As X could soon be banned in the UK amid sexualised AI images concerns, the obvious beneficiary will be Bluesky (a US public benefit corporation) and not Mastodon (whose software is owned by the German non-profit Mastodon gGmbH, now in the process of moving the project to a new foundation.)

The privacy approach of the microblogging service Bluesky risks being confused with that of the instant messaging app Signal (also based in the US, but run by a Foundation), as they are both led by outspoken women (Jay Graber and Meredith Whittaker) who are frequently covered in the media.

But they are really quite different: direct messages on Bluesky are unencrypted (as they are on Mastodon unfortunately) and the service collects quite a lot of personal data (see section 8B in their privacy policy), uses these data for marketing and “other purposes” (section 10), and shares them with “third-party services” and “business partners” (section 11).

As a European-based service, what is Mastodon doing to be seen (and chosen) as a valid alternative?

  • vermaterc@lemmy.ml
    6·
    1 day ago

    I don’t think privacy will be ever an advantage of fediverse or any federated platform. Isn’t it actually quite opposite by design? The goal of fediverse is to make you and your account discoverable by anyone. You comments, your likes, your follows are public. Fediverse is for freedom not for privacy.

    • vdbm@lemmy.worldOP
      2·
      1 day ago

      So, Mastodon is structurally libertarian, but de facto culturally pluralistic?

  • chobeat@lemmy.ml
    51·
    1 day ago

    If in 2026 you’re on X, I don’t think privacy would matter much to you. People will go to platforms that give them what X was giving them. Mastodon doesn’t offer porn, it doesn’t offer visibility to journalists, it does offer a little of bit of arguing with strangers, but definitely nowhere near the levels of X, where you can do it at any time of the day. Bluesky is still the best alternative on all these points.

  • calm.like.a.bomb@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    2·
    1 day ago

    Mastodon is not a company. They don’t need to do anything to bring attention to them. Mastodon is not one thing, it’s more things that do everything by federating.

    Comparing mastodon with bluesky is one of the problems people face when trying to “go social”. From my point of view it’s pretty simple: if you want to “be guided”, to be given ideas and “friends” you go with bluesky; if you want to invest some time and find people you like and get and share ideas, then go with mastodon/piefed/gosocial and any other fediverse service. But make sure you understand that you are the one creating your own network, not a company through an algorithm.