About Matrix Matrix is an open protocol for decentralised, secure communications.
Matrix Manifesto We believe:
People should have full control over their own communication. People should not be locked into centralised communication silos, but instead be free to pick who they choose to host their communication without limiting who they can reach. The ability to converse securely and privately is a basic human right. Communication should be available to everyone as a free and open, unencumbered, standard and global network.
people should always think that everything they post on the internet can be searchable and viewable by anyone, it is public information
Exactly. Drives me a little crazy seeing all these posts and comments about how the Fediverse has poor privacy. It’s a public forum people, you should be considering everything you say here to be freely accessible information. At no point did anyone promise that your posts and comments would not be available to someone outside the service.
A lot of it is making sure people actually understand that.
Because people GLADLY say their deepest darkest secrets in twitter DMs and facebook chat and the like. But with fediverse stuff? It isn’t even the hope that you don’t matter enough for a large corporation to care (although, tesla has demonstrated that they’ll just search for the juicy clips to share around the office…). People don’t realize that it is the proverbial “Guy in his Parents’ Basement” who has all that access. And depending on how large your instance is, that could very well be a human readable amount of data.
Which is why I compare it to cryptocurrency. Everyone insisted bitcoin was super secure and blah blah blah. And… the reality is that you don’t even need a warrant or to scream “terrorism” to get access to transaction records for the entire planet. There are ways you can try to obfuscate your records, but they also tend to make you stand out.
At the end of the day: Everyone should act like there is a big burly FBI agent behind them at all times. But most people don’t, and it is worth reminding them of just who IS standing behind them.