A server is offering public full-text search of our posts

Update: found the opt-out instructions and it's via email: Server opt-out

via https://fedsearch.io/privacy

Also our server-level opt-out will not delete your data, we're each obligated to make a post after the opt-out in order to clear past data

https://fedsearch.io/privacy

Data removal

After opting-out you might want to remove your posts from the search engine. A simple post with the hashtag #RemoveMyContentFromSearchEngines will remove every data linked to your profile from the search engine. Make sure you're opted-out before or you will get indexed again.

This wasn't mentioned in the announcement post, but the site says there is a user-level opt-out via your profile's search engine discoverability setting. With this, there may not be any need for a server-level opt-out

https://fedsearch.io/privacy

@Sam Whited the main concern is safety. Without this indexer, we had the ability to choose which content was discoverable and how it was discoverable by using hashtags. This search is now making posts discoverable by any portion of its content without the consent of the poster.

One of the main drivers of toxic interactions on twitter in my experience was full-text search. People looking for a fight would search on a controversial topic and then insert themselves into your day with negative posts.

Right now, alerts form social.coop make me happy. I don't want to go back to dreading notifications.

However, since making this post I've researched more and they do also offer user-level opt-out, so my stance on a server-level action has softened

Isn't this the same as any other search engine on the internet though? We could already do a search (and not just by hash tags) on any given instance; I guess this makes it a little easier by aggregating a few instances, but a bad actor could just as easily use a search engine with a few keywords ("mastodon <controversial topic>"). And you can still choose what content is discoverable by using Mastodon's various privacy levels (this still can't see your private posts) so I don't really think this makes anything less safe or changes anything in any way.

The proposal is now moot, but I wanted to make the point that just because posts are already searchable in a regular search engine, that doesn't mean that adding a service like Fedisearch wouldn't "change anything in any way". On the contrary: adding fediverse services that shift the culture away from its current mutualistic, consent-based values is a big and consequential change.

Personally, I've opted-out of search engine indexing for my Social Coop profile. The creator's announcement only mentioned server-level opt-outs as an option, so I brought this proposal so that myself and others who wish to be excluded from search results could maintain those wishes. After learning they also had attempted (incompletely) to honor the search engine opt our for individual profiles, I changed my vote

Also, if someone wanted to offer fediverse search that was consensual by only indexing those who had opted-in (like #fedi22), I would be all for it

Haven't you consented by making the post public? I'm all for getting consent, but I don't see how this changes the values in any way.