#permission — Public Fediverse posts

@Julian Fietkau I'm surprised to read that (streams) allegedly has FEP-e232 implemented. As I happen to have two (streams) channels myself, and as (streams) allows me to have a look at the whole source code of any activity (whereas Hubzilla only shows me that of the content), I've checked a fairly recent post of mine that includes a link. And while it does define the hashtags just like Mastodon and Hubzilla, it does not define links in a way that conforms to FEP-e232. Either that, or (streams)' implementation of FEP-e232 is newer than the software was when I sent that post.



Next, I wanted to see if (streams) had its way of quote-posting changed in the last seven years or so of development and forking. I expected it to quote-post like Hubzilla, namely by turning a BBcode short code into a dumb copy of the original upon sending, but I wanted to see proof. As (streams) is a fork of a fork of three forks of a fork (of a fork) of Hubzilla that's still maintained by Hubzilla's own creator, I would have been surprised if he had changed the way (streams) quote-posts at some point on the way.

So I quote-posted my own post on (streams) just to see what happens. And (streams) acted exactly like Hubzilla and not at all like described in FEP-044f on the surface. It still inserts a dumb copy.

Good thing I have access to the full source code of any message on (streams). So here's what happened, namely what I expected to happen: (streams) quote-posts like Hubzilla.

First of all, when I clicked the "Share" button, this short code was inserted into the post editor:

[share⁠=1198713][/share]

The number, by the way, is the running number of the message to quote-post on the server.

Upon sending the post, (streams) automatically "expanded" the short code into the dumb copy I had expected.

[⁠share author='Jupiter+Rowland' profile='https://hub.netzgemeinde.eu/channel/jupiter_rowland' portable_id='_moYLN61-o3FbP3jyThygMDf-bjF2cApXgkrwlAE77iKy19xM1_6F06V4b71eTkqqNaTUjGiN0lfw2dyn5nXRw' avatar='https://streams.elsmussols.net/xp/6b50efa4bb804860f6128bba791b74fab4a0a5e09dbcbee8d8ca77cee00f0330-6' link='https://hub.netzgemeinde.eu/item/0a1cdda5-eb1c-4a33-9574-ddd896977b4f' auth='true' posted='2025-09-21 19:42:56' message_id='https://hub.netzgemeinde.eu/item/0a1cdda5-eb1c-4a33-9574-ddd896977b4f'] ...(the source code of the original message goes here)... [/share]

Both Hubzilla and (streams) render this the same way, namely with a header line above the copy that includes the profile picture of the original author, the name of the original author with a Zot/Nomad-type link to their channel/account and a Zot/Nomad-type link to the original of the post ("Zot/Nomad-type" means that [zrl][/zrl] is used rather than [url][/url] which means that the ID of an observer on Hubzilla/(streams)/Forte is attached to the link for OpenWebAuth identity recognition purposes.)

At the same time, curiously, (streams) includes the line "rel": "https://misskey-hub.net/ns#_misskey_quote" and a line that starts with "name": "RE: and continues with the URL of the original message into the code for the link to the original message. The latter is identical to what Misskey and all Forkeys have in quote-posting notes in plain sight, only that (streams) only reveals it in the source code rather than in the content as well.

So this part of FEP-044f is implemented, albeit concealed from most people and only happening in the code.



Now, looking at the quote policy part, that looks like it could be possible to add to the Fediverse's permission champions Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte. After all, they already have comment controls with no FEP backing it (and if GoToSocial's quote policy can be made into an FEP, maybe so can (streams)' and Forte's comment controls so that they actually do blank out reply buttons on the farther ends of the Fediverse if the software on the farther ends implement support for that FEP).

This could be done at three levels again. I'll illustrate this with (streams) and Forte because they're quite a bit less complex than older Hubzilla.

At channel level, quote-posting (and maybe quoting as well) could be set as usually, namely to semi-public (= everyone in the Fediverse = no quote policy), restricted (= only your contacts) and only yourself. (Seriously, you don't want random passersby with no accounts to quote-post you. Even though you can allow them to comment on your posts if you dare.)

"Only yourself" could be overridden at contact level by permitting certain contacts to quote-post (and maybe quote) your messages. This is actually standard behaviour on (streams) and Forte.

And then there is the per-post level which would be similar to (streams)' and Forte's comment controls. These allow you to limit who may comment on a post to only your contacts and those who have already participated in the same conversation, and they allow you to turn off comments altogether.

Quote authorisation would not be much different in handling from manually moderating comments from those who technically aren't permitted to comment (only that spammers don't quote-post, at least not yet, and they probably never will because that simply makes no sense). So that'd be nothing really new.

Of course, this would have some limitations which come from how Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte work and from their conversation architecture.

The first limitation is that you could only give certain contacts permission to quote-post your posts if you didn't give it to the whole Fediverse. Channel-wide permissions are always inherited by contact-specific permissions, and this cannot be overridden. So you couldn't generally allow everyone to quote-post your posts except for one certain contact of yours.

The second limitation is that you can only control the permissions of contacts, but not of non-contacts. So you can't disallow some stranger whom you aren't connected to to quote-post your posts while everyone else is allowed.

