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Today I discovered that the social medium Nostr is mirroring my Mastodon profile via a mirroring server called mostr.pub.
I looked up a few other Mastodon profiles. They are mirrored too.
I never chose to be on Nostr, but my complete Mastodon profile and a number of posts are there.
I wonder what the legality of that is.
You can choose to block the `mostr.pub` domain. If/when you block your referenced account you should be able to choose to block the entire domain. That should stop them from following you.
If they can't follow you they shouldn't be able to mirror your posts.
@randahl
Assume it’s step 1 of a social media attack. It needs shutting down.
It’s quiet to grow followers and when they need to put words in your mouth they will.
Kill it ASAP. File notices and direct your audience to a complaints form on that server, give out the admin contact.
Kill it. Your voice is your weapon. Don’t let them wield it with a deep fake one day.
@randahl I’m not sure whether it’s legal, illegal, or in the gray zone. It’s not unprecedented, though. Nitter sites do the same thing with public X posts.
@randahl Nostr is endorsed by Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter.
@randahl
I've noticed it too although I don't remember how I discovered it : my Fediaccount is mirrored on Nostr.
Since anyone can find online any Fediverse's profile or post without being connected to the Fediverse, I don't think it may be legally questionable.
@randahl That's sketchy.
@randahl If your YouTube channel becomes popular you'll see rip-off versions with an AI generated clone of yourself. You'd be joining Joe Stiglitz, Jeffrey Sachs (economists), Rick Wilson (Lincoln Project, political commentator) and many others. The tell, if it appears (doesn't always), is the words "Synthetic content". The aim is monetization at creator's expense.
Could be argued re-sharing original publicly posted content without any monetization is beneficial to you, if not to Mastodon.
@randahl Sounds unethical.
The site doesn't access your account until someone searches for it, and even then it's out of date until your search forces it to catch up.
It's not a problem if your Fediverse account is open for searching, as that's your choice. They're not breaking any rules.
@PeterLG I am no Nostr expert, but it looks to me as if they are creating a copy account that looks like me. So other users of Nostr could get the false impression that I was a Nostr user. If that is the case, I think that is a problem.
Not a copy, a reference, thus the inclusion of your instance's domain in the "username".
It's a bridge. There's nobody on there posting messages or replying to them in your name. Think of it as a visible version of the bridge between BlueSky and Mastodon. A halfway house, of you will.
@randahl not legal.
Someone getting your posts if you don't lock them is one thing.
Someone's impersonation is other and not legal.
@randahl Why do you see this as different than, say, another Mastodon server? For example, your profile is available here https://theatl.social/@randahl@mastodon.social and here https://pnw.zone/@randahl@mastodon.social (I just picked two random servers from the mastodon website).
But it doesn’t have to be Mastodon. Anything in the Fediverse can display your information and profile.
Why do you feel there is a legal issue with this? It’s only your content. They’re not impersonating you.
@teotwaki Nostr is not Fediverse.
@randahl Why not? It is ActivityPub-compatible. Why is that outside of Fedi?
@teotwaki I read it is a different protocol, but I only discovered Nostr today, so I am no expert.
@randahl I don’t know Nostr, but the screenshot you shared had an ActivityPub symbol next to your name or post.
ActivityPub is the foundation of the Fediverse. Anyone can implement the Fediverse protocol, and subscribe to you, receive updates from your account, etc. I’ve implemented ActivityPub a few times.
Are they a good Fedi citizen? I can’t say. Are they just feeding off the content produced here? Maybe.
@randahl It's why I have a license in my bio. Kinda.
In federated protocols, you cannot avoid copies. You can only give people guidelines on how to handle them.
Mine is there too. I wonder if it's not hosting the information but just presenting it through a different UI like xcancel does with twitter? If I go to the mostr page for my profile and right click my profile or header image, it's being served from my domain.
@sam the weird thing is, it has only mirrored my posts up until three months ago.
@randahl Well, that sucks.
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