https://techcrunch.com/2023/07/14/meta-is-blocking-eu-based-users-from-accessing-threads-via-vpn/
After multiple EU-based users complained about not being able to access Threads app through VPN, Meta confirmed it is blocking such efforts.
It’s been out for less than ten days and it already has more than 35x the number of total users as Mastodon. It might not be for us, but saying that no one would want to use it is just sour grapes.
It’s the volume of person data it scoops up. I don’t understand why anyone would happily share that much information just to use a social media app.
Unless you're willing to put in a decent amount of work, your giving someone your data. So people have gotten very 'whatever who cares' about it. Full time working people with kids aren't taking time to research. And people want to interact. If everyone is doing it, they're not going to miss out.
We have long answered the question "if your friends jumped off a bridge would you do it too?" There is a large percent who absolutely would.
This link has a decent comparison of a lot of social media sites' privacy policies.
For point one my parents don’t even bother to read error messages. They just close them then phone me and complain the computer is broken.
I also don’t use Twitter and haven’t for many years now. Even longer for Facebook.
While we on here makes it look like there are a ton of people who value their privacy on the internet, the general population by large isn't really aware how bad it is or have the know how to do something about it. The rest who do know don't really care that much.
I've pretty quickly concluded that sour grapes are in no short supply here.
That so many people genuinely cannot fathom the concept that many people actually like social media - and may even be aware of the privacy cost and find it acceptable - really speaks more about how out-of-touch a lot of people here are than anything else.
It seems like a more extreme version of the weird elitism around social media that was always present on Reddit.
I have also come to this conclusion. You are very accurate in your statement about how many are out of touch here
The numbers are highly skewed because of the launch. A number of users are being paid to create content during the launch. A lot of the users are just checking out the hype. Some will stay, many won't.
The numbers won't really be useful or comparable until the dust settles. I give it a month.
Shadow profiles for a social media that require use through a mobile app that requires a bunch of permissions? I guess Windows and the Android app installation might be way around it. But, feel like even using just a random account on a phone exposes so much. Even tiktok you can sign up and use through just a browser or lurk without an account.
Because everyone else is there, that's how it works. People don't give a rat's ass about privacy, they just want to be where their friends are.
Why shouldn't it? They are interested in personal data, not some fabricated online personalities.
Let it be the perfect counterargument to every moron who says "I'm not that important". Yes, you are. If you weren't, the Big Tech wouldn't go to such length to acquire all the data about you, they can put their sweaty palms on.
You are human, and therefore data. Anything helps them train AI and use you for marketing data.
Which has to mean that they're blocking everyone from accessing Threads via VPN, since they can't tell where the real source is beyond the VPN exit server.
Authoritarian regimes like China do this, too, unsuccessfully.
Of course they are blocking VPNs, but using one to access Meta is more effort than it's worth.
How are they doing this though? They just black list any traffic coming from all VPNs they know about?
What if someone in the US were to use a VPN?
Or are they getting location data from the phone itself?
Meta has exposure to enough of the internet that I'm sure they can identify VPNs relatively accurately. If you see activity coming from a single IP associated with users that you know to be located all over the world, you can draw conclusions pretty fast.
It's an app. Maybe it requires GPS access so they can track that data point. VPN says USA, GPS says Germany, they block access.
I find this very hilarious after seeing so many people make threads accs and posting them to their stories on insta when you can't even use the app. And I kept thinking about the mountaons of data their collecting.
It wasn't even launched in the entirety of EU and the Republic of Ireland at all, because of GDPR concerns, but then, the Digital Markets Act also chimed in.