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ActivityPub/Nostr/At-Bluesky Compared

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Re: ActivityPub/Nostr/At-Bluesky Compared

#21

Post by vidarh »

sharperguy wrote: post #16
mariusor wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> moderators still lord over everyone and control speech, the algorithm, your feed, and your freedom. I can't understand the toxicity of mind that makes people think it's OK to impose others view their own, unwanted points of view. If you're not welcome in a community, join one that would hear you. Why would that be against your "freedom"?

I think it's more of an arcitectural issue. If you were a node operator, would you peer with a dedicated racial hatred AP node? What if a small minority of your users complained that you blocked it. With something like nostr, you are free as a relay operator to block whatever makes you feel uncomfortable, while users can just get that content from some other relay without having to create a new account and move their…

This, to me, is an argument against Nostr.

To elaborate, I prefer that the barrier is greater.

Re: ActivityPub/Nostr/At-Bluesky Compared

#22

Post by vidarh »

bouncing wrote: post #17
mariusor wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> moderators still lord over everyone and control speech, the algorithm, your feed, and your freedom. I can't understand the toxicity of mind that makes people think it's OK to impose others view their own, unwanted points of view. If you're not welcome in a community, join one that would hear you. Why would that be against your "freedom"?

I would rephrase it: mastodon is full of cliques. The cliques form around moderation, politics, whether they federate with Threads.net, what content warnings are used, and even whether alt text is “required” for images. Then some instances defederate otherwise innocent instances that don’t have sufficient agreement on all those points, regardless of actual content. It is kind of tiring and honestly hard to recommend.

So is Twitter, and every other social network. They just don't give you the tools to clearly delineate boundaries.

Re: ActivityPub/Nostr/At-Bluesky Compared

#23

Post by grumbel »

kstrauser wrote: post #14
echelon wrote: post #2

ActivityPub is ahead, but it feels like a dead end. It has the same issue with Reddit's little fiefdoms: moderators still lord over everyone and control speech, the algorithm, your feed, and your freedom. Nostr and Bluesky's AT protocol are the most promising. I love the truly distributed nature of Nostr, but the ecosystem is hard to get into. Bluesky has strong technical underpinnings and accessibility, but they're…

> It has the same issue with Reddit's little fiefdoms: moderators still lord over everyone and control speech, the algorithm, your feed, and your freedom. That's a feature, not a bug. Whatever your preferences, there's an ActivityPub instance with moderation you'll like. Want to be in a liberal thought bubble? It's there. Want nothing but all Trump, all the time? They have that. Only the good things about astrology?…

What if I want something that isn't an echo-chamber?

Re: ActivityPub/Nostr/At-Bluesky Compared

#24

Post by kstrauser »

grumbel wrote: post #23
kstrauser wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It has the same issue with Reddit's little fiefdoms: moderators still lord over everyone and control speech, the algorithm, your feed, and your freedom. That's a feature, not a bug. Whatever your preferences, there's an ActivityPub instance with moderation you'll like. Want to be in a liberal thought bubble? It's there. Want nothing but all Trump, all the time? They have that. Only the good things about astrology?…

What if I want something that isn't an echo-chamber?

Join one of the instances with looser moderation.

Re: ActivityPub/Nostr/At-Bluesky Compared

#25

Post by echelon »

mariusor wrote: post #9
echelon wrote: post #2

ActivityPub is ahead, but it feels like a dead end. It has the same issue with Reddit's little fiefdoms: moderators still lord over everyone and control speech, the algorithm, your feed, and your freedom. Nostr and Bluesky's AT protocol are the most promising. I love the truly distributed nature of Nostr, but the ecosystem is hard to get into. Bluesky has strong technical underpinnings and accessibility, but they're…

> moderators still lord over everyone and control speech, the algorithm, your feed, and your freedom. I can't understand the toxicity of mind that makes people think it's OK to impose others view their own, unwanted points of view. If you're not welcome in a community, join one that would hear you. Why would that be against your "freedom"?

> I can't understand the toxicity of mind that makes people think it's OK to impose others view their own, unwanted points of view.

You're using words like toxic to describe me and you don't even know me. This goes to show the incredibly rotten and highly polarized the status quo has become. Systems that behave the way you're describing are the current norm, and they're broken.

You can choose for yourself to ignore me. You can advertise to the world that you ignore me and people can opt into that if they choose. But you shouldn't ever have the right to unilaterally make that call for everyone. Nobody should have that power.

Imagine if [opposite viewpoint] could technologically shut you down for everyone else? The systems we design today could enable that tomorrow. Just because you're in a comfortable spot today doesn't mean that eroding rights and freedoms won't ensnare you tomorrow or that the zeitgeist won't change.

> If you're not welcome in a community

This is also frankly a disturbing trend. Creating little fiefdoms of unacceptance. Who makes you the judge of that? You don't even know what my views and values are, and you're seeking to shun me already.

