The Indieweb privacy challenge (Webmentions, silo backfeeds, and the GDPR) // Sebastian Greger →
An excellent, nuanced article about ethical and legal implications regarding the use of Webmentions. Three key points:
- Misrepresentation of meaning
Often seen on Twitter: users explicitly state in their bio that 'likes' are not endorsements but personal bookmarks. Displaying such interaction as a 'like' on a connected blog misrepresents the original intention.
- Opaque processing of personal interactions
Secondly, while a Twitter user technically 'publishes' a message for all world to see as they like or retweet a tweet, the consequence that simply pushing a button within Twitter will result in their profile picture, name and 'endorsement' being displayed on a third-party website may not be understood.
- Taking away control from others
[…] an Indieweb site is at the same time also taking ownership of other peoples' content, expressions and conversations - this comes with responsibilities [ed.: being able to update or delete]. […] When pulling in social silo feedback, this is not necessarily provided for - at least with most current implementations, 'unliking' a tweet later will not reliably remove it from a site with a backfeed. (via @schneyra)