Heads-up for anyone who doesn't want their posts scraped and handed over to an LLM.

[xan@xantronix.social]

@dalias oh hey it's that union buster

[crow@cville.online]

@dalias thanks for the heads up on this, and to mastodon for how easy it was to block the entire alpaca.gold instance.

[drsbaitso@infosec.exchange]

@Lisabet8931 Search for his profile, click the three dots, bottom(ish) option should be "Block Domain" or similar.

[gwozniak@discuss.systems]

@YvanDaSilva @dalias I mean, if he leaves, he will not be missed.

[h3artbl33d@exquisite.social]

@dalias

What a douche. Turns out I have suspended that instance already - from previous fuckery.

[yvandasilva@hachyderm.io]

@gwozniak @dalias this!

[paraw@mathstodon.xyz]

@dalias thanks, but how do we also block anyone who uses their client? I mean, how do we figure out if one does?

[grahamdowns@mastodon.africa]

@dalias Funny, I was just thinking the other day it would be really nice if Mastodon gave me the option of opting IN to have my posts scraped by an LLM.

Because I remember that cool Twitter game a few months ago where you could ask ChatGPT to analyse your Twitter profile and tell you all about yourself, and it was often way off, sometimes on the nose, and always hilarious.

I tried to do that with my Mastodon profile, and it told me sorry, it is unable to access my Mastodon profile because it's been blocked.

[rightsprung@c.im]

@dalias

'tedious bastards' ... wow. because I don't want my timeline - my ideas and efforts - scraped by some automatic machine that feeds them to an LLM.

Thank you for pointing this out. Blocked.

[rightsprung@c.im]

@paraw @dalias

This is a great point.

[sissi@sunbeam.city]

@dalias

"And anyone who uses the app" these dudes will never understand consensual opt-in

Laurie Voss (@seldo@alpaca.gold)

@janl@narrativ.es Me personally, and also anyone who uses the app. It's just a mastodon client, fetching the timeline. It looks like every other mastodon client.

Alpaca.Gold (alpaca.gold)

[lykrast@eldritch.cafe]

@dalias I'm like "well then I'm blocking them" and then when I'm about to I see "account suspended by moderators" thank you local admin

[robchapman@ohai.social]

@dalias Thanks for the info - personal server block activated

[kendricklmao8@hachyderm.io]

@HollieK72 @dalias it is the 3 dots at the top, near his profile photo and header. Just done it myself

[realsiegfried@troet.cafe]

@dalias Is that the end of "safe space Mastodon"?
And does blocking really help?

[maelstrom@app.wafrn.net]

@dalias@hachyderm.io

Blocking the author won't help because it's based on who is using the client. Author said they'd add noindex support, so you can add that flag and your posts should no longer show up.

If your instance doesn't support that, there's also #nobots. Disclaimer: I have not checked the code to see if this has been added yet

#nobots

[sortius@infosec.exchange]

@dalias maybe fediblock the instance, too. It's his instance, after all, so any scrapers are running through it

[slothrop@chaos.social]

@dalias Blocked & reported

[kendricklmao8@hachyderm.io]

@HollieK72 @dalias winner winner chicken dinner!

[dalias@hachyderm.io]

@notyourfanboy "Welcome to the real world, where anyone can rob your house by smashing your windows and climbing inside."

Do you see how deranged that sounds?

We expect people not to do this because it's antisocial, illegal, and wrong. Not because there's some technical measure (which of course is impossible) preventing it.