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The obvious alternative is to have blocks be local only, ie a view filter. This would solve the privacy issue. I think I like that model better (but to be fair
by klabb3 3y ago
The obvious alternative is to have blocks be local only, ie a view filter. This would solve the privacy issue. I think I like that model better (but to be fair have not thought it through fully).
However, I think I understand why they’re doing it. Bluesky is modeled after Twitter, which has sort of public popularity contest features built in, like retweets and replies, which can let malicious users signal boost using your account. Without a public blocklist, there’s no way to stop that signal boosting, which gives the upper hand to bad actors.
- phoe-krk 3y agoThe Fediverse currently has popcon features built in as well, namely, the number of likes and boosts of a given post, as collected by the home server of the post. The home server is the one that does not count interactions from blocked accounts, so a local-only view filter that only the home server knows of is enough to solve this as well.
- klabb3 3y agoInteresting. That would probably be a better place to keep the blocklists, and trust your homeserver to not expose it over API is more reasonable in terms of trust. It’s funny how the article focuses on friction to circumvent blocking, which is real, but doesn’t mention that their solution greatly reduces friction of discovering who blocks who. Because traditionally that discovery is tedious and not scalable.
- lalaithion 3y agoBased on my reading of the article, they _also_ allow that; they call that behavior "muting" and distinguish it from "blocking".
- recursive 3y ago>Bluesky is modeled after Twitter, which has sort of public popularity contest features built in, like retweets and replies, which can let malicious users signal boost using your account. I don't use twitter enough to understand what this means. How can a malicious user signal boost using your account? Regardless of blocking. I don't understand what that means. No one else can force you to retweet or reply if you don't want to.
- aseipp 3y agoPeople retweet your post in order to draw the attention of their followers to it, which is often called a "dogpile" (or whatever). But blocking someone prevents them from retweeting you, so it's a decent (but imperfect) mitigation.
- klabb3 3y ago> How can a malicious user signal boost using your account? Not a Twitter user myself either. But I think it works like this: popular user posts something. A troll account replies to that with something edgy. Then the followers of the popular account will see the troll’s comments. Thus the troll has been signal boosted. Afaik blocking is a solution to this problem.