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Bluesky Is Not Decentralized

beige.party

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Re: Bluesky Is Not Decentralized

#151

Post by hoidofyolen »

toofy wrote: post #125
echoangle wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the migration also work if the server I’m migrating from actively wants to prevent me from taking over my stuff? If they ban me from their server because they don’t like me, they aren’t going to set up a redirect for me, right? Is this a real thing that happens?

im not the person you responded to, but i think this worry is mostly just overblown. i dont think most people have this concern. i think some do, but not most. if its something you're super worried about, you could always do what ive seen some folks do and just like docs, photos, etc..., make a backup. just create a mirror federated account with same follows etc... its not really something i personally have a need fo…

the issue is that this is a little myopic when thinking about identity. Your instance server in ActivityPub holds your identity, so when you change servers by mirroring or whatever method, you're giving up your old identity and taking on a copy. That identity part is crucial because if you want to, for example, do OAuth with ActivityPub, your old server technically owns an identity of yours that's just as valid as your new one. It's better on atproto because your identity is always your own (with the caveat that it's currently managed by Bluesky's https://plc.directory, but like they've said, they're working to move this outside the company). ActivityPub will never give you true account portability unless they do something like atproto and allow identity portability. Atproto allows this already. You can move your PDS (where your data is hosted, and the thing that controls access to OAuth) to a new one whenever you want.

Re: Bluesky Is Not Decentralized

#152

Post by innocentoldguy »

bbor wrote: post #117
innocentoldguy wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did Musk "fuck [Twitter] up worse than ever"? It has more functionality and is more stable since Musk bought it.

Source? AFAIK it is not more stable: https://www.thousandeyes.com/blog/internet-report-twitter-to... Twitter appears to be an outlier in that respect. Instead of displaying the usual post-acquisition stability, ThousandEyes’ data indicates that the number and frequency of outages did increase commensurate with the acquisition. If we compare the two periods (pre- and post-acquisition), it’s apparent that there were fe…

Nothing game-changing? How about:

• Long-form content

• Video streaming

• Grok

• Ability to edit posts

• Bookmarks

• Communities

• Better verification system

• Encrypted direct messages

• Cashtag feature

• Bold and italic text formatting

• Open-sourced algorithm

• Premium features

• Improved search

• Improved analytics for content creators

• And most importantly, less First-Amendment violations in secret partnership with the federal government

Re: Bluesky Is Not Decentralized

#153

Post by hoidofyolen »

jrm4 wrote: post #141

Bluesky's claims to why they're better than anything always sound like crazy pill stuff to me. Other services both centralize identity AND algorithms/operations. This seems to centralize identity WITHOUT the second thing, which strikes me as the worst of both worlds. It's just, we've already mostly "solved" the centralized identity problem with EMAIL. As often, the key is "fail elegantly," not be bulletproof. Email,…

I don't have the energy to put all of the advantages and argue for them here, but take a look at https://atproto.com and maybe look around at other blog posts and articles that contrast atproto and ActivityPub. Might just have to do some research, since it's been talked about ad nauseam already in other spaces.

Re: Bluesky Is Not Decentralized

#154

Post by miki123211 »

gary_0 wrote: post #86
miki123211 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And to be extra clear, "only show posts from people I follow, in chronological order" is an algorithm.

We're also using an algorithm right now on HN, to sort comments and posts by freshness, votes, and reply count (plus manual moderation fairy dust sprinkled by dang and friends). Some people have even criticized it or dislike it, because everyone has different criteria for things they want to see. It's easy to forget there's a gray area between "unsorted feed of all posts" and "nothing but insane rage-bait to maximize…

And from my personal Mastodon experience, "unsorted feed of all posts" also tends to collapse towards ragebait when reposts / retweets / boosts exist.

Instead of having an explicit algorithm to do the work of surfacing ragebait posts, that work is done by the users themselves.

What is notable, though, is that things don't necessarily have to be that way, in my experience, the Polish Mastodon community does far less of this than the English one.

Re: Bluesky Is Not Decentralized

#155

Post by moffkalast »

timeon wrote: post #126
moffkalast wrote: post #48

I'm not sure how we can get the point that a centralized seamless UX experience is core to any platform though the thick skulls of people designing decentralized federated services. Lemmy's active user number drops every month and as does Mastodon's by a lesser degree, both failing to get proper traction because they segment and wall off tiny gardens where nothing is happening, making sure that people waste time freq…

> wall off tiny gardens where nothing is happening This is actually reason why I like Mastodon. There is barely anything happening. I get content from few niches - but I do not need it to be generating something every minute. I have no time for that. But for people who prefer old Twitter experience, BlueSky is pretty good.

