A public service announcement, to clarify once again that "Public" posts, are, as the name implies, "Public".
As in, people can see them. Anyone, from anywhere. Dooh, if you don't like that idea, Mastodon has a number of Privacy settings for posts that might offer more control if desired.
Noelle has an excellent Guide to Mastodon, and the image on this post is a screencap of the part of it which clarifies this.
RSS feeds are created by default for everyone's Public and Unlisted posts. The noise some people were making about the Misskey feature, now present here at Qoto.org, which allows easily subscribing to anyone's public and unlisted posts is just the same as using an RSS feed reader to subscribe to that user's RSS feed.
Disinformation, paranoia and rancour have caused some to de-federate with Qoto.
Maybe it's for the best, if they are that obtuse.
Noelle's Guide is at : https://github.com/joyeusenoelle/GuideToMastodon/#so-if-i-lock-my-account-only-approved-people-can-see-my-posts
@design_RG You are naively ignoring an important aspect, social interactions and protocols.
The fact that something isn't technically impossible doesn't mean that all use-cases are viewed the same. If you wish to have a good relationship with people, respecting their non-enforceable wishes and following social protocols is important.
The fact someone doesn't take action to prevent bad actors from doing something doesn't mean they will be friendly to those that do it (i.e., bad actors).
@design_RG If you are already on the fediverse, there is an established protocol to follow an user's posts: send a follow request. It's the "polite" way, for a variety of reasons.
Not using that protocol would be rude (at least). Not doing it after being explicitly asked is worse. And people will mark others as "I don't like to interact with this person".
So the question is how much do you care about having a friendly, two-sided relationship with people.
@eldaking I disagree with your statement, as the naiveté as I see it would be in assuming a Privacy when the posts are made in clearly Public manner, Elda.
I do understand and value etiquette and proper manners, though.
Maybe it's a good thing this is happening, and that people get to better understand the Privacy controls available in Mastodon and other Fediverse software. Posting Followers-Only would go a long way into giving them more control over who can see their content.
@design_RG You are assuming that, due to a system setting (that people use in different ways, of course), people are ok with something - after they have explicitly said they are not.
There might be many reasons why they don't want to hide posts: to share with non-fediverse friends, to display for potential new users, to interact with indirect contacts, etc. They still get to set other rules. You can choose to ignore those rules, but doing so is viewed as rude or even hostile.
@eldaking For the record, I am not using this feature, and see that some people have objections.
My point is that this is not technically hacking, breaking, scraping or forcing something in the open - as the posts in question already have been set to a Public privacy setting by their authors.
I do understand as well that people want to have Followers (to have readers and interactions), and to using Followers-Only does limit their acquiring new ones, as most won't see their content.
It's a decision each user has to make, how much exposure they can accept. Best if they understand the privacy controls well, which in some cases doesn't seem to be happening.
@design_RG I'd say that the use "technically" there is telling... it does not violate the hardcoded post privacy. But it can bypass soft moderation tools/rules.
And on an instance level it is, ostensibly, a legitimizing of this anti-social behavior. "We think it is normal to follow someone that doesn't want you as a follower, we'll even help".
Being a good citizen of the community can mean voluntarily accepting limits beyond simple technical unfeasibility.
@design_RG Putting it another way: people aren't too concerned about bad actors seeing their public posts.
But to be considered a "friend", or someone they like interacting with online, you get to respect boundaries they set. Otherwise, you will be treated the same as any other bad actor.
@eldaking @design_RG I would say both of your positions are valid. But in today's world everyone should be aware of the possibilities of misusing one's information, since everything that can be exploited has a high risk of being exploited if circumstances are bad enough.
Sadly even the most mundane opinion can be used later on to destroy someone's life.
@design_RG Mastodon itself displays a warning message in the settings that it can't offer absolute privacy protection. This would be only achievable with something like end-to-end encryption.
(Pedantic side note: In the future encryption would need to be quantum computing proof, so encrypted messages posted today might still be readable at some point if someone stores them and is persistent enough)