@janboddez
Ha, that is cool. Need to try and implement something like that.
@hacdias @en
Tagged: reply
@david Hehe. I hear you.
@anant Thanks. I feel that I can have the Mastodon logo in the header of my blog and people will recognise it. Having the Akkoma logo would confuse more than help.
@ShmosKnows @JMMaok
Agree. I suppose this could also be built into apps but yes, I'd prefer a max width / height that I can set for my instance or profile. With the possibility to override when called for.
@krenaud ā¤ļøā¤ļø
@jamescridland
Ha, very cool. Kudos for doing this.
@danyork
@christian
1) Embed is a great example. Apps can even implement this menu item without it being a standard feature of the Fediverse. So I embed someone elseās content on my blog post. Can I say I did this with consent? That they should have expected it? In my reasoning is it still isnāt consent if I havenāt asked for their permission. I could argue they should have expected it as a possibility, but I donāt have their explicit consent to publish their post within my decided context. Could of course still be legal or within publishing rights.
2) Also a good example about fediblocks. What is reasonable for people to expect if they hear they learn that they can block and defederate? In this case it makes sense for people to expect to be able to feel safe form the other party seeing their posts when they block. The fact that they truly arenāt safe from others viewing their posts via a web browser doesnāt mean they have consented to repurposing of their content.
The person implementing the web scraper likely understands that people intentfully block others, but decides to disregard this circumstance. Again, the tech allows it and a lot of people understand it works this way, but not everyone. Is that enough to decide that everyone has consented? My reflection: Not if there is a chance some people would say no if asked.
The other scenario is where public timelines on an instance are not in fact displayed publicly, but thatās more clear-cut. Then you actually do need to āinfiltrateā through a covert follow bot that collects posts.
Instances can also be set to not allow indexing, which of course is one of the standard practices you mention in your first post. Best case that is then describes in the instance rules, but still doesnāt protect. In that case I agree 100% with you, that when those signals are ignored, it is also more clear-cut abuse.
I guess to sum up, my stance is that I see very few cases where it doesnāt make sense to ask for permission, to confirm informed consent.
@christian
Gotcha. But how is consent then confirmed? How can I document consent when taking action on another personās published content?
If we can confirm consent then yes, it is not missing. But otherwise it appears to come down to drawing assumptions about what another person intends or expects when they post their content.
My concern is that taking action on content that another personās has posted and repurposing it for use or display in ways that the person could not be expected to intend or expect, can lead to harm that could have been avoided with proper consent.
I feel many are arguing that one should always expect online content to be able to be copied and pop up anywhere (not saying you are). I understand this sentiment. But it assumes a lot of general understanding that I donāt believe is fair for a broad population. It also disregards the need for groups of people to participate without being subjected to this consequence.
So if a person did not expect repurposing of their content, and did not approve it, at what point is it considered consent, if there is no confirmation or advisement they can become aware of before posting.
The interesting thing here is that there are likely a myriad of ways that content can be repurposed in ways that do not harm and are respectful. But that does not mean there was consent.
Iām hoping for a broader recognition that there are many things happening where consent is not present, and that there are likely ways that people get hurt because of this that is often not considered, or considered to ānot matter enoughā because of the āfew numbersā of people potentially being put in harmās way.
(The main trigger for my post was search engines being created by following people and then putting their posts in a database - posts then becoming searchable by people from instances that they had blocked)
Note, because itās me, Iām talking about ethics rather than law, as there are many countries where there is a huge lack of protection under law, which of course is one of the dilemmas of participating online.
So when I talk about consent I refer to the act of working with the intent of non-maleficence rather than what is necessarily regulated by law in a given context.
@atomicpoet @chockenberry
Fantastic, something like this is what Iāve been hoping for!
@christian
If I follow this line of thinking I interpret your stance as being that there is no need to consider consent for using any content someone posts online for any purpose, as long as itās not explicitly denied using a standardized declaration.
Is that interpretation correct?
@rasmus_kaj
I think that is a great example of scraping without consent. The way it would be with consent is if the post on Mastodon clearly states: āComments to this post will automatically be displayed as comments on the blog post as well.ā
When adding posts from social media in my blog posts I tend to ask for permission. Iāve done that quite a few times over the last week without having written the blog posts yet.
