New to fediverse. Joined mostly because reddit has been annoying me for a while for it's algorithm use and general admin stuff. Joining piefed was still a big leap since I have some interest in privacy and security on the internet and joining anonymous server felt a bit suss. Some stranger somewhere would have my email and be able to monitor everything I do and say.
Now, of course reddit does the same and I had no problem (well a little problem) with it. They not only have the data, but they also use it to advertise to me and most definitely sell the data forward. Still, there is a difference on a company with a public leadership whose names are known, and who have to follow laws and mark down their privacy notice publicly. If a server admin gets funny with the data, I'm shit out of luck.
Well I joined so obviously I accepted the trade of but came here to see what others thought. Surprised there was not a discussion about this already.
The big difference is:
On the Fediverse, some random person now has your email and IP address (if you use neither an disposable email nor a VPN). This person has no special access to any other data, meaning that outside of legal proceedings with courts involved (or your email address being publicly connected to your identity), they do not have the ability to even find out who you are.
On corporate Social Media, the people who got your email and IP have a lot more resources to build a comprehensive model of your behavior and psychology, use intensive profiling regarding your devices, and have money to buy datasets for finetuning their knowledge, then sell off access to your eyeballs to the highest bidder, while all the time making sure to keep you engaged with whatever tricks they can play on you.
None of the real-life consequences of using corporate social media have even the slightest chance of also being an issue on the Fediverse. The servers aren't even really interesting targets for Cyberattacks, because the best you get is a handful (if we are not talking lemmy.world, mostly somewhere sub-500) email addresses.