1mo ago

Manstrual cycles

There are downsides with downloading their app just to input bad data, but it's a fun thought.

edit: While we're at it we might as well offer an alternative app to people.

I posted in !opensource@programming.dev to collect recommendations for better apps

The post: https://lemmy.ca/post/32877620

Leading Recommendation from the comments

The leading recommendation seems to be Drip (bloodyhealth.gitlab.io)

Summarizing what people shared:

accessible: it is on F-droid, Google Play, & iOS App Store
does not allow any third-party tracking
the project got support from "PrototypeFund & Germany's Federal Ministry of Education and Research, the Superrr Lab and Mozilla"
Listed features:
- "Your data, your choice: Everything you enter stays on your device"
- "Not another cute, pink app: drip is designed with gender inclusivity in mind."
- "Your body is not a black box: drip is transparent in its calculations and encourages you to think for yourself."
- "Track what you like: Just your period, or detect your fertility using the symptothermal method."

Their Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/@dripapp

167 comments

it's quite silly imo. unlikely to accomplish much or anything at all. teaching people about free software like drip is way more likely to actually help people. it's free, open source, and completely local.
edit: they even have a mastodon!
- Not to mention that downloading that flow app will help them boost thier numbers, I doubt they'd care if men are using it as long as they can sell the data...
  
  Would a bunch of users entering garbage data, with not all of them being totally obvious, make it harder to sell that data? Possibly.
- Because moving people off Facebook messenger and over to Signal or WIRE instead has been so very effective.
  You are right. We here know it. But we are a teeny tiny percentage compared to 340million.
  Remember, inertia is a major driving force of humanity.
  
  eh, I'd argue this is very different than signal. for signal to work everyone needs to use it. if you want to use drip you don't need to make your friends use it too. it's as simple as installing it from the play store and using it like any other app.
  
  Really hard to help people who refuse to help themselves.
  
  I mean, I got everyone I talked to regularly to move to Signal because I said I wouldnt continue to talk to them overwise. Currently at about 16 switched over 🤷‍♂️
- Drip seems to be the leading recommendation. I've edited the post with it so people seeing the meme also get the recommendation :)
  
  awesome, thanks!

So I just installed this right now after seeing this, and man this app has a lengthy initial startup process with dark patterns and everything. Now apparently I'm ovulating in two days. 🤭
- I'm going to learn how to orgasm!
- Is it FOSS? Or does it collect tons of data?
  Oop, read the post better. Nevermind hahaha
- I'm "abnormal" 🫨
  So it's not normal to have a 55 day cycle? Oh snap!

So I fucking hate that this is where my brain went, but my kneejerk reaction to this was: "If I do this, could it be used as evidence to charge my wife with the death of a nonexistent fetus?"
I live in the cousin-fuckingly-deep south where women are incubators and a long list of stereotypes. I could definitely see it argued in court - successfully - that an app like that was only used on my phone to try to conceal my wife's data, and the data points to one of the ways we've criminalized pregnancy.
...and that's thinking about what could happen here and now. Once Trump has had his way with our country, we'd probably just get deported to one of daddy Putin's gulags or some shit.
I really fucking hate it here.
- not to mention the reason why you're only supposed to say the word "lawyer" to cops is they literally tell you: "ANYTHING you say CAN and WILL be used AGAINST YOU in a court of law." That doesn't mean "might or maybe" or "to help you."
- Yeah, I would only do this if I lived alone or only with other males and had no SO/post-puberty daughters/close female friends.
- Track your nightly flatulence on a piece of paper too, and keep the same data on it that you put in the app. If it makes it to court claim the app was just a convient way to track other things, and let the courts discuss your farts.

I'm doing my part!
- These symptoms might actually be related to the 12k mountain trail run I did yesterday after work, and I'm pretty sure the bleeding is because I got scratched by a spiky bush, but you cannot be too careful fellas
  
  Day 1065: still feeling fatigue. Poor sleep habits or longest period ever?
- As with anything involving the complex bundles of systems in the human body, other issues can overlap and mask symptoms of a menstrual cycle, impending or otherwise.
  
