1/There is nothing more embarrassing than watching hordes of liberals willingly herd themselves into a pen funded by Russian capital. Blue sky’s principal funder Blockchain Capital LLC is run in part by Kirill Dorofeev, who also works for VK, Russia’s state social network.
2/Be aware you are effectively operating behind enemy lines. It may be tactically useful to do so, but don’t pretend there is anything “good” happening here. For all the talk about critical thinking, folks could try using some for once. 🤦
@davetroy
> Blue sky’s principal funder Blockchain Capital LLC is run in part by Kirill Dorofeev, who also works for VK, Russia’s state social network
Yet another reason to be sceptical of BlueSky.
@davetroy "decentralized foundation" hmmmm, it's not foundational if it's not actually part of the reality yet and integral to the implementation. It's still entirely conceptual and likely well out of the economic and technical reach of most people in practical terms.
@fifilamoura what they realized was that their decentralized tech wasn’t what users really wanted. They are following the path of Twitter now which is why Dorsey left. It is a cash burning machine.
@davetroy Is that really why Dorsey left? But, yeah, this new round of funding makes it all seem even more dubious.
@fifilamoura @davetroy Dorsey left because Bluesky wanted to moderate.
@stinerman
> Dorsey left because Bluesky wanted to moderate
That makes no sense. Distributed moderation was part of the plan from day one.
This is why I've now warned my Followed that I'll be muting anything they boost from Bluesky users. Those users may not have evil intent like its corporate owners, but at the least they're idiots or complicit.
@VulcanTourist There's only one company I know that took "do no evil" out of their mission statement, and it's not a Russian one. Are users of American systems likewise complicit in their country's crimes? Personally, I'm on a local Mastodon server so have nobody to blame but myself. @davetroy
@vik
> There's only one company I know that took "do no evil" out of their mission statement, and it's not a Russian one
Your implied argument seems to be that only US tech corporations do bad stuff. This is so obviously wrongheaded that the only reasonable response is to point and laugh.
> Are users of American systems likewise complicit in their country's crimes?
We're not talking about "users", we're talking about an *employee* of VK, who's an *investor* in BS.
@davetroy This mess did not take long https://www.linkedin.com/posts/joecardillo_bluesky-bigtech-socialmedia-activity-7263206291139932161-BTim/
@strypey
The way I make sense of it is that they aren't doing distributed moderation in the style that Dorsey wanted. They're just doing standard centralized moderation where they ban sufficiently awful people/content.
In contrast, Dorsey is now backing Nostr, which doesn't do that, and is consequently full of awful stuff. That's the natural outcome of building stuff to free-speech-absolutist ideals.
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@williampietri
> they aren't doing distributed moderation in the style that Dorsey wanted. They're just doing standard centralized moderation where they ban sufficiently awful people/content
Sounds like a reasonable criticism to me. Surely we've all seen centralized moderation fail spectacularly, enough times to know that it doesn't work at scale?
Ah, and here's Dorsey saying that more or less explicitly: https://www.businessinsider.com/jack-dorsey-bluesky-twiiter-nostr-interview-2024-5
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@williampietri
> Dorsey is now backing Nostr, which doesn't do that, and is consequently full of awful stuff
So is the fediverse, in theory;
https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/24/23806093/mastodon-csam-study-decentralized-network
Doesn't mean we have to see any of it.
We are seeing experiments with cross-server moderation in the verse (IFTAS etc). The same principles can and will be used by @rabble et al to develop effective distributed moderation for Nostr, for those who want it.
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@williampietri
> That's the natural outcome of building stuff to free-speech-absolutist ideals
I reject this whole 'free speech = awful stuff' framing. There's no need to demonise freedom of speech to argue for moderation tools.
The fediverse totally respects freedom of speech. Anyone can spin up an ActivityPub server and say whatever they want.
It also totally respects freedom of association. Any person or server can choose not to receive speech from any other person or server.
@strypey Yeah, this is the "consumer choice" theory of moderation. The basis notion is, "As long as *I* don't have to see the nazi harassment and the child porn, who cares?" And then adherents get to blame anybody who does see it or does care for not perfectly managing their filter bubble.
But it turns out that plenty of people do care about being on a platform with that stuff, and for good reason. Which is why Twitter and Bluesky followed the same path. And it's why the Fediverse puts a lot of work into isolating rogue servers. Any platform has a choice between people who get abuse and the people who like hating and abusing them. Free-speech absolutism inevitably ends up getting you the latter and then the former go to places run by people who don't want to spend their days supporting the shitbags.
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@williampietri
> this is the "consumer choice" theory of moderation
Maybe. But, the fact is no one can control who can post on the fediverse. You can only control who you hear from. This is just the reality of truly decentralised systems.
