this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2023
449 points (96.3% liked)

Privacy

39644 readers
280 users here now

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.

Some Rules

Related communities

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

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?

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] krolden@lemmy.ml 94 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Because privacy communities are a joke.

[–] mojo@lemm.ee 50 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (4 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 16 points 2 years 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 8 points 2 years 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.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] evranch@lemmy.ca 6 points 2 years ago

Reminds me of what happened to the pipe tobacco sub after Reddit banned trading of tobacco.

What had been a thriving sub of trading, sharing, well written reviews and friendly discussion quickly became stagnant and started leaning towards people showing off their expensive pipes and tobacco orders. Without the people who came for the trading and stayed to chat, the sub became boring quickly.

[–] MiddledAgedGuy@beehaw.org 11 points 2 years 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.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] FeelzGoodMan420@eviltoast.org 8 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years 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.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Pantherina@feddit.de 63 points 2 years ago (1 children)
[–] Damage@feddit.it 24 points 2 years 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 25 points 2 years 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 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years 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.

[–] folkrav@lemmy.world 11 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Every time I see Slack/Discord et Al. described as such, I wonder if any of these people actually used any of those. By use, I mean actually try out its features, not just treating it as IRC ("just" channels, messages and DMs for text convos).

I hate Discord with a passion, but pretending like it's just "fancy IRC" is IMHO pretty absurd.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] zeekaran@sopuli.xyz 10 points 2 years ago

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

[–] rbits@lemm.ee 8 points 2 years 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

load more comments (6 replies)
load more comments (4 replies)
[–] gasull@lemmy.ml 62 points 2 years ago (4 children)

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

[–] hiramfromthechi@lemmy.world 20 points 2 years ago (3 children)

I've never understood this either, given the whole notion and enthusiasm behind decentralization. I get the trade-offs regarding privacy, security, and convenience, but if you're really tryna start a movement, and you really believe in the concept and principles of something like cryptocurrency, it seems like your communities and communication channels should also reflect similar values.

[–] Chunk@lemmy.world 23 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Crypto enthusiasts don't really care or understand decentralization. If you talk to crypto bros you will realize pretty quickly that a lot of them are very very low IQ morons.

I was at an event and met a crypto bro. He tried to explain to a group of us that btc is like moss and the world is the forest. A couple people legitimately "got it" and began to get excited about crypto.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] seliaste@lemmy.blahaj.zone 12 points 2 years ago

And that's where you realize that them defending decentralization is just trying to have a nice-sounding argument instead of assuming their dreams of getting rich with new tech

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] crispy_kilt@feddit.de 53 points 2 years ago

Lazyness and convenience, as always.

[–] library_napper@monyet.cc 48 points 2 years ago (2 children)

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

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] sxan@midwest.social 29 points 2 years 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 2 years ago

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

[–] Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 23 points 2 years ago (1 children)

A majority stake of Discord is owned by Tencent, which is a Chinese data collection company required by law to pass personal user information to the CCP. Discord runs on an unencrypted network.

I'm just stating some facts. Make your own judgement call.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] 1984@lemmy.today 23 points 2 years 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 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

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

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] hiramfromthechi@lemmy.world 20 points 2 years ago (2 children)
[–] DefinitelyNotAPenguin@kbin.run 14 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years 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 2 years ago (1 children)

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

[–] DefinitelyNotAPenguin@kbin.run 11 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years 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?

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] ngn@lemy.lol 17 points 2 years ago

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

[–] azenyr@lemmy.world 16 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (7 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 9 points 2 years ago (5 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.

[–] ngn@lemy.lol 7 points 2 years ago

i dont think anyone using google services is "privacy conscious"

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] FeelzGoodMan420@eviltoast.org 14 points 2 years ago

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

[–] doublejay1999@lemmy.world 9 points 2 years ago

Some shocking answers here 🤷‍♂️

[–] trippingonthewire@lemmy.ml 9 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Wanna go crazy? Use SimpleXchat

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›