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> "While Bluesky is not engaged in surveillance-based advertising like many incumbent social media platforms, users should be aware that shared information is more public and accessible than they might expect." > "Every post, every like, and every share is visible to the world. Even blocking data is plainly visible. By design all of this information is also accessible in one place, as Bluesky aims to be the megaphone for a global audience Twitter once was. It's kind of funny that people were worried about a few advertisers holding data about their online actions in well-protected database, but are less worried about everyone being able to access this data and connect the dots. It makes me think that the "surveillance capitalism" concept was more against capitalism than surveillance.
I always liked the crypto space DYOR attitude. It is exactly what most people don’t do. In the end with everything you engage with online (or offline of course - but with online people seem to forget) you have a responsibility too. It is not only the platform or the algorithm. You should educate yourself on the apps and tools you are using and be conscious about what you post and very real effect in the world. In that line of thinking governments should not ban social media for teenagers, but educate children from an early age on social media, internet and how to relate.
> It's kind of funny that people were worried about a few advertisers holding data about their online actions in well-protected database, but are less worried about everyone being able to access this data and connect the dots. No I think the like and post data is voluntarily shared publicly so you can't make a case for retaining privacy over it. For likes it might be discussed, but that public post shouldn't be universally publicly accessible is a stretch. Also: Advertisers aren't interested in post or like data. They want metadata of people, e.g., where you shop. What ads you watch etc.
> I always liked the crypto space DYOR attitude. It is exactly what most people don’t do. Agree. I also believe that the expectation that someone else had done the research for you, giving you the feeling of being "protected", is a good recipe for creating black swans.
> "No I think the like and post data is voluntarily shared publicly so you can't make a case for retaining privacy over it. For likes it might be discussed, but that public post shouldn't be universally publicly accessible is a stretch." 100%, these are the rules of open networks, and if you want to post there, you have to accept them. But for some reason these people weren't that worried until someone used this data to train their AI models (and make money). Re: Advertisers - your likes and posts are valuable because they can build psychographical profiles. And if an advertiser uses a third-party data provider to connect this info with the data you mentioned - where people shop, and so on, they have a pretty good profile. On Facebook all this data about people has been kept by Zuck and anonymized. This means that I as an advertiser couldn't see if it's Alice, Bob or Sam that I'm going to target. Ofc the challenge for adveriters using BSky data is that you can't reach people where they are (in the feed, like on FB or X), and you have to get more creative.