Opting for privacy in webmentions
Opting for privacy in webmentions
07 Jul 2026
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Last week I went full speed into setting up webmentions on my site. My implementation works around using webmention.io in my site's `<head>` and Bridgy for sending me webmentions for comments, likes and reposts on my posts that I share.
Ideally I would like to self-host my webmentions endpoint so I am not relying on another service but I haven't found a suitable replacement yet. Maybe I should just self-host webmentions.io as it is open source.
While looking for alternatives I came across this post The Indieweb privacy challenge (Webmentions, silo backfeeds, and the GDPR) by Sebastian Greger. He makes an excellent point when it comes to "silo backfeeds" which in this case is talking about sending webmentions from the Fediverse and Bluesky.
My webmention implementation involved showing names and avatars for all the people who liked, reposted or commented on my content including those from the Fediverse.
When someone likes or comments on a post on another platform, they aren't necessarily expecting for their name and profile picture to appear elsewhere. When someone interacts with a post it isn't them giving consent to have their name and image shown on my site.
Not all webmentions come from Brid.gy, others are sent directly to me from another website that also supports webmentions. This is where I believe you can say consent has been given.
This isn't me pulling information from elsewhere and sending it to my website. This is them choosing to send me a webmention to let me know they have mentioned me or commented on one of my posts.
I still however like to show when people have interacted with my site or continued the conversation on elsewhere.
So I have implemented a compromise.
For likes and reposts I now just show the count received no matter the source. Comments from the Fediverse are just shown as counts with a link back to my parent post.
Only when I receive a reply or a mention from another website that supports microformats, is it shown on my website.
I think this reaches the right balance between maintaining peoples privacy and still having that social aspect that makes the indie web so great.
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Linked mentions (1)
- Reducing my screen time with another device...HabitTed and the dangers of using AI to code for you. This video isn't public yet on YouTube so you get to view it slightly earlier. Article - Opting for privacy in webmentions \- Last time I wrote about setting up webmentions on my website. I have now tweaked them a little to make them
- Published 2026-07-07
- Permalink <https://www.alexhyett.com/opting-for-privacy-in-webmentions/> <https://www.alexhyett.com/opting-for-privacy-in-webmentions/>
- Naty S https://burgeonlab.com/weeknotes/2026/w31/
- <https://www.thefulcrum.dev/the-programmers-fulcrum-10-july-2026/>
🔗 Related posts
1. Setting up Webmentions on my Static Site 💬I go through how webmentions are set up on my static site to make might site a bit more social... 05 Jul 2026 2. Getting back into bloggingIt has been a while since I have sat down and wrote a blog post that is not directly related to programming or self-hosting.... 24 Jun 2026
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