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Bluesky Is Not Decentralized

beige.party

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Re: Bluesky Is Not Decentralized

#201

Post by BlueTemplar »

ck2 wrote: post #95

People are going to nit-pic and while some of the concerns have some weight to them, so far they are trivial IMHO The fact is we need an alternative to X because the current owner has done and will continue to do terrible things not just to the service but apparently on a personal and political level that is beyond distasteful to a HUGE chunk of the users (if not even greater than 50%) And Threads isn't going to cut…

Bluesky, being by Twitter founders, isn't that much better in this sense than Threads/Facebook/Meta.

And the biggest issue with Xitter still isn't Elon Musk (have you forgotten the "Trump years" already ?), but because the way how that media works is turning discussions into flamewars, and its users into morons (including Musk, who reportedly was hooked on it long before he bought it). It's especially concerning when journalists (who really should know better) and politicians use it.

That blame lies very much on Twitter's founders.

Re: Bluesky Is Not Decentralized

#202

Post by Natanael_L »

innocentoldguy wrote: post #181
Natanael_L wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of that doesn't deserve to be called an improvement. That message encryption is one of the worst designs I've ever seen. The algorithm isn't open enough that anybody can see if what it's doing matches the code. And instead of censoring "secretly" in partnership with the US government they do so in partnership with the Indian government as well as individual Republican politicians.

> Most of that doesn't deserve to be called an improvement. Hard disagree. The platform is objectively much better than it was under Jack Dorsey. > The algorithm isn't open enough that anybody can see if what it's doing matches the code. Fair, but more is available than before. > ...in partnership with the Indian government as well as individual Republican politicians. Would you prefer X break India's laws, specifica…

Before Musk, Twitter used to fight those requests.

The platform can not be called better, with more bugs and errors than ever.

Why don't they apply those rules to Republicans? Why can they specifically post stuff like private info about Hunter?

Re: Bluesky Is Not Decentralized

#203

Post by Natanael_L »

stevenicr wrote: post #186
Natanael_L wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's currently built into the applications, not configurable by default. It's preferable if everybody in a thread / space / community uses the same one because otherwise differences can cause validation failures and conflict and thus break threads, resulting in that people can't follow many discussions, thus applications don't really expose it. It's the kind of thing where it's preferable that either everybody switch…

That's too bad, it made me think if there were easy to switch user perferences then it would be truly decentralized.. Is there a way to clone the app and make this easy to find as a button to switch? (unfamiliar with the licensing and the app in general, some things I have seen make me excited that it's possible to be uncensored and decentralized, then things like this come up and I wonder if I should put time into i…

Everything is open source so yes you can, it's mostly a question of practicality.

There's already third party clients, account hosting servers, etc, as well as different apps building on the same system (and which can use the same accounts and data store!) like blogs and more. Most devs are trying to coordinate their custom extensions so it doesn't cause conflict.

If it weren't coordinated we'd easily end up in the same place as Mastodon with their spurious server blocks where large parts of conversations are broken for most users.

Re: Bluesky Is Not Decentralized

#204

Post by stevenicr »

Natanael_L wrote: post #203
stevenicr wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's too bad, it made me think if there were easy to switch user perferences then it would be truly decentralized.. Is there a way to clone the app and make this easy to find as a button to switch? (unfamiliar with the licensing and the app in general, some things I have seen make me excited that it's possible to be uncensored and decentralized, then things like this come up and I wonder if I should put time into i…

Everything is open source so yes you can, it's mostly a question of practicality. There's already third party clients, account hosting servers, etc, as well as different apps building on the same system (and which can use the same accounts and data store!) like blogs and more. Most devs are trying to coordinate their custom extensions so it doesn't cause conflict. If it weren't coordinated we'd easily end up in the s…

I'd love more info about "Mastodon with their spurious server blocks where large parts of conversations are broken for most users." - who and why that happens and what it looks like to the different users that have servers blocked or what not.. is it clear they are missing messages that are from blocked servers?

