this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2025
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In what way is mastodon privacy focused?
Well, the flyer originated here: https://old.reddit.com/r/BuyFromEU/comments/1jcr8ks/here_is_the_new_and_improved_guide_to_help_you/ but mastodon stands out as it has no commercial driver. There aren't any ad-services profiling you, so that is a big win for your privacy.
Yeah, but all your data is public, everyone can see it
Your data isn't limited to your toots though.
Mastodon isn't profiling your clicks, how long you spend reading each post, your DMs, your geolocation, your IP, stealing the addressbook from your phone, forcing you to use the app to steal more data, checking what other apps you have installed, track you around all the internet, and all the other toxic profiling bullshit that big tech social media does to beef up your advertisement profile.
You can set a deletion time and hope that every client comply with that :-)
There is a way of knowing that. You can choose from a variety of open source apps that just don't contain tracking code.
No stealing your address book, no logging your GPS position, no snooping on your list of installed apps, no profiling your scrolling speed and which post you spend more seconds reading.
For the server part, the upstream code io open source and has no ad-trackers of that kind. Since you get to pick your instance you have a chance of hopefully going with one you trust not to have added them in afterwards.
focused is not a good word for it but i do think it's fair to say that not actively milking you for data is caring about privacy these days.
To quote James Hetfield...
Sad but true.