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IMO Mastodon is the only real place for a truly decentralized option. BlueSky became immediately political in its narrative and many people just view it in the

IMO Mastodon is the only real place for a truly decentralized option. BlueSky became immediately political in its narrative and many people just view it in the same light as Truth Social now. It has a future, but the branding in very tainted.

ChocolateGod 2y ago
If you think BlueSky is political, Mastodon is worse. Mastodon ends up creating significant echo chambers where admins ban communication with other instances for having people with different opinions to them (rather than just delisting in the public feed) and on can ban you and stop you moving your data to another instance. On Mastodon, admins can also be pressured into banning users by other admins under fear of having their instances blocked, and admins are usually political activists. I've avoided BlueSky because people are allowed to boast and defend being attracted to kids or spam death threats (including addresses attached), but not have differing political opinions, even when they're arguably mainstream.
- BodyCulture 2y ago
  Can you please give some more details about the pressure methods in mastodon you are writing about, this is very interesting and important. Is there any systematic study going on about the mechanism of censorship in the fediverse?
  - ChocolateGod 2y ago
    Eh, I don't have any links to hand, but I vividly remember when I used Mastodon an instance of an admin being tagged and pressured to remove an individual off their server or be blocked. was around a year ago
    - Zak 2y ago
      From what I've seen, some niche servers have very detailed and very strict rules intended to address the needs of certain marginalized groups. An example I've seen is requiring a content warning for any image where a person or animal is staring directly into the lens, appearing to make eye contact with the viewer. Of course pressuring mainstream servers to adopt such a rule is not reasonable. Automatically applying a content warning to all media from servers that don't have the same rule would be a good solution. Bluesky's labelers provide a way to do something similar, but I don't think the Bluesky appview has a way to express something like "blur all media without the 'safe for my needs' label".
  - BeetleB 2y ago
    Things like one instance banning another whole instance because that instance is not agreeing to the same moderation policies as the first. I think some instances block all Pleroma instances, because there is an association of Pleroma being used by right wing folks. Here are failed attempts to ban Pleroma instances outright: https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/11816 https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/11816 https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/9708 https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/9708 Here's an example of an instance that blocks other instances if the other instance doesn't have a code of conduct similar to theirs: https://mastodon.art/about https://mastodon.art/about Note - they partially block mastodon.social!
    - aftbit 2y ago
      >mastodon.art is a safe space instance So don't join them if you don't want to be coddled. Anyone who does wants to engage with a different slice of the fediverse, and why do you care if they don't see you?
      - BeetleB 2y ago
        I'm not sure what this has to do with my comment or the one I was replying to.
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
    - amatecha 2y ago
      fyi mastodon.social is by far the biggest (almost sole) source of spam, thus more and more servers are "limiting" it (as opposed to outright blocking/defederating) so people only see posts from users they explicitly follow from that server.
  - tqwhite 2y ago
    I was in a discussion with someone and the instance just booted me out. No explanation. No appeal. I still had a handful of windows open to various conversations (I’m a slob) and could not find a single reason. I shopped around for another home and found fussy rules. I got rejected for reasons that made no sense. It encourages narrow minded balkanization and it retains your identity so you have to form a new one.
- vidarh 2y ago
  Mastodon is worse if you pick servers that insist on being activist, and bother to care about the drama, sure. You don't need to do either.
  - griomnib 2y ago
    But then you need to research the severs, shop around, and a bunch of other shit people don’t have time for. A bad user experience is just that: bad.
    - XorNot 2y ago
      I mean sure, but it's entirely an optional communal space? Like...who cares? The only reason there was even an opinion about Twitter was mainstream news started reporting "what was on Twitter" and it's still centralized in that way - it "felt" non-optional.
      - Karrot_Kream 2y ago
        Some people enjoy "socializing in the large". For one, I already have a robust personal friend group grounded in traditional social spaces (like my local physical community, former coworkers, friends from my college days, etc) that I don't need to find a communal space online to engage in "socializing in the small". There's nothing wrong with "socializing in the small" of course but for me that's just a group chat.
    - amatecha 2y ago
      Mastodon/ActivityPub is not Twitter. It's not millions of people in one stadium. It's more like dozens of rooms in a big mansion. (sorry, the analogy isn't perfect) ... You don't just walk into the room with a bunch of nazis because that place is probably going to suck to have a conversation in. Look at what the conversations and social expectations are before you jump in, and things will work out a lot better for everyone. That's not a bad user experience, that's just "socializing with fellow humans".