Then again, FEP-044f doesn't make either of these two possible either. It can only define who is permitted to quote-post a post, not who isn't.

The third limitation is that, on Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte, comments always have the same permissions as the post that they belong to because comments always have the same owner as the post that they belong to. Basically, if FEP-044f was to be defined for each comment individually, it would have a chance of clashing with conversation containers as per FEP-171b.

Here on Hubzilla, as well as from (streams)' point of view, everyone's comments in this thread are owned by me because I've started the thread. And the permissions on all these comments are defined by my post. I've seen my share of permission clashes whenever someone on Mastodon replied to a public post or a public comment with a DM, and Hubzilla overrode this by forcing the permissions of the post on that reply.

In practice, this means that the quote policies of all comments would be the same as that of the post. At least that's how Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte would understand them because the concept of comments having different permissions than the post is alien to them. So if you say that I'm not permitted to quote-post your comment, but I say that anyone can quote-post my post, Hubzilla and (streams) override the quote policy that you've given your comment on Mastodon with the quote policy that I've given my post on Hubzilla, and I can quote-post you.

So the actually difficult part would be to implement an exception in how Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte handle comment permissions for quote policies and make them individual for each comment rather than making comments inherit them from the post.

Well, and lastly, if you permitted all your contacts to quote-post a post of yours, and you had a few more contacts, the "canQuote" section would end up monstrous. (A bit less so if you could cherry-pick those who are allowed to quote-post you on a per-post base, just like you can cherry-pick those who are allowed to see the post in the first place.) Also, I'm wondering just how well policies as per FEP-044f (and their implementations in various server applications) will work with DIDs as per FEP-ef61 which (streams) and Forte use, and I guess, so does Mitra now.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Misskey #Forkey #Forkeys #GoToSocial #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte #Mitra #QuotePost #QuotePosts #QuoteTweet #QuoteTweets #QuoteToot #QuoteToots #QuoteBoost #QuoteBoosts #QuotedShares #Permission #Permissions #FEP_044f #FEP_171b #FEP_e232 #FEP_ef61

@Jörgi It does work Fediverse-wide, i.e. as a Hubzilla user, I can send posts and other content specifically to those in a certain privacy group (= Mastodon list on coke and 'roids from before there was even Mastodon), regardless of where they are. They could be on Hubzilla, on Friendica, on Mastodon, on Misskey, on Pixelfed, doesn't matter.

But there is one limitation.

Most Fediverse server software out there will understand anything coming from Hubzilla with limited permissions as a one-on-one DM. This means that in a thread with limited permissions, e.g. Mastodon users will only be able to discuss with the thread starter, but not with the others who were granted permission to receive the start post.

If I have a privacy group with Alice and Bob in it, and both are on Mastodon, and I send a post to only this privacy group, Alice and Bob will both receive the post as a DM. They will only be able to have a conversation with me. Alice won't know that Bob got the post, Bob won't know that Alice got the post, and Alice and Bob will not be able to converse with each other within this conversation thread.

It's only Hubzilla and its still existing descendants, (streams) and Forte, that fully understand this special permission setting because they have a permission system that's very similar to Hubzilla's whereas Mastodon & Co. don't have any permission system to begin with.

So if Alice is on Hubzilla, and Bob is on (streams), and one of them replies to me, the other one can and will see that reply and will be able to interact with that reply. Like, Alice can reply to me, Bob can reply to Alice, and absolutely nobody else in the Fediverse will see my post or Alice's reply or Bob's reply.

By the way: (streams) and Forte literally have "privacy by default". While privacy groups are an optional, off-by-default feature on Hubzilla, access lists (practically the same) are part of the core on (streams) and Forte. And all your posts go to an access list named "Friends" by default unless you go and configure your channel to post in public by default. Conveniently, all your new connections are automatically added to the "Friends" access list by default.

Is it part of the protocol? That's where it should be defined

For the longest time, namely until last August, it wasn't available on ActivityPub-based software at all. For Hubzilla itself is not based on ActivityPub.

It was first implemented in an early "pre-cursor" version of Hubzilla from 2012 that was built on a protocol specifically designed by Hubzilla's creator for a) privacy by design and, especially, b) resilience against server shutdown. That was five years before ActivityPub was first shown and six years before it became a standard. The protocol was (originally) named Zot, and Hubzilla is still based on Zot6 with ActivityPub being supported via an optional add-on that's on by default for servers, but off by default for new channels. (By the way, Hubzilla was the first software to ever implement ActivityPub.)

There's also (streams) from October, 2021, a fork of a fork of three forks of a fork (of a fork?) of Hubzilla by Hubzilla's own creator which is based on what's actually a newer version of Zot, but which has advanced so much that it's incompatible with Hubzilla's Zot6, so it's named Nomad now. (streams) has Nomad as its base protocol, it also supports Zot6, and it optionally supports ActivityPub, only that ActivityPub is built into the core now and always on by default.

ActivityPub-based software with this permission system did not exist until August, 2024 when the self-same creator forked the streams repository into something new named Forte, ripped out any and all support for protocols that aren't ActivityPub and ported all of (streams)' features to ActivityPub.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte #Permission #Permissions #PrivacyGroups #AccessLists #Privacy #PrivacyByDesign #PrivacyByDefault