User ban controversy reveals Bluesky’s decentralized aspiration isn’t reality • Hacker News Board

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

#371

Post by NoGravitas » Wed, Oct 08, 2025, 2:58 PM UTC

jazzyjackson wrote: post #144

EA-3167 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d argue that people lose the moment they sign up for an account, deluding themselves into believing that the problem with the last nth iteration of the same thing isn’t them. The format is the problem. The medium is the problem. Poorly moderated groups of anonymous people voidscreaming as some “this will be monetized once we hit critical mass” exercise is the problem. I believe that eventually people will sort ours…

100% it doesn't make any sense to expect different behavior out of the same format just because you make slightly different promises about what the rules will be Bluesky has been drama central since the beginning, consisting mostly of people who thought Twitter wasn't censoring enough (or censoring the wrong people), the free speech crowd came later and, well, tested the waters and found transphobic speech was in fac…

Bluesky actually has a central contradiction in that:

1. It was founded by the free speech crowd. 2. It is funded by VCs and required to eventually make a profit, which implies one set of constraints on free speech. 3. Its main initial userbase was people who expected a completely different set of constraints on free speech.

I don't think this is a contradiction that can be resolved by Bluesky. Blacksky might manage it, but I think they will turn up new contradictions, and the high cost of running an alternative ATProto stack is a big impediment to resolving those.

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

#372

Post by belorn » Wed, Oct 08, 2025, 3:01 PM UTC

jrflowers wrote: post #336

belorn wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article mostly redefine the question about tolerance as being a strategy for peace, one which will be given up when war is unavoidable. It not so much a solution to the problem of tolerance and more of a description of the motivations behind the who deploy it. As an effect it also reject the concept of an intolerant person, as there are only people with different views about what constitutes an acceptable state o…

That is a good point. If we analyze this article called “Tolerance Isn’t A Moral Precept” with the understanding that it is arguing under the assertion that it actually is a moral precept and then imagine in our minds an enormous number of people that have no concept of “clear and present danger” at all, it is very troublesome indeed. In a vein that has very similar relevance to the article and discussion at hand, th…

"clear and present danger" is a concept used by the legal system to define when speech is or isn't legal, and the bar used is generally fairly high. Still, we usually deploy a jury or a team of judges to determine this in order to really be sure to get it right. It is not something that is easily defined in an objective sense.

"clear, specific and concrete danger" is something that may be a better set of criteria. If one can not specify the danger, or if it is not concrete, then its arguable not very clear or present.

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

#373

Post by NoGravitas » Wed, Oct 08, 2025, 3:08 PM UTC

astrange wrote: post #161

jazzyjackson wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And bluesky has the ultimate power of choosing which blocklists to show you

Eh, not really. It really is decentralized, you can find them on Google. They could stop respecting a certain list but I think you can host your own AppView and get it back?

No one is successfully hosting their own AppView at this point. Blacksky had one but had to roll it back. Northsky has it as their priority, but they don't have one yet.

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

#374

Post by NoGravitas » Wed, Oct 08, 2025, 3:25 PM UTC

astrange wrote: post #101

throwawayqqq11 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe its just a filtering problem. I wished musk would have thought about creating semi-permeable bubbles for every milieu, when he bought twitter, where you can switch between feel-good and controversy filters as you wish. Hard lock outs / bans only lead to more polarization.

He kind of did this by making it so you can see the posts of people who block you. Of course, he did this because he's so annoying everyone blocked him.

Also, so that if you have a lot of followers and someone blocks you, you can send your followers to harass them.

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

#375

Post by Manuel_D » Wed, Oct 08, 2025, 3:28 PM UTC

TimorousBestie wrote: post #358

Manuel_D wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There has been quality research published recently on treating gender dysphoria. For instance, A 2020 study on treating GD with hormone therapy: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08039488.2019.1... Somewhat unique among studies on pediatric gender affirming hormone therapy, this study had a control group that wasn't prescribed blockers. The group on blockers fared no better than the control group. This is…

I’m not interested paying to read your study. The bulk of your comment is a non sequitur that conflates “novel, high-quality scientific research” with a single N=58 study that may very well be high-quality, but in any case does not propose a novel course of treatment. It has always been the case that many gender dysphoric children do not receive puberty blockers. You conflate the European change in medical policy, wh…

> You conflate the European change in medical policy, which still permits the use of puberty blockers to treat gender dysphoria, with American legislative bans that do not permit that.

No, it largely does not. Most European countries at this point, if they do permit blockers at all, only permit it as part of a clinical study, not as routine treatment for gender dysphoria. This excludes all but a slim minority of (if any) patients. Pointing out that it's still legal as part of experimental trials is a nuance that doesn't affect the >99% of patients that aren't part of a trial, and thus cannot be prescribed these substances.

Your linked publication doesn't actually interview patients who've worked with clinicians or otherwise try and dig into real-world evidence about what this clinical practice does. It's just one author postulating her opinions as fact, with no effort to back up her claims with evidence.