Re: Bluesky Is Not Decentralized

#205

Post by eru »

BlueTemplar wrote: post #198
eru wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny enough, depending on your exact definition of 'algorithm' either essentially everything you can do on a computer is an algorithm or there some weird and annoying exceptions. For example many definitions include the requirement that an algorithm has to terminate for every input. And I suspect that there are probably some bugs lurking somewhere in the HN codebase that make it go into the occasional infinite loop.…

Using neural networks IMHO falls outside of the definition of an algorithm, because then it becomes something that not even its authors are able to inspect (understand/explain). (Which in some contexts is a legal requirement.)

Which definition of algorithm are you using here?

The formal definition of algorithm doesn't really require that a human can inspect them, nor understand nor explain, or does it?

> (Which in some contexts is a legal requirement.)

That's another can of worms. Which contexts are you talking about?

Re: Bluesky Is Not Decentralized

#206

Post by bowsamic »

jacooper wrote: post #183
bowsamic wrote: post #5

I'm not really sure what the benefit of BS over Mastodon is anyway. Everyone interesting is on Mastodon

Sure, if you don't care about sports, news, anything other than tech. Bluesky literally just started and it already covers more things than mastodon ever did while providing a better UX without stupid technical limitations like not implementing global full text search.

Are there artists and musicians on bluesky, or just programmers?

Re: Bluesky Is Not Decentralized

#207

Post by steveklabnik »

bowsamic wrote: post #206
jacooper wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, if you don't care about sports, news, anything other than tech. Bluesky literally just started and it already covers more things than mastodon ever did while providing a better UX without stupid technical limitations like not implementing global full text search.

Are there artists and musicians on bluesky, or just programmers?

A lot of artists came over recently because you're not allowed to opt out of Grok anymore.

I haven't seen a ton of musicians.

It's more than just programmers though; lots of news organizations, some government stuff... there just aren't 12M programmers in the world, it's got some variety. Though not everything of course, I know some folks who are still waiting on sports content to show up more, for example.

Re: Bluesky Is Not Decentralized

#208

Post by jacooper »

bowsamic wrote: post #206
jacooper wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, if you don't care about sports, news, anything other than tech. Bluesky literally just started and it already covers more things than mastodon ever did while providing a better UX without stupid technical limitations like not implementing global full text search.

Are there artists and musicians on bluesky, or just programmers?

I would say there are more artists and game designers than programmers.

However sports and news content in general is still lacking, but better than mastodon for sure.

Re: Bluesky Is Not Decentralized

#209

Post by exodust »

defrost wrote: post #192
exodust wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"99%"... sure. So just follow the accounts you're interested in? If you just signed up, how does the "for you" know what you like? You can spend all day on X and never see any of that stuff you mention. Do you prefer "ultra-left wing" content? There's plenty on X, including angry marxists, anti-capitalists, de-colonisers, race-baiters, compulsive virtue-signallers, tantrum-throwers, Musk-haters, dis-information troll…

> race-baiters, compulsive virtue-signallers, tantrum-throwers, dis-information trolls, are hardly exclusive "ultra-left wing" users, arguably there's more of that to the far-right .. and that's just Tucker Carlson on a slow day. > Even ordinary mundane posts about routine things happening in government In your honest opinion, if Trump only ever made ordinary mundane statements about the routine day to day functions…

You've gone off topic. I have no interest in rating politicians or their rhetoric. All are guilty at one time or another of gross exaggeration, mud-slinging, spin, etc.

The point is/was regarding X, you can enjoy all the hate-memes towards your favourite enemy. Or just follow posts about Unreal Engine or ancient history or announcements from politicians etc. Follow your favourite Marxists! Or don't follow them. Anything is possible. But whatever you do, don't whinge about "Musk ruined Twitter". That's disinformation of sorts, since as I just explained, you can sign up to X and do whatever you want - read only, post pictures of paint drying, poke fun at celebrities, advocate for animal rights. Up to you.

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