Surveillance? In what sense, here in particular. A bit confused. Also, it depends on the kind of private instance you mean, since this is private too, in the sense you cannot make accounts on it. What other benefit do they gain over people, using this over a corporate website?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It looks like a state government was creating their own mastodon instance which, when plugged into the rest, would give them surveillance and digital wire tapping powers that today they do not have?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Again, what can they tap or see into that they couldn't before? All info on the other servers is public, that would be true for any federated server. I really don't get how they'd get any more access to your data than another random person on the internet seeing your profile. They're not making their own instance available to make accounts on, or enable users to post on it directly. You aren't giving them any more details than you would if you had a Twitter account that was public. It is quite literally just for official government information dissemination without being locked behind rate limits.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

What exactly do you think they'll be able to do now?

They can see pretty much all the things without an instance. So can you. Social media is not private.