> the Fediverse puts a lot of work into isolating rogue servers
Fediverse admins put a lot of work into isolating *themselves* from servers they consider "rogue". But what counts as "rogue" varies wildly from admin to admin;
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BlueSky *can* control what people say on BS, precisely because it's *not* really decentralised. Some people naively thought that centralised control was great when Titter used it, but now that Melon Husk is using *exactly* the same power, they flee... to another centralised platform.
There's an old saying about doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Sooner or later BS too will enshittify;
I love the consumer choice model of moderation (and that's a mostly good term for it, thanks). I think we should have more of it. I.e. by implementing a filter system for posts on the fediverse. Maybe kind of like Usenet's kill files, or email's Sieve language (need to look into that more).
I would love to be able to - as a user - autocw all posts and/or autospoiler all pictures from certain users or instances. And I'd love to be able to see the posts of certain users while rejecting the rest of their instance (say, if I think they are the only or one of the few good users on said instance).
How can we make this happen?
@Hyolobrika
> I would love to be able to - as a user - autocw all posts and/or autospoiler all pictures from certain users or instances. And I'd love to be able to see the posts of certain users while rejecting the rest of their instance ...How can we make this happen?
One thing you could try is posting detailed descriptions of your ideas, and how you see them working, as issues on the Fediverse Ideas repo;
@Hyolobrika
> I wasn't able to sign up for issue trackers before because I didn't have a suitable email address
CodeBerg folks are part of the effort to create forge federation, which would allow you to open or comment on an issue using your fediverse account.
I think it really depends on what people are looking for.
People need to ask themselves why not facebook or any of the traditional centralized social networks.
And then take that answer and see what guidance is gives when choosong between nostr, bluesky or mastodon.
nostr has way more potential than the others in terms of avoiding centralized overlords and all the downsides we saw on X or facebook, while still allowing all you could wish for in terms of moderation
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@serapath
> nostr has way more potential than the others in terms of avoiding centralized overlords
How? People can have the same control over their fediverse experience that they have with Nostr, by running their own server. Most people don't, but that's a choice that's always available.
That keeps admins accountable, in the same way that Free Code licensing keeps developers accountable. Even if most people never audit or fork the code.
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Beyond that, the AP plumbing of the fediverse continues to evolve. There is work underway on things that will make admins even more accountable, like nomadic identity/ account portability;
https://wedistribute.org/2024/03/activitypub-nomadic-identity/
Technically you are correct, the "best" kind of correct. Practically people wont self host just as they dont self host email servers. Practically a few big ones will win, just like with email.
Practically, the big ones blocking or muting other instances will have a lot of power to incentivize joining the big instances so the big instances gain even more power and others are somewhat cut off from useful social interactions
There are multiple artificial and unnecessaey problems
@strypey @rabble
lets see how nomadic identity or account portability works.
But practically speaking. Nostr already avoids the need for choosing a specific instance. Every instance or even multiple in parallel are all just as valid as your own. It doesnt matter from which instqnce you send your next message. Your keypair signs the message means it comes from you. Thats fundamentally different.
Moving beyond that even, peer to peer allows self hosting without the need for setting up servers
@serapath
> lets see how nomadic identity or account portability works
Hubzilla had it before AP was published. But that was thanks to Zot protocol. It's taken a while to figure out how to reimplement it on top of AP.
> Nostr already avoids the need for choosing a specific instance
Sure, but that comes with as many cons as pros, especially when it comes to spam prevention, moderation etc. Also it just moves the chokepoint to the cost of running relays, doing app dev etc.
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@serapath
> Practically people wont self host just as they dont self host email servers
Utterly beside the point, for reasons given above.
> Practically a few big ones will win, just like with email
Here's a key difference; it's the not the 1990s/2000s anymore. People are getting wise to how centralisation leads to enshittification. So the fediverse will not just play out as email and Jabber (XMPP) did. Just like Nostr won't play out as FreeNet did.
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Also, the reason email and the web got as centralised as they have, is that running servers in expensive and people didn't want to pay for using them. So the main ways to make money revolved around DataFarming, which works much better with a few highly centralised players, with all their services tightly integrated.
Running relays costs money, as does developing software. We need to develop decentralised revenue models if we want the fediverse or Nostr to succeed without recentralising.
@Hyolobrika
> not as accountable as they are with Nostr
@Hyolobrika
> Nostr is the technopolitically superior choice
...and yet here you are on the fediverse telling me that ; )
i'm not sure what those cons are meant to be.
moderation can be implemented permissionlessly. nostr idea is it is simple and ppl can just implement stuff on top permissionlessly.
dat project https://cabal.chat implemented trust nets or subjective moderation, which allows people to freely choose their moderators or do it themselves. tools are follow, ubfollow, mute, block, etc... subscribe to specific content. configure your own algorithms.
