4 ms·

To me, the only question worth asking is the following. If a hypothetical guy, let's say his name is Melon Usk (lol) tries to buy or otherwise influence Bluesky

by jrm4 3y ago

To me, the only question worth asking is the following. If a hypothetical guy, let's say his name is Melon Usk (lol) tries to buy or otherwise influence Bluesky, he's going to still mostly be able to do it with this relatively centralized moderation model, yes? This feels like "thanks for offloading some of the data, but we still retain most of the useful control?"

danpalmer 3y ago
No. There are two components: data storage, and "indexing". You can always, feasibly, own your data. Being your own indexer is less feasible, but you'd choose one like you'd choose a Mastodon instance or something. Portability is trivial because you have the data. "Usk" buys your indexer to put ads on it, you can just move. Moderation only controls what you see on your feed, using a different indexer just means logging into a different site and seeing a slightly different set of posts.
- jrm4 3y ago
  I'm confused, your first word is "no," but your answer seems to suggest "yes, usk would be able to have considerable influence" Which is to say, neither storage nor indexing -- but moderation -- the ability to have control over that would be the most important thing. "Usk" buys (or otherwise leverages money to be able to put his thumb on the control of ) bluesky's moderation. Data storage just gives you the ability to leave? What am I missing?
  - Karrot_Kream 3y ago
    Posts on AT are content-addressed. The feeds, as they're called now, just return content links. If "Usk" buys a feed provider it's trivial to move to another one. If you're curious why running a feed is more expensive than simply storing data, it's because you need to ingest the actual data for these links before figuring out what to serve in a feed. This storing, indexing, and aggregating is expensive.
    - danpalmer 3y ago
      Yeah this is my point. With X users are in a tough position because the platform sucks but they still have a huge amount of sunk cost in it. With Bluesky/AT, that doesn't exist in anywhere near the same way.
      - jrm4 3y ago
        I guess the question I'm really trying to get at is "What is the worst that hypothetical Usk can do?" I think I have a handle on it for Mastodon; the answer is "not much" or it's going to be pretty hard. While the deeply decentralized nature of Mastodon makes it harder to find a good "feed," it strongly protects against this; he'd literally have to seek out the individual instances and start trying to control them, one by one. But it looks like Bluesky is closer to Twitter (I ain't callin' it X, idgaf) than Mastodon for purposes of what matters to a bad actor. Instances dropping off the map doesn't matter if you have a hand on the control of the relatively centralized recommendation algorithm?
        steveklabnik 3y ago
        Not your original parent, but my take. > if you have a hand on the control of the relatively centralized recommendation algorithm? There's nothing centralized about it. Anyone can run an algorithm. If you don't like that algorithm, drop that feed, and find a new one. Basically, a big difference between BlueSky and Mastodon is that in BlueSky, almost everything is independent parts you can layer together however you like. Mastodon is based around instances, and so ties a lot of these sorts of choices together for everyone on that instance. On BlueSky, "my instance", that is, where my data is hosted, is separate from the posts that I see, because I can choose to follow whatever feeds I like. My instance is also separate from my personal moderation preferences, which I choose independent of my instance.

by jrm4 3y ago

danpalmer 3y ago

No. There are two components: data storage, and "indexing". You can always, feasibly, own your data. Being your own indexer is less feasible, but you'd choose one like you'd choose a Mastodon instance or something. Portability is trivial because you have the data. "Usk" buys your indexer to put ads on it, you can just move. Moderation only controls what you see on your feed, using a different indexer just means logging into a different site and seeing a slightly different set of posts.

jrm4 3y ago
I'm confused, your first word is "no," but your answer seems to suggest "yes, usk would be able to have considerable influence" Which is to say, neither storage nor indexing -- but moderation -- the ability to have control over that would be the most important thing. "Usk" buys (or otherwise leverages money to be able to put his thumb on the control of ) bluesky's moderation. Data storage just gives you the ability to leave? What am I missing?
- Karrot_Kream 3y ago
  Posts on AT are content-addressed. The feeds, as they're called now, just return content links. If "Usk" buys a feed provider it's trivial to move to another one. If you're curious why running a feed is more expensive than simply storing data, it's because you need to ingest the actual data for these links before figuring out what to serve in a feed. This storing, indexing, and aggregating is expensive.
  - danpalmer 3y ago
    Yeah this is my point. With X users are in a tough position because the platform sucks but they still have a huge amount of sunk cost in it. With Bluesky/AT, that doesn't exist in anywhere near the same way.
    - jrm4 3y ago
      I guess the question I'm really trying to get at is "What is the worst that hypothetical Usk can do?" I think I have a handle on it for Mastodon; the answer is "not much" or it's going to be pretty hard. While the deeply decentralized nature of Mastodon makes it harder to find a good "feed," it strongly protects against this; he'd literally have to seek out the individual instances and start trying to control them, one by one. But it looks like Bluesky is closer to Twitter (I ain't callin' it X, idgaf) than Mastodon for purposes of what matters to a bad actor. Instances dropping off the map doesn't matter if you have a hand on the control of the relatively centralized recommendation algorithm?
      - steveklabnik 3y ago
        Not your original parent, but my take. > if you have a hand on the control of the relatively centralized recommendation algorithm? There's nothing centralized about it. Anyone can run an algorithm. If you don't like that algorithm, drop that feed, and find a new one. Basically, a big difference between BlueSky and Mastodon is that in BlueSky, almost everything is independent parts you can layer together however you like. Mastodon is based around instances, and so ties a lot of these sorts of choices together for everyone on that instance. On BlueSky, "my instance", that is, where my data is hosted, is separate from the posts that I see, because I can choose to follow whatever feeds I like. My instance is also separate from my personal moderation preferences, which I choose independent of my instance.