  Yes

Post text:
Dear men I need you to go download an app called "Flo" and start using it chaotically. Don't ask anyone how to use it. Just use it. The more, the better. Let's Christmas tree that data.
As a software developer who loves to screw the data and a person who will do ANYTHING can to protect women for the next 4 years, I am so excited to begin tracking my manstrual cycle
- Good bot

What's the point of spamming one specific menstrual tracker / women's health app? Lack of better hobbies? Or is there some controversy around the company behind it? Or just general state of freedom and surveillance in the USA?
- The idea is that they'll be used to track pregnancy and hurt people in certain states. Chaos will help the situation.
  
  Computer databases are kind of purpose-built to organize a lot of (arbitrary) information. I seriously doubt this kind of chaos is going to make even the slightest difference. It's probably just giving people some false sense of security while any information that's stored in any cloud can still be retrieved. And effortlessly be matched to whomever they like to oppress. At least if it's associated with some account, email or specific phone.
  
  The tiny percentage of users of these apps doing this will have their outlier data completely ignored. Colossal waste of time and energy.
  
  A government hunting illegal abortions would only care about data that shows signs of pregnancy followed by early termination, random data will never match those criteria and as such is utterly useless.
- Fuck it, download all of them.

I don’t want to victim blame but if using an app is optional and it could get you in trouble with the law (regardless of how bad the law is), you should not use it.
Having said that, as a dev, please pollute data as much as possible.
Management needs to learn how valuable good data is and good data comes with proper consent (most people wouldn’t share their data if they could opt out).
- These apps are very helpful for people who have irregular cycles or who are family planning. I relied heavily on a similar app in high school, because my monthlies weren’t monthly. I was able to share that data with my doctors to help better understand my body.
  This really indicates a need for self-hosted solutions.
  
  Absolute worst case you could always keep track of it as a raw text/markdown/excel/Libre calc/whatever your preference is. You're not going to get any predictions or useful data out.
  But it would at least provide a record for your doctor if need be. And as long as you encrypt the device you store it on, or the directory its stored in, it's relatively safe to do so.
- Period tracking is a very good tool for understanding your health. Issues may be spotted very early in some cases.
  If it's required for preventative healthcare, the blame is solely on the exploitative app operators for any data safety concerns.
- That's not great advice for people who weren't afraid of law enforcement in the past and are now feeling exposed due to data they already gave away.
  
  Not to mention: a lot of people don't really understand how technology works. They just use the app without even thinking where that data goes. Like yeah, it would probably behoove those people to educate themselves on the technology they're using, but I certainly don't want them to face unjust legal repercussions just because Republicans hate anyone with a vagina.
  
  Most data already provided won't be useful if they stop providing the data. Generally the concern is for miscarriages/abortions, so just change the data to indicate you were having a regular period and then request a data deletion/account close/stop using the app is actually pretty much as good as it's gonna get.
- Legit only comment so far to not just say "PAPER EXISTS1!1!1!1!" So props for that.
  Can I ask how polluting the data will help? Most apps that don't care about privacy can probably identify people with zero issues. I bet people are giving these apps location data etc.
  I don't know what you mean by good data comes with proper consent. Like, ideally all data was offered with proper consent, but how does that make data better or worse? If anything, data given without consent is likely to be more wholistic/unedited since they were not given time to redact/remove info. If someone stole my phone and took all my data, they would have "better data" than had I been informed this would happen and given time to wipe my phone.
  
  Can I ask how polluting the data will help?
  It makes data less reliable.
  How do we know if a certain profile is genuine vs someone dicking around. Or mostly genuine and the person didn’t do some malicious compliance for certain parts of the app they don’t care about.
  If it becomes a social trend and someone gets caught, it would be easier to say they lied cause they wanted to do a tick tock challenge.
  I don't know what you mean by good data comes with proper consent.
  When someone wants to help the data collectors then they would do more proper hygiene to their profile, keep things up to date and give honest feedback. Whereas someone like me never gives consent for data without being forced, so I always try to give as little and lie as much as I can.
  I guess the assumption I made was that practically everyone knows apps and websites track them in some shape or form (even the least tech savvy person knows websites get total amount of visits), so “acting like no one is tracking you” isn’t ever true to begin with. Especially given this context for a period tracking app.

