar/02/lawyers-complain-to-labour-over-hiring-of-ex-israeli-intelligence-officer)
What people upvote is increasingly being highlighted and used as discreditation by association.
As the world becomes more digitalised, and this is used more and more, it becomes more and more critical. Maybe not for you personally, but for many.
That account still has to be linked to a real person, and not doxing yourself circles back to using social media responsibly. Social media is just that, Social media. You cant swim in the pool and not get wet. The ways in which your describing it being abused are ways in which every facet of every social media can be abused. So if one is so concerned about it, why even bother using social media.