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User ban controversy reveals Bluesky’s decentralized aspiration isn’t reality

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Re: User ban controversy reveals Bluesky’s decentralized aspiration isn’t reality

#361

Post by bryceneal »

LikesPwsh wrote: post #340
bryceneal wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OpenSea is very nearly "entirely on-chain" if I'm understanding your point correctly. It's powered by smart contracts. It's not custodial like Coinbase or Robinhood. Users custody their assets in their own wallets. They trade by submitting transactions directly from their wallet to a smart contract address on-chain which facilitates fulfillment of the trade. The code for these smart contracts is open source and verif…

Anyone can generate an NFT, including IP you don't own or existing collections. Hundreds of wallets might contain a the same monkey picture (or same hash and IPFS link to nitpick). What matters is that Opensea says you have the "real" one. Their database is the real list of who owns what, the blockchain is a distraction. You can see it in their anti-theft systems. NFTs get hidden and blocked from trading after a poli…

I would disagree with that characterization. There are dozens of NFT marketplaces which all have access to the same underlying data. An NFT is denoted by its address on chain, which is trivial to find. Similarly anyone can create a website that looks like Google, but the "real" google is the DNS entry at "google.com".

Re: User ban controversy reveals Bluesky’s decentralized aspiration isn’t reality

#362

Post by rsynnott »

extraduder_ire wrote: post #352
rsynnott wrote: post #332

This leaves the biggest question, why they're broken on Blacksky, too, unanswered. My general understanding was that this should _not_ happen.

Their CEO, Rudy, explained it in a thread here: https://blacksky.community/profile/did:plc:w4xbfzo7kqfes5zb7...

Ahhh, makes sense. I vaguely thought they already had an app-view, though looks like they will soon!

Re: User ban controversy reveals Bluesky’s decentralized aspiration isn’t reality

#363

Post by Spivak »

jazzyjackson wrote: post #140
tptacek wrote: post #58

You know what they say, when you're explaining that you don't really wish death upon the CEO of the niche social network platform on which you depend, you're losing.

Still the whole premise of blue sky being decentralized was that when one server bans you you could pop over to another community that doesn't consider memes a death threat, so this is a good test of how centralized bluesky remains (very)

That part actually still works, it's just that BlueSky imposes a moderation list that can't be disabled (which to me is the problem) in their aggregator. In theory this is fine because you can run your own with different rules but alternative communities don't. It seems very unlike BlueSky's general "you can turn off content filters" ethos to do this, I wonder why they don't just have everyone default subscribed to their list.

Re: User ban controversy reveals Bluesky’s decentralized aspiration isn’t reality

#364

Post by Spivak »

astrange wrote: post #109
Arathorn wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mjolnir is designed to apply decentralised public blocklists - i.e. you pick which banlists to apply; there are a bunch published by different people (matrix.org, the matrix 'community moderation effort', etc). Admittedly moderators do share lists (so that if #archlinux bans you, others might pick up the ban), but there's no intrinsic centralisation. https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-doc/blob/msc2313/propos... is…

BlueSky also has this, but it works poorly because people use blocklists as a form of harassment, or else take over existing lists and add their enemies to it.

I mean when lists are opt-in and users have to specifically choose what lists to subscribe to then well… kinda tough shit if you end up on one that many people are happy with. That's the point of putting moderation in the hands of users, they're allowed to block you for any number of weird reasons.

It sucks when server operators group together because it effectively becomes a centralized moderation team that makes decisions for users with tenuous implicit consent but user moderation lists aren't that.

Re: User ban controversy reveals Bluesky’s decentralized aspiration isn’t reality

#365

Post by TimorousBestie »

Manuel_D wrote: post #319
TheDong wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a medical matter. If medical officials broadly agree that having a prosthetic limb gives someone better quality of life than having no limb, then yes, we should disfigure the human body by attaching a prosthetic. Medical officials fairly broadly agree that gender-affirming care improves the quality of life of patients, and so of course it should be allowed. It's disgusting to try and use the law to force medical…

> Medical officials fairly broadly agree that gender-affirming care improves the quality of life of patients, and so of course it should be allowed. This is not really true any more at this point in history. European countries have either backed away from pediatric gender affirming care, or they never allowed it in the first place. It's increasingly the case that the US and Canada are the outliers in the broader cons…

> These kinds of blithe comparisons to the seriousness of gender-affirming care no small part of why trust on this issue has waned so fast.

No, let’s be real, this isn’t a dominant narrative in public discourse outside this thread. You’re irritated that you can’t simply assert a de novo principle of pediatric ethics that bans gender-affirming care without absurd collateral damage.