You would think it wouldn’t be this easy, but given the incredible disconnect from reality on reporting late term abortion statistics, this could scramble data.
For those who don’t know, the raw statistic of late term abortions comes down to late term terminations via a procedure used in pre 20week months to end a pregnancy. There’s little difference in logging the data. Babies can die inside, even as you’re trying to attend your own baby shower, like with that young girl who recently tried to get help from 3 Texas emergency rooms, but instead died due to the late term corpse rotting in her uterus.
The procedure used to expel a stillbirth in the late term is an abortion. That is what pregnancy termination by procedure is: abortion. But the context of corpse removal is lost on political alarmists who don’t bother to do their own research on how/when the procedure is used in late term pregnancy, in favor of uneducated hysteria and the demonizing of women.
My point is, given how resolutely people have not delved into the context of this data regarding stillbirths, messing with menstrual trackers can and probably will work, provided you don’t limit yourself to Flo.
- I don't think this is likely to work tbh. I'm sure the app has enough device data to link the user with a broader data profile that would easily eliminate data from people that don't actually have periods.
  The data profiles people build on citizens aren't limited to one data source, and emails/phone numbers/browser fingerprints/device details are all things that can be keyed between data sets to relate identities.
  Fascist law enforcement can and would do this kind of thing to chase individuals. This kind of noise seems easy to filter out.
  
  Talk to your state reps and governor, ask them to codify HIPAA at the state level. This is the federal law that guards medical privacy. It is on the chopping block in Project 2025.
  It doesn’t guard data buying and selling though. There’s an add on over in WA that does that, to expand on hipaa, but I don’t think many others have done so.

people will do anything but search for an alternative
- ...how do you mean?
  Obviously we're not going to get everyone to download a FOSS period tracker, as nice as that would be -- they're already invested in the ones they're using, and no doubt it will have features and usability improvements the FOSS one doesn't, usually thanks to some network service that is fundamentally incompatible with the FOSS philosophy. That's almost always how these things go.
  We should definitely be telling more people about F-Droid, but let's not get our hopes up. Socialism is about protecting everyone, even people who don't share your views, even if those views are objectively correct.
  
  We should definitely be telling more people about F-Droid, but let’s not get our hopes up
  Accessibility (not being on FDroid only) was one of the things I was looking for when looking for recommendations. Thankfully the leading recommendation is on Google Play & iOS App Store :) I have edited the post above with more details
  Drip (bloodyhealth.gitlab.io)
  
  "Socialism is about leading horses to water whether they fucking drink or not."
  
  I mean, they dont like the APP because it collects data, but refuse to do one web search for an app that doesn't, then complain on fucking twitter about privacy concerns??? seriously??

I have several old Android phones sitting in a drawer. They've just been given a glorious purpose.
- Multiple users ☺️ on each.
  
  The Shelter app (on F-droid) gives you simple access to Android work profiles, allowing you to install multiple copies of apps.

This is the scummiest app I've ever downloaded.
- Can you elaborate? my wife uses it, I told her about Drip and other opensource alternatives but I don't know where "scummiest" comes from
  
  Well, it depends on what you want out of it and, to be fair, i am not a period-haver.
  That being said there is so, so much tracking it is doing to give you data and recommendations. While getting started it felt positively gross the amount fo personal questions it was asking. Why is all that necessary? Again, it depends if you want whatever information it is giving you.
  But, even on top of that, wasn't it proven that the app was selling data to interested parties to be used for nedarious reasons? That's why we're even doing this whole men-should-sign-up-to-feed-it-bullshit-and-ruin-the-data in the first place.
  Even though, as another user said: it likely wouldnt actually do anything.

I have a reminder app that randomizes reminders for a medical issue I'm dealing with.
Sounds like I'll be dealing with two medical issues that app will require now.
- Just curious, why randomize?
  
