[xena]

I have mixed feelings about this as someone that creates a bunch of content across different platforms. I intentionally spread it out across platforms as different platforms have different groups of people that follow me and engage with things differently. This is a nice idea but feels like it could be used for stalking. It would be nice if there was an explicit opt-in for creators having their feeds associated here instead of them being aggregated somehow and put there through some heuristic.

[optymizer]

Thinking about the strategy you outlined: wouldn't a real stalker, by definition, put in the extra effort to seek you out on all the various platforms, whereas a normal user wouldn't?

You're effectively decreasing the chances of your users finding more of your content, without actually mitigating stalking activity, which sounds like a net loss for you.

[hintop]

If you want to keep your identities separate, then use different identities (hopefully Alias will not dox you). If you want people to have to manually find your different public profiles and not use a tool to do so, that sounds unreasonable.

[iMuzz]

Appreciate the feedback here /u/xena —

> This is a nice idea but feels like it could be used for stalking.

So we make sure to only aggregate publicly available information that the creator released and never include pieces about them or from someone else. We also make sure not to aggregate any gated/paywalled content.

The problem with having every creator opt-in is that that we'd never be able to launch the profiles because there are so many creators. But maybe we could have an opt-out? We actually have the ability for creators to claim their profiles as well and make changes/edits. So in theory, a creator that doesn't want to be indexed could hide all the content on their profile.

Does that address the concern? open to any other ideas you might have!

[austinjp]

> The problem with having every creator opt-in is that that we'd never be able to launch the profiles

So... I feel that's a somewhat disingenuous perspective. You've created a problem for others (e.g. xena's concern that their deliberate efforts to distribute their output and mitigate stalking) while suggesting that your need to "launch" is more important.

I see that you've asked for suggestions for alternative models, but did you consider asking this before launching?

A cynical perspective might be that you're aiming to exploit popular content without the hassle of attracting authors to your platform. Perhaps you want to take on substack while avoiding the hosting responsibility?

You suggest you might deign to allow authors to "opt out". What about the reverse: given the choice, why would they opt in?

Sorry to be so negative, but this really looks like a land-grab. Maybe I'm wrong.

I actually really like the idea of "everything in one place", but an RSS aggregator and some curated social media feeds surely work just as well?

[sneak]

I think most stalking is simply aggregation of totally public data.

As such, I think "stalking" is a bit of an overblown term for it, but it remains the fact that in the common usage one could engage in this so-called "stalking" consuming only publicly available data.

[stevenicr]

Maybe ""stalking" is a bit of an overblown term for it" as the term for what they are doing..

however when this is done for nefarious purposes it's called doxxing (sp) by some - and that is usually done with the intent to defame and to push others to do other harmful, often offline things, with the combined info.

Which is worst than stalking imho / in most cases.

Luckily it seems that this service is not doxxing everyone on the internet -

I hope it will not have a field where people can enter a name and have it auto-dox people - and there would be some tripwires for when people may add porn stars / onlyfans / cam girls - stuff like that or example.

I guess it could also get nasty if certain (right/left) wing people were combined with ill intent - especially if you could trick the system into adding some things that were not true.

random thoughts, not completed.

I have a semi-old business idea that could use the tech stack this is putting together that would be helpful and easy to monetize - not huge scale like twitter, but certainly could be pop enough to make recurring money without much human hands on.

[jimmySixDOF]

Speaking of doxxing (on a tangent of course, nothing bad going on here I quite like the idea of a customized webcrawler feed as-a-service) , there is some great coverage over on Motherboard about MAID data brokers and PII matching [1] and it's ability to fall in to the wrong hands [2] :

[1] https://www.vice.com/en/article/epnmvz/industry-unmasks-at-s...

[2] https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkbxp8/grindr-location-data-...

[iMuzz]

Well that's a fair point!

We're trying pretty hard to not come off as professional stalkers while still building something useful :)

[spoonjim]

> The problem with having every creator opt-in is that that we'd never be able to launch the profiles because there are so many creators.

This is only a “problem” if you take “this service should exist” as axiomatic.