Re: User ban controversy reveals Bluesky’s decentralized aspiration isn’t reality

#366

Post by Spivak »

extraduder_ire wrote: post #354
throwawaygmbno wrote: post #259

Some US states have started trying to ban or require ID for Bluesky. Is it possible to self host on your own hardware that allows somebody to get around that. If not the decentralization doesn't seem real.

You can circumvent that without self-hosting anything. (though self-hosting your PDS is one way to avoid all but the block on Mississippi) https://gist.github.com/mary-ext/6e27b24a83838202908808ad528... Their official website/app are compliant with those laws when unmodified.

This is so funny that with a self-hosted PDS you can just tell BlueSky "trust me bro." What an absolute joke these age verification laws are.

We were content with "Are you 21 Y/n" for sites featuring alcohol for years, why did we have to go and mess it up?

Re: User ban controversy reveals Bluesky’s decentralized aspiration isn’t reality

#367

Post by JdeBP »

TMWNN wrote: post #212
neilv wrote: post #201

One thing about the Fediverse (Mastodon) is that most people aren't on it. As I found with one marketing experiment, this makes it terrible if your goal is to reach as many consumers as possible in a niche. But HN members who aren't mass-marketing could change that, by moving to the Fediverse -- giving it their endorsement, and network effects. https://joinmastodon.org/

>But HN members who aren't mass-marketing could change that, by moving to the Fediverse -- giving it their endorsement, and network effects. Why? Why should HN members, or anyone else, move to another network with the same kinds of fragmentation and mutual mass bannings (and/or demands for mass bannings) that we are talking about here with Bluesky? See, for example, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34748195 >

The irony of that example is that it is not the same as BlueSky here. There were huge parts of the FediVerse entirely untouched by what happened at Mastodon.LOL .

Re: User ban controversy reveals Bluesky’s decentralized aspiration isn’t reality

#368

Post by bxsioshc »

slg wrote: post #172
derbOac wrote: post #18

I much prefer Bluesky to X but have had a hunch this was coming due to everything I've read about the practicality of running a Bluesky protocol service. I still think there's room for something better technically. Mastodon seems more true to the decentralized ethos but I've never quite gotten used to the server dependency experience. Nostr appeals to me technically but every time I'm on it seems swamped completely b…

It always comes back to the userbase. I don't know how many times technologists need to learn the lesson that normal people simply don't care about ideological technical principles like decentralization and often actually prefer the benefits of centralized systems like ease of use and typically stronger moderation. And when it comes to social media, businesses are naturally going to end up prioritizing the desires of…

[dead]

Re: User ban controversy reveals Bluesky’s decentralized aspiration isn’t reality

#369

Post by NoGravitas »

danpalmer wrote: post #231
derbOac wrote: post #18

I much prefer Bluesky to X but have had a hunch this was coming due to everything I've read about the practicality of running a Bluesky protocol service. I still think there's room for something better technically. Mastodon seems more true to the decentralized ethos but I've never quite gotten used to the server dependency experience. Nostr appeals to me technically but every time I'm on it seems swamped completely b…

> Mastodon seems more true to the decentralized ethos I'm not sure that's true. It's important to note that these bans are from the Bluesky App View (one component of the infra), and that these users can continue to post under their identity (if they own it, which they can), and users on App Views that haven't banned these users could continue to follow them. None of that works with Mastodon. An admin bans you from t…

It would be strictly lesser if there were a significant free choice of App Views. BlackSky doesn't have one. NorthSky doesn't have one. You can currently be a BlackSky user, but if BlueSky bans you, your posts become invisible.

ActivityPub's lack of portable identity is a pretty serious problem, but the fact that significant portions of ATProto still rely on centralized infrastructure with no credible path to decentralization is pretty clearly worse[1].

[1] There are only two credible relays, and only one credible app view, and building/running either requires hundreds of times more capital than spinning up a Mastodon instance.

Re: User ban controversy reveals Bluesky’s decentralized aspiration isn’t reality

#370

Post by NotPractical »

Nursie wrote: post #289
apwell23 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

common people arent really using twitter or bluesky that much anyways. its just the crazies that are on there.

Always was. It's why I found it so dismaying when we went through years of apparently serious newspapers reporting on every twitter-storm as if it was important. Yes, it was a good if unreliable source of breaking news, but the general noise of people fighting back and forwards about whatever it was that week ... was just noise, among a relatively small group of motivated crazies. Using it as a societal barometer jus…

It's shockingly common for people to cite Twitter and Bluesky posts as evidence of what the average American of political party X or Y believes. I do not understand how they came to be so deluded.
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