@strypey @rabble also in nostr or even morr p2p systems, torrent like, content backup and availability, just like torrent seeding gets perfectly organically decoupled from specific instances.
nostr clients allow to talk to one or as many relays as you like in parallel ... so you dont depend on a single one. you can also run your own or not.
most clients allow you to edit your list of relays you use and defaults are set by specific nostr clients.
@serapath
> moderation can be implemented permissionlessly. nostr idea is it is simple and ppl can just implement stuff on top permissionlessly
Get back to me when there's 10 million people on Nostr and it hasn't modified its topology, and isn't awash in spam (hint: it's already awash in spam).
I'd like a way to import my data from fedi so I don't have to follow everyone again. IIRC there was a script for that.
you say this without at least summarizing or sharing a gist what exactly is supposedly missing
i dont mean it "technically"
you could have a democracy or a dictatorship. it is just the rules that are different, but in practice it can have the same impact, so why does it matter?
thats how you sound to me with this answer
you can have an instance admin of your choice or become a technical expert who can self host
VS
you are in charge (nostr or p2p) without the expertise need
do ppl carry guns or not? isnt that just technology? ...it still matters whether ppl pull triggers or not.
somebody arguing for or against a tool or piece of technology is missing the point why things happen.
anyway. would wish you would be more specific, because examples above kinda fit what you said and i'm sure you mean something else
if you get to the wrong instance and follow the wrong folls you drown in spam.
i experienced it a few times on mastodon where some marketing bots where retweeting and liking something i posted with endless retweets and likes and my notifications where just killing my phone.
i do believe the spam has to do with users controlling their feed and following the right social circles where nobody spams.
it feels like a very personal statement rather tha n which tech prevents spam
@Hyolobrika
> I haven't noticed any spam on Nostr
Wikipedia:
"Spamming is the use of messaging systems to send multiple unsolicited messages (spam) to large numbers of recipients for the purpose of commercial advertising, non-commercial proselytizing"
The vast majority of the postings I've seen on Nostr are what would be treated as a crypto-spam here. There are a multitude of demonstrated vectors for sending spam, and Nostr not even at the Early Adopter stage of growth.
No idea what that means.
The "subjective moderation" i was referring to was implemented in dat project https://cabal.chat and is described here:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/search/publication/9020253
It just occurred to me that Nostr is allowing us to offload a whole lot of spammers and RedPills from the fediverse. Which is a great example of why the drop in MAU on the fediverse post-Eternal (prior to the current bump) could have been good news, rather than the growth-cult bad news that the SillyCon Valley business press made it out to be.
@Hyolobrika
> he said it was spam actually
It always amazes me how many server admins happily federate with mastodon.social, but block all sorts of other stuff out of fear of the potential for spam ...
unsolicited is literally many messages here on mastodon. i dont follow everyone i see messages from.
people have different interests.
i do understand you personally dislike bitcoin.
i personally dislike web3/crypto/shitcoins.
i am interested in bitcoin, because i definitly see some potential here.
not that it was perfect. i can see problems, but i also see problems with the status quo capitalism and weighing thing, bitcoin seems useful.
i only get messages on nostr from people i follow, but it depends on config and client i guess.
i also think subjective moderation can be added and a whole lot of left value/philosophy corner can be created without waiting for mastodon core to add specific features, which seems great.
It seems there is no real discussion possible. The default messages you see when trying nostr is lots of bitcoin, so you dont want to do aamnything with nostr. thats simple. i dont wanna bother you 🙂
it was meant as:
of course i wanna follow and build/curate/foster the community around me online, but i have seen tech enshittify in the past.
i already ran into issues with mastodon because instances defederated and cut visibility off and this can happen again.
I follow plenty of ppl but dont get messages feom all of them even though they post.
i can already see how investing time into this always has the risk instance admin politics or certain feature decision will ...
@strypey @rabble ...create problem.
with relay based architecture, especially with peer to peer, but nostr gets quite close for now, i am in charge a lot more.
i follow peoples pubkeys directly and can find them through any relay and i can add custom features permissionless to my nostr client if i want.
so the effort of following and curating community seems way more under control and others in my community without the need for ppl to self host nor the risk of fedi instances interfering
you can run your own nostr relay and create backups as well.
But if people dont run their own backups, they depend on instance admins. insfances went down in the past. some instances might not have proper backups set up either.
i just dont see the upsides of the fediverse architecture. it seems more inflexible an cumbersome and less control of users about their feeds
maybe.
i do think that is why left leaning communities and clients for e.g. nostr can help a lot to make those guard rails as well.
good thing is you can later take off the guard rails, while in mastodon you depend on instance operators, especially of bigger ones, ...even if you self host - because if instance operators deprioritize your individual instance or even defederate, there is little you can do if some ppl you follow where on thst instance
hmm remarkebly similar?
https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@serapath/113506518317820040
what do you mean?
i dont see much or even any similarities between nostr and bluesky
Under which perspective are they similar?
