Cam PeggChris posted a follow up to his earlier thoughts on webmentions, which also touches on some of the concepts Ryan outlines in Moderate people, not code.
I agree with the idea that a large part of the privacy problem outlined in the conversations over the last couple of days is how site owners treat the information that is transmitted via webmentions, not webmentions themselves. Add to that the disconnect between other peoples’ expectations around where their words will appear (and often a misunderstanding of how the underlying technologies that they’re using work), and you get all sorts of opportunities for unexpected outcomes and unpleasant surprises.
It all comes back to a pretty simple premise, which Chris outlines pretty succinctly:
By all means send and receive webmentions. Even backfeed interactions onto your site. Just be mindful of how you do it and whether displaying all the data you receive is the best thing to do.
(As an aside, I think “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should” is a pretty good rule of thumb for life in general, not just websites.)