      - 2y ago
- sureglymop 2y ago
  I think that is federation working as intended. These instance admins are exercising their right to free speech by not federating with instances that contain content they disagree with or disallow on their instance. I think it's not at all comparable to a corporate entity like X being in full control and able to censor any content. You may create your own instance and federate with the instances you want. If an instance chooses not to federate with yours you get to decide what's more important to you, your principles or their content. The solution is to create your own instance. I understand your frustrations but I have a hard time being empathetic to these issues when you are using someone elses instance, probably administered by volunteers in their spare time.
  - SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
    Of course they have a right to free speech, but when I'm choosing a platform it's the user experience that matters to me and not the rights of the operators. Twitter lets me visit or follow any other account on the platform and see what they have to say, and the ability to do that across a wide range of interests and viewpoints is exactly why I use it. If Mastodon requires setting up a custom server to replicate that experience, it's not a good replacement for me.
    - ChocolateGod 2y ago
      Look at how many instances agreed to block Threads even before it added ActivityPub support because Mark Zuckerberg doesn't ban (legal) opinions and comments he doesn't agree with. Some people are so insecure about their own opinions that the pure idea that someone exists that might not agree the same is a threat, never mind seeing their content.
      - rchaud 2y ago
        Mastodon.social is the single largest instance and does not block Threads. Where did you get this information, and furthermore, how did you manage to draw a line from that to "Zuck supports free speech, Mastodon doesn't like that?"
    - 2y ago
- rayiner 2y ago
  They should complete the circle and allow instances to invade and take over other instances/subjecate other instances’ users.
- glenstein 2y ago
  >Mastodon ends up creating significant echo chambers where admins ban communication with other instances for having people with different opinions to them The echo chamber argument itself is a politicized argument that I think fundamentally misunderstands why communities converging on common values can be beneficial rather than simply echoing. If people are interested in astronomy, or tech security, or FOSS, or politics, weeding the garden leads to more dynamic, diverse and nuanced communication, not less, and the diagnosis of such things as "echo chambers" is a shallow misdiagnosis. Opening up your garden to weeds kills everything and leads to takeover of the one dominant kind of weed that already dominates everywhere else, which is more echoey.
  - int_19h 2y ago
    The problem is that many Mastodon servers go far beyond what you describe. Your server can blocked because it doesn't block somebody else, for example. Or because it doesn't have such and such in its rules.
igravious 2y ago
The whole https://chrisholdgraf.com/blog/2024/bluesky#why-not-use-mastodon https://chrisholdgraf.com/blog/2024/bluesky#why-not-use-mast... section is very unconvincing ??? i'm not using it because no one else is using it > If social media is about having interesting, dynamic interactions with people, then you need to go to the place that maximizes the chance of this happening if that was the case people would stay with Twitter/X > For example, one of its core features - federated servers and identity - is actually a pretty confusing UX pattern for the vast majority of people that don’t care about that kind of thing (“you’re telling me there’s a @choldgraf@hachyderm.io and a @choldgraf@mastodon.social and they’re two different people?!”). how on earth is this confusing to anyone? it's a different model > Moreover, while having federated servers means that communities have more control over their norms and rules, it also means communities have to do a lot more work to understand the idiosyncratic policies of each server. These are features if you think of a social networks as a tightly-interconnected and self-contained community, but the appeal of these kinds of platforms is having global reach to people that you may otherwise never have met. people forget in real life that we aren't all in the same social network and there are different protocols for different meat-space social networks and we internalise and navigate them all the time – in fact there are genres of literature out there (comedy of manners) that exploit social misunderstandings
dartos 2y ago
“Political” and “decentralized” Are not mutually exclusive. In fact, any platform that uses decentralization as a selling point is inherently political, as the only ones that care about decentralization are the ones who care about politics. Everyone else is just trying to see what the famous person said last week or what their friend did on vacation. Corpo social media does solve for that.
- swed420 2y ago
  > “Political” and “decentralized” Are not mutually exclusive. > any platform that uses decentralization as a selling point is inherently political This hasn't said anything of value, since everything is political. Limiting your interaction with the world to sanitized corporate/Hollywood social media is political. Using no social media at all is political. And so on.
  - threatofrain 2y ago
    Decentralization is political because even from a sniff test it is very very concerned about evading existing centers of power. Common Lisp is not political. Technical people might say it is political, but non-technical people outside would just chuckle at the conversation — nerds fighting among themselves in an unseen corner with no power, thinking that there's "politics" there and perhaps everywhere too.