I would go out on a limb and postulate that most people prefer lots of meaningless content. At least if the popularity of Tiktok is anything to go buy.

Re: Bluesky Is Not Decentralized

#156

Post by relaxing »

Kye wrote: post #147
relaxing wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making obtuse, pedantic statements makes you seem like an insincere agitator.

So let's review. pxoe: points out Mastodon has an algorithm cuu507: says the news feed is chronological me: reasonably inferring this means cuu507 isn't aware this is also an algorithim, I point out that it is, and that chronological feeds are also not without detractors with good arguments. j_maffe: jumps up my ass from out of nowhere for some reason. I replied assuming they were the person I replied to (cuu507) sin…

Everyone here knows sort of any kind is an algorithm. And everyone knows when we speak of social media algorithms, we refer to the selective boosting or removal of content.

It is not helpful or necessary to point any of this out.

Re: Bluesky Is Not Decentralized

#157

Post by relaxing »

jrm4 wrote: post #148
relaxing wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is the advantage of bluesky here? Fewer Nazis.

Yeah, this is another issue entirely, but also very often wrong and misses the point. Roughly, e.g. -- Twitter (nope not calling it X) is still overwhelmingly the most useful and productive place for Black+US Politics discussion. Despite, or even perhaps because of, the presence of bad guys. The thing I hate the most about Mastodon (despite being the right model) is people trying to make it nice, but end up making it…

What’s some of this disagreeable speech you’ve been shut down on.

Re: Bluesky Is Not Decentralized

#158

Post by yewey »

pfraze wrote: post #32
rsolva wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks, it's been a while since I last looked into it. Will my self-hosted account be able to talk directly to other self-hosted BlueSky accounts?

Yep!

and will a bunch of hostile feminists be able to place derogatory "labels" on my self hosted account or put me on nasty and rudely named lists branding me a right winger or a transmysoginist or whatever like they currently do on bluesky?

Re: Bluesky Is Not Decentralized

#159

Post by bbor »

innocentoldguy wrote: post #152
bbor wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source? AFAIK it is not more stable: https://www.thousandeyes.com/blog/internet-report-twitter-to... Twitter appears to be an outlier in that respect. Instead of displaying the usual post-acquisition stability, ThousandEyes’ data indicates that the number and frequency of outages did increase commensurate with the acquisition. If we compare the two periods (pre- and post-acquisition), it’s apparent that there were fe…

Nothing game-changing? How about: • Long-form content • Video streaming • Grok • Ability to edit posts • Bookmarks • Communities • Better verification system • Encrypted direct messages • Cashtag feature • Bold and italic text formatting • Open-sourced algorithm • Premium features • Improved search • Improved analytics for content creators • And most importantly, less First-Amendment violations in secret partnership…

Thanks for the reply! That's a good list. Of those, I would break them down accordingly:

  - Cool new features
    - Encrypted direct messages
    - Video streaming
    - Ability to edit posts
    - Communities (IDK what this but it sounds cool)
    - Bookmarks
    - Cashtag feature (?)
    - Improved analytics for content creators

  - Trivial decisions about policy
    - Long-form content
    - Bold and italic text formatting

  - Untrue, or at least unverified
    - Better verification system (https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/the-confusion-and-risks-surrounding-twitters-verified-account-changes, https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/24/tech/musk-twitter-blue-check-mark/index.html)
    - Open-sourced algorithm (https://www.wired.com/story/twitters-open-source-algorithm-is-a-red-herring/)
    - Premium features (?)
    - Improved search (?)

  - Same shit different day
    - Grok
Which, tbf, is a lot more cool features than I was giving them credit for! I still think the whole 'nazi' and 'arbitrary moderation' thing outweighs those changes by a lot, but they did add stuff.

Re: Bluesky Is Not Decentralized

#160

Post by slater »

yewey wrote: post #158
pfraze wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep!

and will a bunch of hostile feminists be able to place derogatory "labels" on my self hosted account or put me on nasty and rudely named lists branding me a right winger or a transmysoginist or whatever like they currently do on bluesky?

If you are any of those things, it doesn't hurt to warn others! hth
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