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How does privacy work on TouchGrass?

Privacy on TouchGrass is not a single promise. It is a set of product choices: audience controls, friends, circles, profile settings, posting surfaces, and plain caveats about what software can and cannot guarantee. TouchGrass helps you choose who a post is for, but it should never claim that private sharing is protected from screenshots, copying, remote-server behavior, or recipient misuse. The goal is safer social software with honest boundaries. Open-web direction and privacy can coexist, but they must be explained separately. Open does not mean everything is public.

Why TouchGrass made this choice

“Privacy” is easy to put in a headline and hard to make real in a product. A social network can promise privacy while still pushing people into public performance, confusing defaults, engagement traps, or settings nobody understands.

TouchGrass treats privacy as a product surface. That means privacy belongs in the places where people make decisions: when they post, when they choose an audience, when they manage friends, when they use circles, and when they decide what belongs on a profile.

This approach also means being honest about limits. A product can reduce accidental exposure. It can make audience choices clearer. It can avoid public scoreboards and addictive feed pressure. But it cannot stop every screenshot, every copied quote, every bad-faith recipient, or every technical edge case in an open-web environment.

TouchGrass is not anti-social media. It is pro-social software. That includes safety, choice, and exit doors without pretending that one privacy label solves everything.

What TouchGrass does today

TouchGrass centers intentional sharing. Public, friends, and circles give posts different audiences. Profiles act more like places worth keeping than disposable feed slots. Posts, longform writing, photos, albums, and recommendations can be shared with more context.

TouchGrass also avoids several mechanics that make privacy harder in practice. There is no algorithmic feed designed to reward oversharing. There is no infinite scroll pushing people into more posting and more consuming. There are no public like counts turning every post into a scoreboard. There is no native video treadmill pulling the product toward maximum watch time.

Privacy also means explaining what happens when a post is not public. Friends and circle posts should be understood as audience-limited, not impossible to leak. That distinction matters. Clear software should reduce confusion without promising the impossible.

TouchGrass is being built with portability and open-web direction. Some work related to federation, ATProto/Atmosphere, Solid, ActivityPods, and private sharing may be shipped, partial, experimental, or planned. Because protocol behavior can affect privacy claims, the feature-status page should always be linked when these topics appear.

Limits and important caveats

Do not say that a non-public post is private from screenshots. It is not. A person who can see something can photograph it, copy it, describe it, or misuse it.

Do not say that remote-server behavior is fully controlled by TouchGrass if a feature involves federation or interoperability. Federated and portable systems need careful wording because data may interact with systems outside one server’s direct control.

Do not treat “open” as the opposite of private. Open-web direction can mean portability, interoperability, public profiles, or exit paths. Privacy is about audience, control, safety boundaries, and expectations. They overlap, but they are not identical.

Do not imply that ATProto/Atmosphere, Solid, ActivityPods, federation, or private-sharing features are all fully shipped. Use the feature-status page for the live state.

FAQ
Is TouchGrass private?

TouchGrass is designed for safer, more intentional sharing. Some posts can be audience-limited to friends or circles, but no social product should claim protection from screenshots, copying, or misuse by recipients.

What does privacy as a product surface mean?

It means privacy appears in the product where people make choices, not only in marketing. Audience selection, friends, circles, profiles, and caveats all matter.

Can TouchGrass be open and still support privacy?

Yes, if the words are kept separate. Open can mean portable and interoperable. Private or audience-limited sharing is about who should see a post and what limits apply.

Does federation change privacy?

It can. Any federated or remote-server behavior needs careful explanation. Check feature status for what is shipped, partial, experimental, or planned.

Why mention the limits so clearly?

Because safer social software should not rely on overpromising. Trust grows when people understand both the controls and the boundaries.

Related TouchGrass pages

Read more about privacy and audience control: /privacy-and-audience-control

Check current feature status: /status/features

See what you can do: /what-you-can-do

Feature status: /status/features