this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2023
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Privacy

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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

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much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

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On the side bar it lists the following:

  • [Matrix/Element]Dead
  • Discord

"Discord" is an active link, but the Matrix link is completely inactive. Not only is it inactive (which could have be excused as a broken link), but it is also manually labeled as "Dead", as if there is no intention of making it work. How can a community that is focused on privacy willingly favor a service that is privacy non-respecting when a perfectly functional privacy-respecting alternative exists?

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[–] Lettuceeatlettuce@lemmy.ml 167 points 1 year ago (11 children)

It's the timeless debate between accessibility and exclusivity. Do you want more people in your community by compromising some values? Or would you rather be a hardliner but never reach those people?

Most of the time you have to pick somewhere on that spectrum. It's a question of pragmatism and utilitarianism.

Does it do more good for lots of people to be slightly more privacy-aware, or is it better to have a very small portion of the population that are super privacy-aware?

You have to decide, and the debate rages on all the time.

[–] Hazel@lemmy.blahaj.zone 24 points 1 year ago

I want a nicely bridget matrix - discord channel, so that the individuals of the community can choose themselves

[–] Enigma@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Are you able to at least bridge you matrix to the discord? You should, at the very least, be able to do that while also promoting matrix.

[–] jet@hackertalks.com 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes there are bridge bots. But discord breaks them, and bands their accounts. Sometimes

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[–] retiolus@lemmy.cat 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Accessibility would be to let people have the choice: making a bridge between Discord, Matrix, Telegram, XMPP, IRC, etc... There are plenty of tools to do that today, it's not complicated.

https://github.com/42wim/matterbridge

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[–] krolden@lemmy.ml 88 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Because privacy communities are a joke.

[–] mojo@lemm.ee 55 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

Yeah it quickly becomes a dick measuring contest and shunning people for using different things. It becomes very black/white views, and have some crazy out of touch takes, like expecting your grandma to self host lol. They also confuse anonymity with privacy, like how not being able to sign up for something with tor and monero is a privacy violation, it's not.

[–] funnystuff97@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I think it falls into the same pitfalls as most super niche communities, like a lot of subreddits did.

For example, the shaving subreddit (/r/wicked_edge I think?). Its mission statement was to introduce people to cleaner, safer, and more efficient shaving methods. And for the most part, with all of its resources and wikis, it successfully did it. But if you choose to stay after you've made your informed purchases, the posts were mostly braggarts showing off their latest hundreds-of-dollars handles, supreme razor blades, brushes made from actual gold, that sort of thing. My point is, the average person (by my guess, like 90% of people going to the site) gets the information they need and then never participate in the community again. But those who stay are those who really want to stay-- people who are most likely to brag and boast. So over time, it falls more and more into plain old dick measuring contests.

This obviously isn't true of all communities, but I think it's a common pitfall for a lot of them. I can imagine privacy is very similar: take all the steps you can to learn to protect your privacy, and then... you're good, for the most part.

[–] online@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Wow this is great I am surprised to see people talking about this (let alone even being aware of it).

Really refreshing to not have it to be a contest to follow random dogmas.

Lemmy is refreshingly smarter than I was used to seeing on Reddit.

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[–] MiddledAgedGuy@beehaw.org 10 points 1 year ago

Pfft. My gramgram self-hosts on her own LFS build with a hardened kernel and custom written SELinux policies. All your grandparents need to get on her level.

Disclaimer: Everything here is a lie.

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[–] FeelzGoodMan420@eviltoast.org 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Lol this is 100% the truth. Privacy communities are a fucking meme. 99% of posts are just people circlejerking about Firefox vs Brave.

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[–] crispy_kilt@feddit.de 62 points 1 year ago

Lazyness and convenience, as always.

[–] Pantherina@feddit.de 62 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] Damage@feddit.it 25 points 1 year ago (9 children)

I don't understand why it's so popular... It's a fancy IRC that's centralized by a single company

[–] amju_wolf@pawb.social 29 points 1 year ago

Because it has significantly more features than IRC and it's dead simple to spin up your own "server" where you aren't beholden much to "admins" or whatever.

[–] DrQuint@lemm.ee 23 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

fancy IRC

IRC was already "caveman playing with sticks and pebbles" a decade before discord became a thing. It's really not a good point of comparison and questioning.

Discord became popular for one simple reason: anyone could make a server, share it with a crossplatform link, and others could then try out that link without installing anything. In other words, it became popular because it literally copied Slack and because the Skype era was atrociously bad customization and ease of use-wise compared to the preceding.