Historically, a large majority say yes but a small number say no. And if they say no I do not use their post, or I refer to it anonymously without link or personally identifiable information, and with different wording.
Iāve deployed tools similar to what you describe in the past but after spending enough time recognizing the people who do not appreciate un-anticipated attention, I want to avoid any harm that I could inadvertently contribute to, emotional or otherwise.
For tools like this there is also the added risk of people publishing data about others, which would then automatically end up on the blog.
Iām not saying what your best course of action is but itās always good to feel confident about having considered potential harm and oneās own contribution if it happens.
The ethical reasoning is what I am encouraging, not necessarily whether something is legally allowed.
@glennf @adamengst Haha, no worries. That was an extremely quick response time. Thank you.
@adamengst @glennf
Just noticed my surname is misspelled in that article. Missing a b.š
@ivory š Thanks for the response. Most important for me is really the ability to interact with Mastodon users so it wonāt matter for me personally as long as everyone using Ivory can follow and engage with people using other services.. But the willingness for anyone to try out other services may of course be affected, as incentive for experimentation will be lower if people have to switch apps.
On Akkoma myself and prefer the web interface on any device.
@janboddez
Hehe, a lot to unpack here and I would love to write a longer post on this. What you are doing in each of your posts is applying ethical reasoning, which is great.
My hope is to boost awareness of unintentional harm based on re-using other people's content in ways they did not initially intend and did not approve.
So when engaging in actions that manage other people's content my ideal situation is one where ethical reasoning takes place, with the explicit goal of minimising harm. Best-case this reasoning is documented and transparent.
To an extent this is what you are doing š
With clients I lead them through impact mapping exercises, where impacts are often valued according to their severity, how much the contribution is, how neglected/vulnerable those affected are and how likely it is to happen.
When we don't know the answer we need to find out, from people who are affected. Which means proactive listening.
Exercises like this also create more understanding for situations where functionality has to be recalled - and that is more often then planned as a potential circumstance.
I'll try to find time to think about and address each of your examples but it will have to be after the weekend. š
@berkes
Hehe, a lot to unpack here and I would love to write a longer post on this. What you are doing in each of your posts is applying ethical reasoning, which is great.
My hope is to boost awareness of unintentional harm based on re-using other people's content in ways they did not initially intend and did not approve.
So when engaging in actions that manage other people's content my ideal situation is one where ethical reasoning takes place, with the explicit goal of minimising harm. Best-case this reasoning is documented and transparent.
To an extent this is what you are doing š
With clients I lead them through impact mapping exercises, where impacts are often valued according to their severity, how much the contribution is, how neglected/vulnerable those affected are and how likely it is to happen.
When we don't know the answer we need to find out, from people who are affected. Which means proactive listening.
Exercises like this also create more understanding for situations where functionality has to be recalled - and that is more often then planned as a potential circumstance.
I'll try to find time to think about and address each of your examples but it will have to be after the weekend. š
(Edit: First meant for this reply to go to @janboddez but I realised it was still relevant for both.)
@janne @troed
1. Yes, search engines apply non-consensual scraping to an extent. But it's an interesting case to reason around.
If the premise of publishing a web page is that it can be indexed - the robots.txt file being a standard - then it can be reasoned that it's possible to publish a web page with the correct code for not being indexed. It's an opt-out, yes, but it can be applied *before* actually publishing the page. The action never happens.
The difference between adding a consent and adding a non-consent could be argued as negligible in this scenario. As long as the rules of engagement are clear.
2. In pratical ethics it's great to judge one's own actions based on adherence to, or misconstruction, of intent. Though I would argue that it's dangerous to assume people want to reach "everyone" because they have public posts.
There is a difference in low and high levels of attention. Though I'm not really talking about boosts it's a good case for reflecting on responsibility based on number of followers. Does more followers imply more responsibility, for example.
@ambivalena
Grattis! š
@b_cavello Great thread. You should put that in a blog post :)
@energisch_ Thanks, that was my takeaway in the end as well :)