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ActivityPub/Nostr/At-Bluesky Compared

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Re: ActivityPub/Nostr/At-Bluesky Compared

#31

Post by echelon »

mariusor wrote: post #29
echelon wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 bafflin…

Sure, that's absolutely your right.

I just want spaces for me and others where this isn't the default imposed upon everyone. I don't want to subscribe to [x filtering] unless I choose.

House rules and filtering should be opt-in and not the default for the public commons.

The legislators are going to make rules that enforce these technological straddles, and the defaults will slowly change in directions you neither anticipate nor enjoy.

We shouldn't accept ActivityPub as the end state solution to these problems. If anything, large instances (and thus their owners) will win out, and this just entrenches the status quo of tiny cabals in power censoring things that displease them.

Re: ActivityPub/Nostr/At-Bluesky Compared

#32

Post by vidarh »

saurik wrote: post #27
vidarh wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

No, because I want to be able to choose to interact with people who are fine with there being barriers to similar types of content.

If some feel they have a compelling reason to straddle both, they still can, so it denies them nothing, but sometimes even small extra barriers helps set a tone for communities.

Re: ActivityPub/Nostr/At-Bluesky Compared

#33

Post by bouncing »

vidarh wrote: post #22
bouncing wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There are debates and groups on other networks.

But there aren’t schisms over alt text or content warnings for food on Threads.

Re: ActivityPub/Nostr/At-Bluesky Compared

#34

Post by vidarh »

echelon wrote: post #28
vidarh wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 p…

No minds are "put in jails".

But they do not have a right to unfettered access to me.

I'm free to choose to set standards, and the standard of requiring them to have a second account if they both want access to me and to content I find deplorable is a really low barrier.

And others are free to choose to commune with me in the spaces I want to spend time in, and communities are free to set their standards.

I've not argued for censorship. I've argued for my right to shield myself very mildly from people I want nothing to do with, and for others to choose to do so with me.

You're free to say what you want on your instance or those of people who believe as you do or are fine with your speech.

Nobody is stopping your speech, just your ability to impose it on those of us who does not want it near us.

Re: ActivityPub/Nostr/At-Bluesky Compared

#35

Post by idle_zealot »

These all feel quite over-engineered. I feel like a combination of a webpage with your bio and a feed of posts with an associated RSS feed could cover the "follow a user/microblogging" side of social media, and email could cover direct messaging and threaded conversations. What am I missing that these protocols bring to the table?

Re: ActivityPub/Nostr/At-Bluesky Compared

#36

Post by mrkramer »

saurik wrote: post #19
mg wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding whether it is "a good thing for social networks to provide such stats": It's a central part of social media, even here on HN. Look at the front page. Each post shows 6 pieces of information: Title, Domain, Points, Author, Time, Comments 2 of them = 33% are numeric indicators we trust because we trust HN. Likes and follows are probably two of the main reasons that centralized social media sites have displace…

And yet, Hacker News long ago removed the ability to see vote point counts on comments, and there is no mechanism for people to follow other users at all. And, hell, while "author" is the most trivial feature of all to get right as it simply can't be forged in a signature-based system, it is incredible to me how many people on Hacker News actively try to ignore who wrote a comment (not me! the first thing I look at i…

>The question then is really: "how can I algorithmically rank content on a decentralized network"

An interesting thing would be if you could write your own ranking algorithm and then apply it to your followers' content or if you could at least tweak the algorithm e.g. "I want 70% of content to be from let's say cybersecurity and 30% from gaming) or (I want 70% of content to be from my friends and family and 30% of content from "Internet people" that I follow).

Edit: Custom ranking algorithm would be hard to design and implement but not unfeasible.

Re: ActivityPub/Nostr/At-Bluesky Compared

#37

Post by mariusor »

echelon wrote: post #31
mariusor wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 bafflin…

Sure, that's absolutely your right. I just want spaces for me and others where this isn't the default imposed upon everyone. I don't want to subscribe to [x filtering] unless I choose. House rules and filtering should be opt-in and not the default for the public commons. The legislators are going to make rules that enforce these technological straddles, and the defaults will slowly change in directions you neither an…

> House rules and filtering should be opt-in and not the default for the public commons.

I can't understand how you can think that fediverse instances are "public commons". Each of them is run under the rules of the people that keep them running and not everyone can be moot to be able to suffer everything on their servers.

The public commons part of the fediverse is formed of the many software that you can just pick up and run yourself.

Re: ActivityPub/Nostr/At-Bluesky Compared

#38

Post by vidarh »

bouncing wrote: post #33
vidarh wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

There are debates and groups on other networks. But there aren’t schisms over alt text or content warnings for food on Threads.

Is it a feature to you that whole sections of society are absent from it? Because otherwise those views would be there.

Re: ActivityPub/Nostr/At-Bluesky Compared

#39

Post by echelon »

vidarh wrote: post #34
echelon wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 p…

No minds are "put in jails". But they do not have a right to unfettered access to me . I'm free to choose to set standards, and the standard of requiring them to have a second account if they both want access to me and to content I find deplorable is a really low barrier. And others are free to choose to commune with me in the spaces I want to spend time in, and communities are free to set their standards. I've not a…

> No minds are "put in jails".

I got banned from my city's subreddit because I said something once about crime the mods disagreed with. Now I can't enjoy a platform about the city I live in. I can't ask about restaurants, talk about concerts. It's frankly troubling.

I posted something to /r/conservative once that asked them to be more inclusive of trans people. They banned me on sight, which figures. From that moment, I've been auto-banned from several trans and liberal spaces for posting in /r/conservative. I'm LGBT and my partner is trans.

This authoritarian censorship is toxic and pervasive. It's just not right. Stopping the flow of ideas is how the pressure valves stop working. It's how polarization deepens and is how our democracy ends and authoritarians arise.

> But they do not have a right to unfettered access to me.

You can block me all you want. You can subscribe to a list of HN contrarians to filter forever. But you have no right to filter me from other people that don't willfully subscribe to your banlist.

Lock yourself in your house all you want. You can't keep me from enjoying the outside public [1], from meeting people in the public, or from me seeing and meeting other people you've locked out of your house. Or even going as far as to say you can't lock people inside your house without their consent or knowledge.

You do what you want in your house. But don't desire to make your house rules the default for all humanity.

[1] "the public" is an allusion to a P2P, non-federated, user-first social media protocol. Something like email.

Re: ActivityPub/Nostr/At-Bluesky Compared

#40

Post by vidarh »

echelon wrote: post #31
mariusor wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 bafflin…

Sure, that's absolutely your right. I just want spaces for me and others where this isn't the default imposed upon everyone. I don't want to subscribe to [x filtering] unless I choose. House rules and filtering should be opt-in and not the default for the public commons. The legislators are going to make rules that enforce these technological straddles, and the defaults will slowly change in directions you neither an…

My Mastodon instance is not a public commons. If I choose to let you join it, it is on my terms. If you don't like that, there are others, or you can run your own. The "public commons" is the system of federation, not the instances.
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