  Why randomize Flo or why am I doing it for other reasons?

Calling an app that tracks menstrual cycle "Drip" is peak comedy

There was an IT Crowd episode on the Manstrual Cycle
- Oh that's what I was remembering! Aunt Irma

I've been using it to track my poops.
- Eat more fiber for extra data
  
  Don't worry. I give them literal shit loads of data. Even more after fajita night.

Take all that neatly organized data and turn it into Christmas tree lights that have been sitting in a box all summer.

Uh, it was trying to make me pay?
Was totally on board till I hit the pay wall.

I signed up for the app and there are so many dark patterns used in the signup process it's insulting.

I'm so sorry ladies, but you had me until the Ts & Cs. This app is a privacy nightmare. I would put all of this energy into finding or crowd funding a better alternative.
- I’ll second this. I was going to participate in the fake data, but then I read what this app does; no one should install this at all.
  
  I accepted the terms, signed away all of my privacy, and completed a whole questionnaire regarding my goals for using the app, my level of knowledge about my menstrual cycle, regularity of my periods, symptoms I experience before and during my periods, and other conditions I have which impact my sexual health.
  Only after the app had harvested all of that from me did it reveal that a subscription is required, and the only way to trial it is to commit to payment when the 14–day trial period ends. Like all "free" trials, I can "cancel any time", and like all "free" trials, it's my job to remember to cancel it before it automatically charges my card, so fuck you very much and uninstall.
  Having already agreed to my sexual health data being sent to "people you can trust because we just want the best outcome for you we promise", I would have actually been fine going the whole way and trialling it if there were no strings attached, because it did seem to be a lot more about sexual health generally than just tracking periods.
  When it asked for my goals, I included "better orgasms" and "sexual intimacy". It asked for my current level of sexual activity and something about my masturbation habits.
  When it asked about my other conditions, it provided options for PCOS and Endometriosis. I was genuinely curious at this point. I was basically entering the responses my wife would give, and right now we're strategizing ways to alleviate PCOS–related pain. Data driven insights may have been genuinely useful. Could have persuaded us to subscribe, at least for a couple of months, had the trial showed promise. Guess we'll never know.

Why in the world do we even need apps for this stuff? There is no reason to give your data to these companies at all.
Here's a crazy thought: get a journal. And write in it.
- I don't know if you're someone who's not had to deal with menstrual cycles, but that's not really helpful advice. Apps provide a lot of useful information and often integrate with other health data to offer better predictions and general insights. Many cycles are not "oh, it's the 15th, here we go". Many can be affected or predicted by mood/diet/symptoms. That's a lot for a person to keep track of. My app will sometimes predict up to a 3 day shift and be completely accurate. I have looked at the graphs and sometimes you can point to a specific symptom and say, oh that must be what it used for that prediction, but sometimes you can't. Get stressed every year around the holidays to the point where it changes your cycle? Your app will remember that. One less thing for your stressed mind to worry about. Additionally, even if they were super regular to the day, having an app to send a reminder, "hey! Get ready tomorrow" can be helpful to make sure you have any supplies you may need.
  Also, we use apps for things we don't need to all the time. And generally, it's for the same reason: apps are easier and more accessible. Since you mentioned a journal, there are plenty of apps out there that replace journals themselves. They are used for several reasons, but one would imagine using an app is easier because it's not an extra item you have to have on you and can potentially lose or forget to bring, it's always on you so the resistance barrier is smaller, it might even have search functionality.
  Do I think people should be randomly downloading these apps? No, it really doesn't do anything at all. But blaming people for using conveniences because the government is trying to take away their rights is really missing the mark. It might be good opsec, but it's dismissive at the least and not really solving the actual problem.
  
  What a goddamn comment. Informative, thoughtful, and an amazing rebuttal without being condescending. Is best of a thing on here?
- The absolute madlad
- Based

I am gonna get it.
- Suggestion: log your hours gaming instead.
  