We're all the same. We just sample the world differently. We all need to be more accepting and loving and stop playing petty team sports.

In the meantime, you're free to keep on tooting. Nobody is taking Mastodon away from you. It's just not a system I want to spend time or energy advocating for.

Re: ActivityPub/Nostr/At-Bluesky Compared

#27

Post by saurik »

vidarh wrote: post #21
sharperguy wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's more of an arcitectural issue. If you were a node operator, would you peer with a dedicated racial hatred AP node? What if a small minority of your users complained that you blocked it. With something like nostr, you are free as a relay operator to block whatever makes you feel uncomfortable, while users can just get that content from some other relay without having to create a new account and move their…

This, to me, is an argument against Nostr. To elaborate, I prefer that the barrier is greater.

Because... you are terrified that you might manage to figure out how to access such content, and need to make it extremely difficult for you to do so, even on purpose? (I clearly don't understand.)

Re: ActivityPub/Nostr/At-Bluesky Compared

#28

Post by echelon »

vidarh wrote: post #21
sharperguy wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's more of an arcitectural issue. If you were a node operator, would you peer with a dedicated racial hatred AP node? What if a small minority of your users complained that you blocked it. With something like nostr, you are free as a relay operator to block whatever makes you feel uncomfortable, while users can just get that content from some other relay without having to create a new account and move their…

This, to me, is an argument against Nostr. To elaborate, I prefer that the barrier is greater.

Why should minds be put in jails? Why should we segregate into like-minded and undesirables?

We're better than this.

I grew up with [x views, y political party], but because the early internet was open and accepting and not at all like this, I was able to see the broader world and wholly new perspectives. Now the bias is to shit on, shame, and block everyone. That's not going to build a better society.

The internet pioneers would be aghast at all of the "happy little" censorship happening today.

I've been banned from several subreddits for leaving comments in subreddits the moderators dislike. Removed completely by automation. They don't even realize my comments weren't in support of their favorite issue to hate on.

Censorship is wrong. Put blinders on your own feed all day long if you so choose, but stop trying to put cages on other people's minds and voices.

Re: ActivityPub/Nostr/At-Bluesky Compared

#29

Post by mariusor »

echelon wrote: post #25
mariusor wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> moderators still lord over everyone and control speech, the algorithm, your feed, and your freedom. I can't understand the toxicity of mind that makes people think it's OK to impose others view their own, unwanted points of view. If you're not welcome in a community, join one that would hear you. Why would that be against your "freedom"?

> I can't understand the toxicity of mind that makes people think it's OK to impose others view their own, unwanted points of view. You're using words like toxic to describe me and you don't even know me. This goes to show the incredibly rotten and highly polarized the status quo has become. Systems that behave the way you're describing are the current norm, and they're broken. You can choose for yourself to ignore m…

> But you shouldn't ever have the right to unilaterally make that call for everyone.

In this hypothetical I'm only making the call for the people of my instance, not for everyone. Like I said, you'd be free to join other instances where people are willing to entertain your point of view.

The audacity of assuming that the server that I pay and care for should be a vehicle for content that I don't agree with is baffling to me. It's my house, my rules, simple as.

Re: ActivityPub/Nostr/At-Bluesky Compared

#30

Post by saurik »

kstrauser wrote: post #14
echelon wrote: post #2

ActivityPub is ahead, but it feels like a dead end. It has the same issue with Reddit's little fiefdoms: moderators still lord over everyone and control speech, the algorithm, your feed, and your freedom. Nostr and Bluesky's AT protocol are the most promising. I love the truly distributed nature of Nostr, but the ecosystem is hard to get into. Bluesky has strong technical underpinnings and accessibility, but they're…

> It has the same issue with Reddit's little fiefdoms: moderators still lord over everyone and control speech, the algorithm, your feed, and your freedom. That's a feature, not a bug. Whatever your preferences, there's an ActivityPub instance with moderation you'll like. Want to be in a liberal thought bubble? It's there. Want nothing but all Trump, all the time? They have that. Only the good things about astrology?…

What you are describing -- a system where I have to maintain accounts on a number of separate networks that don't interoperate due to content control disagreements -- is an ecosystem of competing centralized systems, not a decentralized one, and that people who run their own servers are reportedly presumed evil and defederated either by default or at the drop of a hat is a visceral demonstration that this setup undermines most of the benefit you think you are getting by calling it "decentralized". The reality is that many of the people using Mastadon would be not just "happy enough" but "actively happier" (per all the clearly ridiculous controversy surrounding people doing the supposedly-evil work of building search engines or, heaven forbid, being able to quote-tweet without permission, lol... if you are going out of your way to prevent hyperlinks, something seriously wrong has happened) using a centralized competitor to Twitter that was merely run by someone they liked.
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