[–] zeekaran@sopuli.xyz 11 points 1 year ago

If you legitimately don't understand why it's popular, you are seriously out of touch.

[–] rbits@lemm.ee 8 points 1 year ago (6 children)
  • Better moderation tools
  • Easier to do voice/video channels
  • Easy to create your own server
  • Huge amount of useful bots created by the community
  • Features like replies, threads, onboarding screens, and custom emotes

Don't get me wrong, I wish that we could use a FOSS platform instead of Discord, but 1: people are already using Discord and it's hard to get everyone to switch platform, and 2: there is no comparable alternative right now

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[–] gasull@lemmy.ml 57 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Most cryptocurrency communities use Discord or Telegram. It's such an embarrasment.

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[–] library_napper@monyet.cc 45 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Thank you! It's basically impossible to use discord anonymously

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[–] sxan@midwest.social 28 points 1 year ago

I've used the Discord bridge before; it works pretty well, and allows Matrix users to practice better (identity & tracking) privacy if they want. There is none, in Discord.

It does require (a) the Discord community admin to allow the bridge, and (b) some playing with configuration of the bridge to get banning working.

The biggest issue with Matrix is how privacy-respecting it is. Any public forum with anonymous account creation is subject to spam bots, and requires more work by admins. The biggest complaint about the bridge, and why so many Discord admins do not allow it, is because it greatly increases the spam they have to deal with. Kicking and blocking do work fine through the bridge, but it's still a distraction requiring constant vigilance.

Matrix needs better admin tools (where have we heard that before?) Mjolnir is good, but the freely hosted instance was shut down a year or so ago, so it's not available to casual users. And taking on running a service just for a community bridge is a silly requirement.

My points are, that it's not an either-or, but that it requires work. It's a question of commitment, not possibility. c/privacy could have a Matrix-first, privacy-friendly approach and still offer Discord for privacy casuals; it's just harder.

[–] Neps@lemmy.blahaj.zone 25 points 1 year ago

People who dislike discord and want a good alternative besides matrix should check out revolt.chat <3

[–] 1984@lemmy.today 21 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Because conversations about increasing privacy doesn't need to be private. It's usually about learning about other tools and that they exist.

[–] Omniraptor@lemm.ee 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This only makes sense if discord is a common entry point into the community which seems unlikely to me

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[–] hiramfromthechi@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] DefinitelyNotAPenguin@kbin.run 17 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I really don't understand why people say this, I find is very easy to navigate and use.

[–] clmbmb@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You must be a monster. To me it's very chaotic and hass too many shit going on.

[–] DefinitelyNotAPenguin@kbin.run 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Again, I just don't understand what you mean by this, there's a list of servers, you click one and get a list of channels in that server, click one of those and you've got a classic chatroom.

What is it you find chaotic?

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[–] ngn@lemy.lol 18 points 1 year ago

"discussing privacy on discord" that should be a joke anyways i created privacy@conference.jabbers.one so join if you want

[–] Gargari@lemmy.ml 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I guess people just prefer and are more active on Discord

[–] noodlejetski@lemm.ee 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)

"I guess people just prefer and are more active on Facebook Messenger"

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[–] azenyr@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (8 children)

Because privacy and convenience are two extreme opposites and you can only go so far in the privacy direction before you start losing everything. Discord just works a million times better as a public forum/community than Matrix and is much more easily accessible to everyone.

There is a limit. I am privacy conscious but I still use all Google Services for example, because they actually provide me with a better web, work, mobile and entertainment experiences. Similarly, I prefer Discord for big communities with channels, server bots and topics, over Matrix.

Edit: all those people saying we can't be privacy conscious and use Google Services at the same time: yes you can. Their services literally make my life better so I will keep using them, but I keep what I share with them to the absolute minimum. I go into their settings and disable everything I can about tracking and ads personalization (even if they still track me, I do my best not to be). You can surely still be privacy conscious using non-private products. Being extremist is not how you convince average joes to think about privacy, nor by telling them to give up all they use for unknown (for them) alternatives.

[–] jackalope@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 year ago (11 children)

Matrix is pretty convenient. They've got a great mobile and web app experience.

What exactly does discord have that mateix doesn't? They both have threading, replies, reacts, etc.

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[–] FeelzGoodMan420@eviltoast.org 13 points 1 year ago

Because this community (along with all privacy subreddits/communities) are a fucking meme.

[–] trippingonthewire@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 year ago (12 children)

Wanna go crazy? Use SimpleXchat

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