  So 16 to 20 hours?
- Edit. Doh. I misread as "i don't get it" lol. I'm leaving it anyway for anyone who needs an explanation.
  Trump won the US election. The republican plan for trumps presidency is project 2025. In project 2025 they treat women as third class citizens (men are first and fetuses are second). Of the many plans for women, project 2025 aims to use data to identify pregnant women in order to ensure fetuses aren't aborted. Under project 2025 abortion is illegal, and miscarriages are treated as an abortion until proven that it was a natural miscarriage. The republican party has already started approaching period tracking apps for data, and this post is suggesting to pollute the data in period tracking apps with the idea of making it harder to identify missed periods due to pregnancy.
  On a more practical note, however, individual's tracking their periods should be using open source software to track periods instead to prevent a company from giving away your data.
  
  Thank you for leaving the explanation in, I'm not versed in what horrors await the US populous with project 2025 for two main reasons:
  I'm not American
  I like being happy sometimes
  So this fills in a gap for me, and at the same time makes me sad and angry about how many people voted for this garbage.
  Either way, I appreciate you. Have a good day.

Why are such apps popular? Do these offer something more than what a combination of reminders and notes (digital or analog) providr?
Perhaps, these apps offer some insights based on the data. But would one take the risk of listening to an app for medical advice?
- Hi! Lots of people in this comment section who clearly don't have periods, but yea they do offer something more. That's why they're used. It really feels like a bunch of presumably men are here in the comments to remind women that paper exists? Yea, we know. Other than these all being easily searchable questions, allow me to say we use them for many reasons including: Convenience - you almost always have your phone on hand. Do you really want to keep a dedicated period journal on your person at all times? Predictions - despite what you may believe, periods are not all regular. Some can skip months at a time. Most apps have a bunch of data sets they use to predict things even if your data isn't complete Integrations - does my journal automatically cross reference my symptoms and alert me that it noticed that eating apples makes my headaches worse? No, and the level of analysis being done would need both an inhuman amount of time and resources to do by hand
  Women are not "listening to an app for medical advice" so much as using apps predictive algorithm. The app has access to much more data than we do individually and it can be extremely helpful for women with irregular or extreme periods.
  Is it great opsec? No. Sometimes things trump (lol) opsec. I still will advise against anyone (man or woman) downloading and using these apps if they have alternatives. The apple health app seems like a privacy focused one, but I can't stress enough how none of that matters anyway. The courts and public opinion will be stacked against women in these positions, so any app data that can be used will be, and any lack of app data will just be used to make the case anyway. Keep as much data as you can as private as you can, regardless. People adding false data to the does nothing.
  
  Thank you for providing detailed answers to my questions; which is what they are, just questions. I want to clarify, as much as your response suggests, I had not accused anyone or the apps of anything, nor was I belittling anyone for not knowing "paper exists". But I do get your frustrations which such comments, mine included.
  I just want to better understand the appeal of these apps – all health tracking apps for that matter, and not just period trackers.
  I still feel using such apps was a bad idea even before the onset of the current cultural and political climate, despite the convenience offered.
  We have been consulting actual doctors long before these apps appeared on the scene, who provide personalised advice without the risks of large-scale data tracking, whether it is for something as simple as a prolonged cold or as complicated as delayed periods.
  P.S. Yes, these are easily searchable questions, but then there is never a need to have any discussion on a forum as everything is a search away. I figured a more direct conversation would give me a clearer sense of the actual user experience, especially given how nuanced such issues can be.
  
  Here's how I think about it:
  I deleted Samsung Health from my phone not long after getting it. I started realizing that it's a VERY network intensive app, it wanted a lot of questionable permissions, etc. I fully see the purpose of a Health & Fitness app in the lives of everyday people, I think it can be of legitimate help for encouraging people to exercise and whatever, the health features of that app were definitely developed with the same attitude a hunter baits a trap. It was what they begrudgingly did to get me to step in it.
  I ditched Samsung Health because I had visions of them selling that data to my health insurance provider who would then use it as an excuse to make my coverage worse and therefore more profitable. So I'm pretty sure if I was a jew in 1930's Germany I'd delete Synogogr from my phone.
  Elsewhere, I've seen women tweet or Tumbl or whatever about refusing to discuss their periods with their doctors. "When was yoru last period?" "It's regular, that's all you need to know." Where's that energy when it's a cell phone app?
- Yeah, the only way anyone should have ever trusted these is if the data was stored locally only. There's no reason for it to be uploaded.

iOS has a first party health app that has menstrual tracking. I’m under the impression Apple takes data security seriously. If you don’t, self hosted is probably best.

