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.
What’s funny is that the only shit people get from DeCeNtRaLiZaTioN is inconvenience and dying engagement.
Incorrect. That’s the only thing people notice. The benefit is not having one central authority in control. If Bluesky decides to, for some reason, not allow third-party apps or something, there’s no way to prevent it. If Lemmy.world, for example, does this then they don’t have the authority to enforce it.
The benefit of federation is in removing hierarchy that can harm the platform without the consent of its users. It’s invisible because it’s only preventing something. This does not mean it isn’t beneficial though.
“Removing hierarchy”. Lol what? The instance owner is boss of the instance. Are you suggesting it’s different just because here it is a totally reliable* leftist* dude in the Internet who decides what to do instead of… A random guy who owns a company?
What happens when the money runs out and you face the reality that running a platform is a business, not a hobby? As has been happening with many instances lately.
The instance owner owns the instance, but it’s limited to that. That is the minimum level possible. There has to be a server somewhere. On Lemmy you can always leave for another instance or start your own. On Reddit your options are to do what the company wants or leave the entire site. You can’t just log into a different server.
I tried to look this up but I couldn’t find much. The “worst” I found was this:
Some users have expressed concerns about the platform’s moderation practices, suggesting that the community’s emphasis on inclusivity and respect may lead to over-sensitivity, where even minor disagreements or differing opinions are met with significant backlash. This environment can create a perception of excessive policing of content, potentially discouraging open dialogue.
Where are you reading that people are saying that it’s worse than twitter? Is it right wing people that are saying that because they put emphasis on inclusivity and respect?
That’s exactly what it is. The trolls and bot runners and MAGA chuds are pissed that we can completely prevent them from interacting with us there. And with curated blocklists it doesn’t even require work for the average user.
They can come to bsky but they’ll just be screaming at each other while the rest of us talk about cool stuff.
It’s one of the best features of bsky!
Lists, feeds, starter packs, and moderation tools that work, have all led to a very vibrant and engaging social media experience!
The user base isn’t afraid of quickly dealing with antisocial behavior.
You can tell which way your media outlets position themselves by how they report on this aspect of bsky. Egalitarians will cast it in a positive light, while Elitists will cast it in a negative light.
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.
“They” don’t have that. Most labellers are user made and people can subscribe to them or not.
What? It’s just a clone of X that is anti-X. It’s not decentralized at all, it’s Twitter for the original blue check people only, and they’re already eating each other alive in there.
I’m staying on Lemmy and off Bluesky.
I seek and spread knowledge from/to helpful lemmings and not interested in another Twitter wannabe gossip app, hopping on the “decentralized” train to grain traction.
This gossip app is meant for artists and other internet celebrities that think they are cool making their opinions to be fact. Extreme left is insufferable right now as a moderate. They have tripled down in all the worst ways which makes it annoying and frustrating to ignore.
I always liked reddit better since people actually discussed real things. Since I jumped ship to lemmy I feel even less inclined to bother with anything else. However reddit was way better for certain stuff like artists or creators.
I always liked reddit better since people actually discussed real things.
People on Reddit do circlejerks about their feeling of “actually discussing real things”, except it’s only a feeling.
It’s a bit like with printed media in societies that saw rapid growth of literacy, people literate in the first generation would trust anything printed as if it were solid fact. And many people still trust anything printed and kinda official as if it were fact and think that being critical of that is backwards and worth irony. It’s really impossible to talk to such.
In this case - the Web has mostly moved to formats disadvantaging any exchange of normal texts, and things like Reddit (or Lemmy) seem, for people not used to that, automatically better for nuanced opinions. They are not.
Just like you can print any text, My Struggle and Elders of Sion and The Capital included, you can make any bullshit look appealing on Reddit with sufficiently eloquent or smart-looking text.
FFS, people actually reading books and writing something knew this since before Gutenberg. How did we even come to this miserable situation.
Reddit was hated and still is hated because people actually challenged eachothers views (mostly) constructively while also organizing and fighting for change when possible. Upvoting, downvoting, commenting, and engaging all equally mattered. Until one day spez and all the reddit mods decided to let their platform eat shit.
There were places that circlejerked, no doubt about it, but what everyone fails to realize is that reddit was a place for pretty much everyone. So if you thought that subreddit was a circlejerk, feel free to join or make a different one. Like open source software getting forked.
All these different social medias want us to be trapped in some sort of bubble through the illusion of choice. The short character limit is also what causes these sites to always be inferior to places like reddit and lemmy whether they like it or not. No one has a chance to fully expand on what they actually think or cite sources instead of being blasted immediately after their first post by getting blocked, cancelled, or moderated to oblivion.
Yes Ive been on bsky since early this year and really enjoyed it until everyone on the platform started kicking up dust over the election completely overreacting and spazzing out spewing the most idiotic things about identity politics, third party voters, trump being hitler, fascists it just lost all meaning. I used to be democrat and now consider myself moderate at this point and I just cant stomach following those kind of people anymore.
Not to mention childish adding labels on everyone and blocklists to decent people just completely power tripping cancel culture x10. Then all of a sudden I feel like its twitter all over again and I become incredibly annoyed at myself thinking it would ever change. Microblogging is so fucking stupid.
I’m probably not going to read the article. But there’s currently just one bluesky instance, so it’s 100% centralized, not decentralized at all.
Jack was talking about the “protocol” at one point… I don’t think that matters at all right now. It’s just another social media site!
