I’ve just recently moved to Lemmy, and so far I’m enjoying it quite a bit. However, I’ve been thinking about the privacy issues whe DMing someone here.
Since this is a federated service, when you DM someone you have to trust both your server’s admin, as well as the recipient’s. Not that I particularly trusted reddit, but at least it was 1 corporation with (hopefully) some solid security procedures in place, and potential penalties for data breaches. Whereas in Lemmy, it might just be 2 random guys.
I’ve added an age key to my profile, in the hopes to make people aware of this issue. As well as giving them an option, if they wish to contact me privately.
I know, it’s not user friendly. But it’s the only way I could think of that wouldn’t rely on email + GPG. Does anyone know of a better solution?
EDIT: I also realise that not having signing capabilities might be an issue… So maybe reverting back to good ol’ GPG is a better option?
They also have a place where you can put your Matrix/Element address on your profile. I wish they were more clear for users unfamiliar with it, though. Matrix is the protocol and Element is just one (of many) applications for using the Matrix protocol for chat.
However, I definitely agree with their decision to direct people to Matrix.
Matrix has a similar problem, but when you run your own instance, very little data is leaked out to other instances.