What is the actual goal here and will this behavior achieve that goal? Are we...
Adding a bunch of bullshit fictional data into a database that contains and will continue to gather legitimate data.
It strikes me that this would make the entire dataset less useful for legitimate medical research while not really doing much against targeted attacks. I could see some women's health researchers using anonymized data from something like this, and noise from people vomiting into it in protest would destroy it for that use. Or, you'd notice a bunch of accounts all join at about the same time making nonsensical data and just ignore the data from the accounts that joined around that time. Meanwhile I doubt this will stop the Gestation Gestapo from correlating genuine data with the actual identity of its owner.
Are you going to try to input obviously fake data? Make an attempt at realistic data? Try to trigger a Gestation Gestapo death squad, trying to make the service useless via false positives?
Or run up the service's data bills and maybe take up some of their cloud storage with fake data?
Start adding bullshit fictional data coinciding with women genuinely leaving the service
What would this accomplish that just having women stop using the thing do?
I've been trying to make that point for over a decade now. I think I get to unironically drop this xkcd. The alt text mentions diaspora, lol.
- I think people mistakenly believe it will make it harder to identify/charge women who have miscarriages/abortions. Your comment is 100% accurate though and although it's nice to see men expressing what they view as solidarity by downloading these apps, ultimately it will have no effect and just mess with data being used for public good. Really wish whichever CEO started this trend to get more downloads for their app gets found out, because I can't imagine who else would suggest people download an app thats main claim to fame is "respects privacy so little it can send you to jail" lol.

Done. If only I could script it...

Okay, but since real menstrual cycles are typically highly regular - wouldn't it be fairly easy to filter out the fake ones?
- Irregular menstrual cycles are very common and happen for a lot of different reasons. Also, there are different kinds of "regular" periods. Someone could be said to have regular periods even if they happen on shorter or longer cycles than the typical 28-30 days provided that it's a consistent pattern without significant deviation for that person.
  
  Still more regular than randomized data.
- Perimenopause can happen in women a lot younger than most people think. I'm in my 30s and dealing with perimenopause symptoms such as hot flashes and irregular periods.
  I'm supposed to be tracking my periods to help my Dr decide if that's what's going on, but because if this anti abortion garbage I have to do it manually on paper which I'm terrible about remembering to do(brain fog is another symptom)
  So yeah, irregular periods are common for many reasons(endometriosis for example), but the most common one every ovulating woman eventually faces is perimenopause and menopause.

Will it work if I do this from Canada? I haven't had a period in over 4 years (help, I've been pregnant for 4 years!) But I want to help y'all too!

I am doing my part. Don't really know what I am doing, just happy to br a part of it.
Edit. Is this normal? Just presse at random
- I think this app is a poop tracker. Tick the days your poops take an extra flush, and then also the days you get a clean release. That should help you track your bowel movements effectively. You're welcome.
  
  I use mine entirely differently. Now that we're into November it's been quiet.
- I think it would be easy for them to filter extremely atypical period patterns - usually you aren’t go to have a one day period. In between spotting is something you talk to a doctor about. Two a month would be awful.
  Realistically, think about 4-7 days. Regular cycles, one a month. Usually about the same amount of time between each. To really fake the data, log intensity. Starts with spotting, usually intensifies in the middle, then slows down again. (To be really extra, log some clots lol)
  The best way to help would be to pollute the data set with as many fake pregnancies as possible. Log regularly, take a break for about three months, then log another to simulation an abortion or miscarriage.
- Oil moment /s