How decentralized is Bluesky really? -- Dustycloud Brainstorms
dustycloud.org

This is a pretty great, long form post about the structure of Bluesky, and how it’s largely kinda pretending to be decentralized at the moment. I’m not trying to make a dig at it. I’ve enjoyed the platform myself for a while, but it’s good to learn more about how it actually works.

This article was shared on Mastodon via its author here.

  • @[email protected]English
    10•1 year ago

    Thats not really what happens, unless you’re so toxic that old-twitter would actually ban you.

    Bsky has a “nuclear block”, that essentially removes you and the target from even existing on the version of the site each other see. If you’re ok with just talking to folk who are on your side of a “no, shutup” line, like “trans women are women” or “trans is a mental disorder” you’ll be fine.

    The issue is that a bunch of folk who abscribe to the second apparently just want to troll the first, so they get blocked by their targets, have no fun, and then complain to reporters still on twitter.

      • @[email protected]English
        2•1 year ago

        “They” don’t have that. Most labellers are user made and people can subscribe to them or not.

          • @[email protected]English
            3•1 year ago

            I do think it matters a lot whether it’s a thing the app offers natively to everybody or something certain users have implemented on their own and that other users can choose to use or not. You don’t blame the contents of a mod on the game itself, do you?

            • @[email protected]English
              0•1 year ago

              If there’s a widely used mod that makes the game worse, that’s a good reason to not play the game. It doesn’t matter who made the mod. Using the mod (e.g. an aim bot in a shooter game) is toxic user behavior and if the game ops tolerate it, they deserve blame too.

              • @[email protected]English
                2•1 year ago

                Is it “widely used”? An aim bot directly affects everybody else, actively making the game worse. This only affects a small number of people who choose to opt-in and trust the labeller’s opinion. I can’t even find that labeller and I learnt about it from you. And again, it’s not BSky that offers the labeller - that IS an important distinction.

                • @[email protected]English
                  1•1 year ago

                  No I don’t think the distinction matters. Twitter sucks because it’s full of Nazis. It’s irrelevant that Twitter doesn’t supply the Nazis itself. The culture that a platform fosters is part of the platform.

                  As for the visibility of the labelling on bsky, idk, I guess I’ll take your word for it. It had sounded like a built in feature that was visible to everyone, but ok, maybe not.

                  • @[email protected]English
                    1•1 year ago

                    And yet, everybody stayed until the Muskrat took over. Because until then it wasn’t the platform telling people to be nazis and nazis were a nuisance but a minority - as are people who falsely accuse scientists of being anti-science on BSky. That’s exactly what I’m saying.

      • @[email protected]English
        1•1 year ago

        The way some moderation lists (ban/labeling) work is algorithmic.

        You can actually host one of these services yourself!