Node privacy

Your node’s public website and federation behaviour are controlled in Settings. Most options live under Settings → Privacy; turning inbound connections on or off is under Settings → Social.

When you are signed in as the owner, you see the full app—including your home wall with posts from your connections mixed in. That aggregated social wall is only for you while signed in. Visitors on your node’s public site never see connection posts, even when your own posts are public.

The choices below mainly affect visitors who are not logged in and how other nodes interact with yours.

Node privacy (public wall)

Settings → Privacy → Node privacy controls what anonymous visitors see on your node URL.

> Important: Your connections are never shared on your node’s public website. Strangers never browse your connection list or read other people’s posts on your URL. At most they see your profile, optional connect instructions, and—when you allow it—posts you published from this node. Federation still works in the background; this rule is about what your site exposes.

Setting	What visitors see
Anonymous	The login screen only—no profile, no posts, and no “connect to this node” card. Useful if you want a node that is effectively private to you, or you only use federation while signed in.
Private	Your profile and instructions to connect, but no posts on the public site.
Public	Your profile, connect card, and only your published posts—never posts from your connections.

These rules are enforced on the server when someone loads your feed JSON without a session. Federated peers (nodes that already connected and fetch your feed with a verified token) still receive your posts so the network keeps working—they do not get a public “social wall” of your connections on your domain either.

Node style (Posts, Blog, Newsletter)

When Node privacy is Public, Node style appears in the same Privacy panel. It changes how your posts are presented to visitors who are allowed to see them—not who can connect, and not whether connection content appears on your site (it never does).

Style	Meaning
Posts	Default: visitors who may see content get your posts only, shown as a simple public feed on your node—not the signed-in owner wall and never connection posts.
Blog	Same your posts only as Posts, but your HTML page also advertises an RSS feed (`rss.php`) so feed readers and blog-style syndication can subscribe.
Newsletter	Visitors see your profile, but your posts stay hidden until they subscribe with email, confirm via the link in the message, and return with verified access (cookie / access token). Subscribers are stored in `data/newsletter_subscribers.php`. You manage the list from your signed-in node.

Newsletter mode is for “mailing list gate” sites: the profile can look public, but your content is for confirmed subscribers only—still never other nodes’ posts on your URL.

Social privacy (names on comments and reactions)

Settings → Privacy → Social privacy controls whether your name (and related identity on interactions) appears on your posts in the JSON feed others consume.

Setting	Effect
Connections	Only nodes that are your connection or follower (verified federation) see your real name on comments and reaction summaries on your posts.
Public	Anyone who can already see those interactions on the feed sees your name.

You always see full names on your own posts when signed in. When names are hidden from a viewer, the UI shows “A node” instead of a profile link—counts and comment text still appear.

Email privacy (optional)

If you add an email under Settings → Account, it is used for notification emails on your node.

Under Social privacy, Email privacy only matters when social privacy is Connections:

You can choose whether that address is shared with connected nodes (for example digest-style federation features).
When social privacy is Public, your email is never shared with other nodes—the settings UI states this explicitly.

Content copyright (Privacy panel)

Below social privacy, Content copyright toggles affect how the open web treats your site:

Disable all AI bots — blocks common AI crawlers via robots.txt and response headers.
Disable search engine indexing — noindex and broad crawler disallow in robots.txt.
Strip EXIF data — removes camera location and similar metadata from images you upload.

These do not replace Node privacy; they add extra signals for bots and search engines when you still run a public site.

Allow connections

Settings → Social → Allow connections is a master switch for inbound federation.

When off, other nodes cannot complete a connect handshake to yours—they receive an error that the node is not accepting connections. Your existing connections are not removed automatically, but new peers cannot attach.

Turn this off if you want to pause growth, run a solo node, or avoid directory-driven connect attempts while you keep posting for yourself.

You can still add outbound connections from your node unless you simply choose not to—the toggle blocks others connecting to you.

Running anonymously or staying off the radar

There is no separate “incognito account type.” You combine settings:

Node privacy → Anonymous — the public URL shows login only; casual visitors do not see a profile or feed.
Allow connections → off — stops new nodes from attaching to you.
Skip hub registration (or leave the hub directory) if you do not want to be listed—see Using a hub.
Use Content copyright toggles if you want stronger no-index / no-AI-crawler signals on whatever remains public.

A private or anonymous node can still participate in federation while you are signed in—you add connections, read the owner-only home wall, and post from your session. What changes is what strangers on the web and new connect attempts can see or do on your public URL.

Where settings are stored: Data
Hub directory vs node privacy: Using a hub
First-run profile: Initial setup