Bluesky was invite only and instead of nsec/npub it asks for email/password
Nostr seems to be simple and permissionlessly extensible to a big degree, bluesky complex compared to nostr and extended by the bluesly team. Also nostr decentralized in practice, bluesky only in theory and even there barely🤷♀️
@serapath
> good thing is you can later take off the guard rails, while in mastodon you
... take off the guard rails by setting up your own instance. Yes, you do need to have server admin skills, or help from someone who does.
For sure, figuring out how to make community-hosting as easy as installing an app is an ongoing challenge. But some of us remember when you had to compile from source to install apps on GNU/Linux. It can be done.
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Another option is the Takahē approach, where one server can handle accounts using multiple domain names. So people can BYOD, and they always control their own identity.
@serapath
> unsolicited is literally many messages here on mastodon
Are they sent ...
"... to large numbers of recipients for the purpose of commercial advertising, non-commercial proselytizing"
?
To be clear I'm not referring to people just talking to each other about BitCoin (although the cultyness is gross), I'm talking about people trying to push product.
@serapath
> i also see problems with the status quo capitalism and weighing thing, bitcoin seems useful
How about you send me your npub and we can discuss this in Nostr ; )
I just switched the nostr app and tried "primal".
All it took was copy/paste in my private key and i'm set.
In settings i added a list of 20 relays i gathered from people i follow over the weeks.
So as long as one relay (wss://) stays available things will work.
all messages are signed by my private key all messages of others (pubkeys i follow) are signed by theirs.
@strypey i never received that, but i also have my feed set to latwst from only folks i follow and replies to those.
so i dont get any of the other stuff.
still - i think the rest depends on the settings of the relays you add, and the list i have seems quite good, so cant complain about those issues
Here are my list of relays which might help in keeping "spam" away too
@serapath
> i think the rest depends on the settings of the relays you add
I suspect that's going to be the Nostr equivalent of 'depends on the settings of the server you join' ; )
@serapath
> I just switched the nostr app and tried "primal".
It seems like Amethyst is the only Nostr app in F-Droid so far. So that's all I've tried. Can you recommend any GNU/Linux clients?
All it took was copy/paste in my private key and i'm set
Sounds like that's already a huge step forward from SSB. I still have ManyVerse on my Android, but between the fediverse, Matrix and Nostr, that pretty much takes up all the time I have for social media.
not entirely.
the difference is, your identity by which everyone knows you does not include the name of any relay AND your data is stored in a particular server and you better hope the instance operator knows how to properly do backups.
in nostr your identity is your `nsec` keypair which works with any client and any relay. you dont have to choose one.
And you cant get your data from any of them and have additional backup servers... this gets even more true with peer to peer.
like in bittorrent. as long as one peer has your data, you can restore it. bittorrent syncs data from everyone at the same time. There is no particular server that you have to choose to store your data. and any peer can be an additional backup.
you yourself can make a backup trivially, just by installing a client on a new device and logging in. it will sync all your data automatically. no expert knowledge required
too bad, i dont know, but if you find some gnu nostr clients, let me know. actually i do have amnethyst. i use it too. its not bad either
@serapath
FWIW I played a modest rule in getting Amethyst back into F-Droid;
@serapath
> you yourself can make a backup trivially, just by installing a client on a new device and logging in. it will sync all your data automatically. no expert knowledge required
I'm curious to see just how trivial this is in practice. I've yet to find a second client that meets my software freedom standards.
yes.
i agree.
there is still an unfullfilled promose to open source keet UI when it hits beta.
if thats the case, then it would match my standards. ...if not, then maybe dat ecosystem has to try to make a keet compatible client that is open source
the keet invite links contain information about hyperswarm, topics and potentially hypercore/autobase.
all data is synced via hypercore protocop and hypercores and autobases.
there might be extra protomux messages to listen to.
thats it. now once you receive those protomux messages and replicate the hypercores and autobases, there is the question how do individual entries in hpercore blocks or messages look like, but by using keet and replicating a room where you know
@serapath @strypey both ATprocol and Nostr are based on Secure Scuttlebutt. They’re much more like each other in terms of how the technology and protocol works than anything else. The users might have different cultural norms and values but that’s not what I’m talking about. Neither works much like ActivityPub at all, which is a decade older and designed around a network of all powerful servers vs signed content addressable data structures.
which part???
so far i havent seen anything peer to peer around bluesky and the background how it came to be has also nothing in common.
ssb starts with a pubkey, just like nostr.
blsky starts with email/password
you download ssb clients and they connect peer to peer.
so to me this is a ridiculous statement.
i cant imagine that you can name a single aspect of blsky that is even remotely close to what ssb is