Technology

Yea I really don't understand why they list this is a benefit. But they don't really explain it fully in the post it seems.

Tbf from the short time I've been on bluesky it seems like their algorithms are very good, I have followed the people I'm interested in and seen 0 nazi posts so far

I mean, if the server is running in a host you control, you can do whatever with it, no? You can just modify the software to just not do what other servers say, no?

? You can block the entire nazi server and you will essentially be defederates from it without relying on your servers admins to do it. This makes it easier to block nazis?

Users have to maintain public blocklists to deal with poor moderation from BSky HQ. For the most part, it works, but if you get on the bad side of anyone running a list you're basically at the mercy of them not using their lists for personal vendettas. When that does happen, all it does is dilute the usefulness of said blocklists and in turn lets the bad actors back into the mix as people unsubscribe.

I guess it's an immature system and maybe people will create services to maintain lists with proper accountability, appeals, etc. but that's just trying to skirt around the main issue which is that Bluesky LLC is not interested in federating the backend service.

As for their "you can't interact with viral posts" claim, that's only a Mastodon problem - IMO they designed their feed system really shitty for a service trying to imitate Twitter. On Lemmy, I can easily see active posts across dozens of instances without having to subscribe to them, and the communities of those instances have a right to decide who does and doesn't federate. We've successfully sectioned off troublesome communities, without turning the entire network into a fragmented map of isolation.

I would like activitypub to better support instances that do nothing but host personal data without having to also technically be a full platform (ie. those tiny masto/lemmy instances for people who dont wanna make accounts on someone else's server). But for the regular user the current AP system is way better than what BSKY offers.

That being said, I like Bluesky and its community, I just dont think it deserves to be "fediverse".

They were clear from the start they they were doing bsky in part because they didn't like ActivityPub as a protocol.

I mean, I'm sure they really just wanted to control the protocol development more than anything, not liking the protocol was what they said. It was meant to be a direct competitor to Mastodon from day one.

There's an upcoming project to bridge Mastodon, nostr, and Bluesky, but it's not out yet.

Wait so, who are they federating with? Nobody yet I guess until someone starts new servers using their protocol?

Yes that's right

It always bugged me when the CEO referred to Bluesky as part of the fediverse because that's only technically true with projects like Bridgy Fed.

This is the same criticism that was made of cryptocurrency's claim to fame regarding decentralization, consensus, and resilience to authoritarian takeover.

"If you take all these different parts of your identity, all the games you play, all the things you buy, all the groups you join, and stick them into one system, that's a central system. It doesn't matter how many servers that system spans, you've pooled all that data in one place."

And ultimately we can make the same criticism of the Fediverse itself. It's nice that there are different platforms, different instances, different communities... but it's still just one entity at the end of the day. This is especially apparent with the spam wave we just saw. Misskey, Mastodon, Lemmy, even kbin was not invulnerable. You don't need to attack them individually, you can attack them all at once, and then they will naturally spread your attack to other instances for you.

Bluesky is uniquely un-private. For instance, you can see who blocks who.

Why not just use AP?

https://urbanists.video/w/n7xyeV1kbW8mUKr4ncchhs

That blusky didn't use [activitypub] is so typical of these companies. It's like the lightning cable when everyone else is using USB-C. Fuck you apple, and your shitty plug. And fuck you blusky and your reinvention of the wheel. Use the standard you egotistical F$*!4.

Because why would you federate using your own protocol when there's a perfectly viable protocol (ActivityPub) that you could use instead and you could federate with the whole Fediverse from day 1.

No one, but it hasn’t really been open to others. This is all new.

It is more complicated than that. There are multiple different server components that make up Bluesky and its federation. The PDS (Person Data Server) is what they’re mostly talking about in that press release. You can however run all three major server components yourself and setup a completely separate network that would then federate with Bluesky proper. It’s quite different to Mastodon and other ActivityPub services (where you setup a Mastodon, Lemmy, WriteFreely, etc… instance and then federate).

Still, at present it does feel a little pointless.

They aren't using ActivityPub, what Mastodon and Lemmy use, they're using their own new protocol called AT (Authenticated Transfer). So it's less that they don't plan on federating with anybody else, and more that there's nobody to federate with. Maybe somebody else might pickup AT in the future, but AT is still a work in progress and there isn't a lot of incentive for anybody to do so yet.

I believe the idea is that they're not federating with any other existing site, they're creating a new variety of federation with themselves as the first member, with people being able to set themselves up as additional independent nodes in that federation.