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Bluesky announces data federation for self hosters

bsky.social

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Re: Bluesky announces data federation for self hosters

#61

Post by numpad0 »

orthecreedence wrote: post #38
colesantiago wrote: post #29

This is good and all but, sigh are we really celebrating letting self hosting get into the hands of bad actors to federate with Bluesky? And don’t say “lets defederate with said bad actors” since they would still exist and anyone can join said bad actors instances. It’s akin to telling antelopes surrounded by lions to close their eyes and the lions are ‘gone’ yet the lions still exist around them.

Your argument against federation and open communication is that bad people might use it? What's to stop bad people from using the main Bluesky instance?

It's always porn, or political extremism. Nobody opposes literal spams, but the definition of former two depends on cultural backgrounds and there will always be demonization around those.

Re: Bluesky announces data federation for self hosters

#62

Post by threeseed »

rvz wrote: post #43

Given that there are some so-called Twitter / X alternatives and options to choose from like Threads, Mastodon and Bluesky and are now open for registration, we can now see which platform the most users will choose to go to if a major destructive change happens on X. Once that happens we now wait for the platform that has the most sign ups.

It's no longer just about Twitter.

Meta yesterday integrated Threads with Facebook allowing you to cross post and almost every week they are deepening the integration with Instagram.

They are clearly trying to broaden the user base to include the other few billion who never signed up for Twitter.

Re: Bluesky announces data federation for self hosters

#63

Post by steveklabnik »

mm263 wrote: post #4

I think they nailed every Mastodon criticism that I've heard floating around and addressed it, however I'm especially curious to learn about the moderation layer in-depth.

> I'm especially curious to learn about the moderation layer in-depth.

You'll want to read:

* "Composable Moderation," this is the core conceptual idea: https://bsky.social/about/blog/4-13-2023-moderation

* "Moderation in a Public Commons," which describes specific features that were added in pursuit of the previously-described goal https://bsky.social/about/blog/6-23-2023-moderation-proposal...

* "Bluesky 2023 Moderation Report," which discusses specifically how (what is now) the main instance was moderated last year https://bsky.social/about/blog/01-16-2024-moderation-2023

Re: Bluesky announces data federation for self hosters

#64

Post by elpool2 »

emceestork wrote: post #31

I switched to Bluesky but then moved back to twitter. I'm glad that they are trying to compete with Twitter (Twitter is a conservative cesspool), but all of my non-technical friends have stayed on Twitter. So, I end up going where they are. I think the reason my friends did not join Bluesky despite me inviting them is that it just isn't as good of a product as Twitter. You can't post videos or DM. I am not a tech exe…

I think everything you said was fair, but you also mentioned Twitter being a conservative cesspool, and a lot these features like federation and composable moderation are designed to help prevent the whole "rich guy buys the company and turns it into something you don't like" scenario.

Re: Bluesky announces data federation for self hosters

#65

Post by tamimio »

Arathorn wrote: post #47
tamimio wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bluesky has a Matrix dev group (afaik it’s an official one) why not use that too in addition to Discord (or other comms channels)?

Unfortunately they declared they didn't have moderation bandwidth to maintain it as an official channel, and then apparently moved to Discord :(

Welp, that’s unfortunate indeed.

P.S. Fantastic project (Matrix/Element)!

Re: Bluesky announces data federation for self hosters

#66

Post by sangnoir »

unshavedyak wrote: post #54
mm263 wrote: post #4

I think they nailed every Mastodon criticism that I've heard floating around and addressed it, however I'm especially curious to learn about the moderation layer in-depth.

I'm kind of tired of social networks in general, but this is attractive to me just because of that. I like Mastodon, but the underlying ActivityPub protocol was rather underwhelming.

Is the AT protocol is superior in your opinion?

Re: Bluesky announces data federation for self hosters

#67

Post by doublerabbit »

jakebsky wrote: post #5

Hey HN, the engineering team at Bluesky is especially excited to get to this point! We're happy to help answer questions and help anyone trying to run their own PDS host. Things should work pretty well for self-hosters right now, but we're standing by to help if there are any problems. Technical details and the installer are in the GitHub repo https://github.com/bluesky-social/pds And we're on Discord available to he…

Will this work for bare metal?

I use BSD, and all I see is a installer for Debian/Ubuntu.

No guide in sight for bare metal nor telling you what services/software are required.

Re: Bluesky announces data federation for self hosters

#68

Post by djbusby »

tamimio wrote: post #18

>You need to join Discord to access the feature Seriously?! Will this trend ever dies?! I don’t want to use discord, can’t they just make a simple request form? Whenever I see “join our discord” for anything in any service I just never use that service, keep it as an option for whoever wants to hangout there just don’t make it the “only” channel of communication!

Maybe some kind of federated option?

Re: Bluesky announces data federation for self hosters

#69

Post by steveklabnik »

micromacrofoot wrote: post #53
jakebsky wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The network is designed to be "locked open" in a way that prevents this. The architecture is designed to work like the web.

what binds this? I have no interest in joining if Jack can sell to Elon again and a switch gets flipped

That specific scenario is impossible, in my understanding, because Jack does not have an ownership stake in the company.

This release, of federation, is in my mind a major answer to the real question you're asking, which is the same but with "the employees" instead of "Jack," as they have the equity stake.

Once things are federated, other folks gain power over the protocol, by virtue of usage. If Bluesky PBLLC starts to do shady things, the other instances can refuse to do so, and talk to each other instead.

This is why the split between AT and BlueSky is important, and why this news matters, as it is meaningfully delivering on the desire to protect against such a thing.

Re: Bluesky announces data federation for self hosters

#70

Post by threeseed »

steveklabnik wrote: post #52
Eric_WVGG wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

… and if not, what the heck is the business model here?

BlueSky's first revenue generation (in my understanding, I don't work there) has been a partnership with NameCheap that makes it easy for non-technical users to purchase a domain name and use it as their BlueSky username. They have been a bit vague about other ways to generate revenue, except in one case: they will not be using advertisements to monetize.

That business model is laughable. The percentage of users who care about a domain name, are willing to pay a subscription for it and don't have one already has to be in the single digits.

They better have a good answer to this because it's a threat to the ecosystem as a whole if they don't. Because relying on VC money in this environment is not the smartest thing to do.

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