  - dartos 2y ago
    > This hasn't said anything of value, since everything is political. I really disagree with this statement. Many things are political, but not everything. (Unless you’re abstracting the word political to the point of it meaning any human relationship. At which point the word isn’t useful) Some choices are just convenience. Most people with an iPhone don’t choose to text on messenger because of a political opinion, it’s just because it’s the default app on their phone. I use discord frequently because all of my friends are on there, not because I particularly care for their politics. My choice to not use social media sites like fb and Twitter was fueled by mental health concerns and the time I’d sink into them, not because they lean left or right. > Limiting your interaction with the world to sanitized corporate/Hollywood social media is political. Not necessarily. Most people don’t know they’re limiting their interaction. They just want updates about things they care about. That need not be about politics. Just because a choice may have political ramifications doesn’t mean that it was a choice made for political reasons.
vidarh 2y ago
I agree with the sentiment, but I'd say specifically the Fediverse is the only real place for a truly decentralised option. It doesn't need to be Mastodon. You don't need to be on Mastodon to interact with the Fediverse or be part of it, and that is the key strength. Mastodon can be corrupted and the Fediverse is still there. That could include Bluesky over time - you can follow my Mastodon from Bluesky via a bridge [1] - any desirable parts of their protocol, will be copied or emulated or bolted on the side for other Fediverse projects. [1] https://brid.gy/ https://brid.gy/
- tqwhite 2y ago
  This is absolutely true. Bluesky can become decentralized but it will take a fair amount of work. What BLuesky does do is keep the door open for competition. If you want, you can stand up a version of its entire system (all open source). Or, you could write your own system that uses the AT Proto DID stuff to let people access their posts and follows, etc, in any way you want. And, BLuesky also serves as a bootstrap for AT Proto writ large. The whole distributed identity thing has huge potential going forward and it’s use by Bsky is an excellent start.
Gigachad 2y ago
Have you used Bluesky? I’ve been on it since it was invite only and I don’t see any politics on my feed. It’s basically just posts from friends, friends of friends, and artists for me. Bluesky seems the least pushy with rage bait content of all the social media’s.
- bdangubic 2y ago
  curiosity-joined a month ago, 90% of discover feed is politics
  - Gigachad 2y ago
    Hm, maybe for a fresh account today. I just checked and my discover feed is pretty much just art and photography.
    - ziml77 2y ago
      Maybe Bluesky needs to ask a few questions the first time a new user looks at the discover feed to prime it for them. Personally I'd prefer if there was no default algorithmic feed but I know that just doesn't work. People will create an account, see nothing in their feed, and leave because the site seems dead or because they can't even fathom how to get started finding people to follow or custom feeds to add.
      - bdangubic 2y ago
        they do - they ask… the “problem” is that it is too broad… I picked “science” and there were myriad of post with pictures of various galaxies… pretty but after you see 27 of them… with the new accounts it is also asking to like 10 posts and follow 7 accounts so that it can try to figure shit out. it can be trained for sure but when I first joined to try it out it was just politics - mostly left-leaning praising Dr Fauci (very confusing) and stuff like that. I don’t use social media - no X, Facebook, Insta, TikTok… all were tried but eventually discarded … bluesky will suffer the same faith :)
      - 2y ago
grumbel 2y ago
Mastodon isn't true decentralization to begin with, it's just federation like email, where every user is attached to a server and the server operator holds all the power, while the user holds none. I find that approach a waste of time, as it's just replicating past mistakes verbatim. On top of that, the whole Fediverse is extremely political. Email providers don't care much what you write or with whom you communicate outside of spam, so it works quite well. Meanwhile Fediverse is blocking people and servers left and right, it's completely unusable unless you follow the group-think on whatever server you are on. Real decentralization is what Nostr is doing, where serves are just dumb relays, user-ids are public-key pairs and all the intelligence is in the client. BlueSky's AT-protocol should be capable of similar stuff, though in practice is still very much focused around the main BlueSky server.
- simonw 2y ago
  "every user is attached to a server and the server operator holds all the power, while the user holds none" So run your own server.
  - shwouchk 2y ago
    How many people are running their own mail outside of large orgs or privacy/security niche? How many of those have had trouble sending mail to eg gmail?
    - staunton 2y ago
      It's easier to run your own Mastodon server than your own mail server (for the exact reason you cite).
      - shwouchk 2y ago
        I never ran my AP server but i did run my own mail in my late teens/early twenties. I don't recall it being particularly difficult, compared to eg setting a webserver. Just install some software from your distro PM and go through some configs. Nothing stopped some hacker from bundling configs with a point and click installer for android eg - A mail server doesnt need 100% uptime - or for servers. As for reaching others, ive never had problems because my domains had dkim and whatever else was available set up - could be easily automated like web certificates were, and i never send spam... How is that inherently more difficult? I'm genuinely curious, not trying to argue - just citing my own experience. What's to stop major servers ("gmail" and "hotmail" of AP) from blocking you? Obviously some aspects are different from mail as it is geared for wide distribution rather than directed communication, but it's not obvious to me that the decentralization problem is solved by a model that seems superficially close to email. Again, im not trying to troll you as im unfamiliar with AP - i genuinely don't know.
