I've been grappling with a concern that I believe many of us share: the lack of privacy controls on Lemmy. As it stands, our profiles are public, and all our posts and comments are visible to anyone who cares to look. I don't even care about privacy all that much, but this level of transparency feels to me akin to sharing my browser history with the world, a discomforting thought to say the least.
While the open nature of Lemmy can foster community and transparency, it also opens the door to potential misuse. Our post history can be scrutinized by creeps or stalkers, our opinions can be nitpicked based on past statements, and we can even become targets for mass downvoting. This lack of privacy control can deter users from actively participating in discussions and sharing their thoughts freely.
Even platforms like Twitter and Facebook, often criticized for their handling of user data, provide some level of access control. Users can choose who sees their timeline: friends/followers, the public or nobody. This flexibility allows users to control their online presence and decide who gets to see their content.
The current state of affairs on Lemmy forces us into a cycle of creating new accounts or deleting old posts to maintain some semblance of privacy. This is not only time-consuming but also detracts from the user experience. It's high time we address this issue and discuss potential solutions.
One possible solution could be the introduction of profile privacy settings, similar to those found on other social media platforms. This would give users the flexibility to choose their level of privacy and control over their content without having to resort to manual deletion or account purging.
I believe that privacy is a fundamental right, and we should have the ability to control who sees our content. I'm interested in hearing your thoughts on this matter. How do you feel about the current privacy settings on Lemmy? What changes would you like to see? Let's start a conversation and work towards making Lemmy a platform that respects and upholds our privacy.
If all the people complaining would just contribute to the codebase this wouldn't even be an issue.
Often, you even see the devs coming into threads like this and making suggestions, like "make a pull request." They want more people contributing.
It's tons of people whining, very few people contributing. Guess what? While at a certain point, adding developers stops increasing productivity, there's a small window where adding developers does increase productivity.
If I am correct, Lemmy only has four main developers. That's well within the range to add more developers and increase the productivity, making new features and security come faster.
So I get it, but things take time, and are complicated, which you thankfully can see.
People whinging about it in threads does nothing to change it. Donating to Lemmy's development costs or contributing code does.
So much of it sounds like it sounds like its from less-technically-inclined people (some of its valid critique from experts, but they generally... write bug reports and do pull requests...) who just want it to be better but the only way they know how is to "bring awareness." Well, all that "awareness-bringing" just amounts to spreading FUD.