@volkris Hmm good you said. So it limits the scraping if it's respected you mean (how is it only a 'suggestion')
And how about "Circle", what's the difference in that? Thanks

@freeschool when you post followers only it attaches a notation to your content that says followers only, but any recipient is perfectly free to ignore that notation.

So it's really a suggestion, you're suggesting that this post only go to your followers, but any recipient is perfectly free to vacuum that content up into a database or do anything else they want to with the post.

Followers only is only a suggestion, only a notation tacked onto your post. It's up to the recipient, including whatever corporation, to decide whether or not they want to respect it.

@volkris Seems illogical - though I don't disbelieve you...

So like you said... it actually goes to everyone and then they choose to respect notation or disrespect it?

I thought it goes *just* to my list of followers... so only I know who they are and seems that would be how it works "Followers only"... but from what you said it's 'suggested' (to public?) and then people respect it or not?

Other than people doing more special ways I'm still not sure if Follower only is same as public pretty much? (through usual follow ways, I know there are other ways where it's all or nothing perhaps)

Isn't clear...

@freeschool The core issue is that this platform was designed around instances and not users. Everything happens in the instance. One way to put it is that this is not actually a decentralized platform but rather one that is re-centralized around instances.

It's not that your post goes to everyone, but your post goes to your instance and then your instance broadcasts it to whoever your instance feels like broadcasting it to.

So it's a chain where you can decide how much you can trust each link on the chain.

You send your post to your instance, and hopefully you can trust them. Your instance will send your post to a bunch of other instances, and every single instance that gets the post decides for itself what to do with it.

Does that make sense?

Even if you trust your own instance, that doesn't mean all of the instances of your followers are also so trustworthy.

@volkris Making more sense...

What I'm trying to clear now is if (probably) you are talking in the strictest sense of scraping possibility (like maybe you can never trusting your instance not to scrape and ability somewhere at some point in the chain not to be scraped)

or if you mean that even the normal trust and normal working (if we assumed instance and chain is 100% true and doing good) that still there is my "Followers-only" can be seen by the outside assuming scrapers take what they can get their hands on easily.

Overall, if my chain is ok, then "Followers-only" should got to my followers ONLY and not be scrapeable as easily?

===================
Are these all true (bad chain or bad actors excluded in this question):
===================

1❓ My "Followers-only" post doesn't send it to all instances?

2❓ My "Followers-only" post is better than "Public" post in regards to scraping?

3❓ 🔒 Lock on my account (Follow request needed to be accepted before follow happens by stranger) makes it more secure as checkpoint I manual have to clear.

4❓ Taking myself off the list for being publicly discoverable on my instance (in options can turn off being visible there) helps a bit from scraping even though they might catch the messages eventually (or not at all you think and it's exactly the same) ?

@freeschool well, no post sends to all instances. Instances talk among themselves about what posts they want to transmit and receive. It's kind of a subscription setup.

So a scraper instance can request from your instance to have the content delivered to it.

Followers-only doesn't really do anything different with regard to scraping.

But

@volkris I think it's clear it could be setup by a bad actor to do xyz bad way.

And without ignoring that if we say "more often / reliably" "this is what happens usually" then that might be enough (for now) although overall it may render Mastodon not doable so something to look on horizon for replacing.

Also when the importance of messages is very high/critical for each message or when broadcast population becomes twitter-esque then re-evaluation or cutting is in order... again)

There is a binary difference between > "someone could" and "this is what usually happens" so I really like knowing now... and in the back of my mind will say it's not perfect by far and will think about my own workflow more than look at external thing to solve it...

How to communicate with others is a challenge but could be a system inside a system (like sending you a simple note via https://privnote.com/)

So for now.. there is some respect between most instances and methods -

A locked account + followers only seems to respect most things wanted and unwanted.

By "recipient", do you mean recipient server?

@Hyolobrika yes, the server or instance.

It's all up to them to decide what to do with the content they receive from each other.

I think it's still possible to lock down your posting somewhat if you lock your account so only people you approve can follow you and then only allow follows from people or servers that you trust.

@Hyolobrika Well it would be about servers you trust. It's up to the server as to which people see the content.

But from quickly re-skimming the protocol spec, I'm not even sure how true that is. It looks like the protocol still allows servers to send content to other servers regardless of what a user requests.

The laws of physics allow server [admins] to send content to other server [admins] regardless of what a user requests.
No human-made protocol can stop it.

Unless your point is that that could happen automatically/accidentally?