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

#376

Post by NoGravitas » Wed, Oct 08, 2025, 3:31 PM UTC

jrm4 wrote: post #141

Mastodon is the right model. I keep saying this and I keep being surprised that it isn't more obvious to most. It's the right model because it's essentially the same model as email. Yes, there is TONS of "human" work to be done to change people's minds on this, but STRUCTURALLY it's the only one that can handle things correctly. I always found what Bluesky was "optimizing" for to be a stupid goal, and inherently a ba…

> I always found what Bluesky was "optimizing" for to be a stupid goal, and inherently a bad idea -- namely "the ability to keep your everything permanent."

Not only that, but also having a globally (eventually) consistent view of every conversation from every server. Unlike the "message passing" model used by email and ActivityPub, this means that every server has to carry all the traffic of the whole network (i.e., to be prepared to be a centralized service for the whole world). This is the main reason ATProto is mostly centralized - every alternative server has to be global scale, and who wants to bother with that just to show exactly the same content that Bluesky Inc does?

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

#377

Post by Manuel_D » Wed, Oct 08, 2025, 3:35 PM UTC

TimorousBestie wrote: post #365

Manuel_D wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

This isn't a de novo principle. It's pretty basic evidence based medicine: if a treatment has negative side effects, there needs to be significant evidence of positive outcomes to justify this treatment.

What "absurd collateral damage" have the UK, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, or Norway encountered when they banned endocrine interventions for treating gender dysphoric youth?

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

#378

Post by danillonunes » Wed, Oct 08, 2025, 3:52 PM UTC

itake wrote: post #268

neilv wrote: post #198

> While the ATProto system has been criticized as overly complicated compared to the ActivityPub system that powers the Fediverse, it has one key feature that ActivityPub lacks: the ability to transfer servers while keeping all of your followers and posts. FWIW, it looks like Mastodon software has some features for moving servers, including bringing your followers, but not your posts: https://docs.joinmastodon.org/us…

My understanding is Mastodon requires the server to be complicit with the transfer (online and redirecting requests to the new destination). If your host server is offline or not willing to migrate your data, you can't move. In the AT protocol, your identity isn't tied to a server. You don't need the older server's consent or support to have a new identity somewhere else.

> In the AT protocol, your identity isn't tied to a server.

It kinda is. Your identity is in the hands of whoever controls the PLC Directory. You can argue this is better than having your account and identity on the same place, but it still a third party that you depends on.

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

#379

Post by greekrich92 » Wed, Oct 08, 2025, 4:27 PM UTC

astrange wrote: post #324

greekrich92 wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying that making jokes about inanimate probability models is comparable to saying the N word is anti-Black racism. Completely inappropriate and divorced from reality.

Which of these are acceptable/unacceptable to you? - posting about saying it "with a hard R" - posting TikToks of yourself yelling "dirty clanker" at delivery robots on the street - posting TikToks of yourself saying it in a sketch where you're a waitress in the South in the 1950s - replying to people with prosthetic robot arms calling them "half clankas" Cause those are all real. It's the internet, you should assume…

Computers aren't people. Don't know how to clarify this any better.

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

#380

Post by TimorousBestie » Wed, Oct 08, 2025, 4:37 PM UTC

Manuel_D wrote: post #377

TimorousBestie wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

This isn't a de novo principle. It's pretty basic evidence based medicine: if a treatment has negative side effects, there needs to be significant evidence of positive outcomes to justify this treatment. What "absurd collateral damage" have the UK, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, or Norway encountered when they banned endocrine interventions for treating gender dysphoric youth?

Talking with you is very difficult when you continue to conflate various claims and stances that are logically distinct.

OP said:

>>> How is it 'disgusting' to try to let someone live as they were born?

Asserting this as an ethical principle leads to absurdities. That’s all that occurred here.

> What "absurd collateral damage" have the UK, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, or Norway encountered when they banned endocrine interventions for treating gender dysphoric youth?

This is irrelevant to the point at hand (nobody here was discussing European medical policy), but this is not accurate. It’s strange, because you’ve correctly summarized what occurred elsewhere.

Let’s go review the situation at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puberty_blocker

> Danish guidelines published in 2023 recommend the use of puberty blockers on transgender patients at either Tanner stage two or three, as a means of buying time for patients to consider their gender more fully before making a decision.[119]

> In 2020, Finland revised its guidelines to prioritise psychotherapy over medical transition.[120] However, these guidelines are a recommendation, not a mandate.[121][122] The Council for Choices in Health Care allows the use of puberty blockers in transgender children after a case-by-case assessment if there are no medical contraindications.[123][124]

> In 2023, the Norwegian Healthcare Investigation Board, an independent non-governmental organization, issued a non-binding report finding "there is insufficient evidence for the use of puberty blockers and cross sex hormone treatments in young people" and recommending changing to a cautious approach.[148][149] The Norwegian Healthcare Investigation Board is not responsible for setting healthcare policy, and the Directorate, which is, has not implemented the recommendations, though they have said they are considering them.[148][146][125] Misinformation that Norway had banned gender affirming care proliferated on social media.[146]

Misinformation, by the way, that you continue to peddle in.