BlueTemplar 2y ago
Isn't Truth Social a fork of Mastodon (that might or might not be compatible any more). Or am I confusing with Gab ?
- rsynnott 2y ago
  Both are non-federating Mastodon instances.
toss1 2y ago
And that 'truly decentralized option' comes with a problem that will permanently dissuade many serious people from using it — there is no way to prevent imposter accounts. Imposter accounts will be attempted for anyone of significant standing or authority posting anything authoritative (e.g., product or policy announcements) controversial or notable, and with no way to shut them down and maintain an authoritative presence of you, no one of note will even go there, or stay once they encounter the problem. Easier to stay somewhere else like Bluesky or Spoutible where they at least attempt moderation and authentication and declare "Any Mastodon accts purporting to be me are fake.". I've personally spoken to authors/speakers/officials who checked it out after Twitter was sold to Musk, and once they understood the no-authentication-in-principle problem, said "NFW".
rebeccaskinner 2y ago
> BlueSky became immediately political in its narrative and many people just view it in the same light as Truth Social now. I don't see this at all. Quite the opposite in fact. From what I've seen, BlueSky is trying very hard as a company to stay apolitical in an extremely naive way that's going to ultimately drive away users. There's simply no way to to be apolitical as a general social media platform today when social media is so widely used for discussing politics and current events, is a key target for propaganda campaigns, and in a highly fractured political climate. BlueSky gained momentum primarily from people who were driven away from X as it started to move further right, with a lot of engagement driven by left and center-left leaning people, along with people who might not have been directly engaged in politics except for being the target of right-leaning hate campaigns (LGBT people in particular). If they'd doubled down on that, I think they'd be a lot more successful in the long run. Sites like Truth Social, Parler, and X have demonstrated that there's a significant market for politically aligned social media spaces for the right, and both the significant activity in left and center-left spaces in Twitter before the buy-out, and the growth in Bluesky point to there being a significant market for an unapologeticly left leaning social media site as well (I'd point to Tumblr here as another example, although I don't use it and only have a passing idea that it seems to be a predominantly left leaning space). Instead of embracing product market fit with an underserved market though, BlueSky seems to be both-sides-ing themselves into a situation where they're likely going to see an exodus. By inviting and protecting right-wing provocateurs on the platform they are driving away their core audience in order to attract people who already have their choice of established competitors (X). The only value they can add over sites like X and Truth Social is a group of users ready to be the target of trolling and bullying, but having recent experience with migrating away from Twitter I don't see them sticking around BlueSky for long in that environment. In the end, the attempt at being apolitical will doom BlueSky to being a worse less populated X or Truth Social, rather than making the most of the opportunity to be a more decidedly left-leaning social media platform for an audience that prefers to avoid a strong right-wing presence in their social media experience.
- Karrot_Kream 2y ago
  I think Mastodon and the Fediverse is better equipped for this kind of thing. The software itself acts like a "common carrier", and the networks formed by the instance operators align according to their politics. Truth Social itself is built on Mastodon.
dingnuts 2y ago
can't someone just stand up another atproto AppView with different default feeds to solve this problem? BlueSky's moderation team has traditional Twitter-like biases but my understanding of the AT protocol, from reading the spec, is that they do not have a monopoly on moderation in the AT network.
- anon7000 2y ago
  Absolutely, and users can choose custom moderation and block lists to offload the work to someone else.

ChocolateGod 2y ago

If you think BlueSky is political, Mastodon is worse. Mastodon ends up creating significant echo chambers where admins ban communication with other instances for having people with different opinions to them (rather than just delisting in the public feed) and on can ban you and stop you moving your data to another instance. On Mastodon, admins can also be pressured into banning users by other admins under fear of having their instances blocked, and admins are usually political activists. I've avoided BlueSky because people are allowed to boast and defend being attracted to kids or spam death threats (including addresses attached), but not have differing political opinions, even when they're arguably mainstream.

BodyCulture 2y ago
Can you please give some more details about the pressure methods in mastodon you are writing about, this is very interesting and important. Is there any systematic study going on about the mechanism of censorship in the fediverse?
- ChocolateGod 2y ago
  Eh, I don't have any links to hand, but I vividly remember when I used Mastodon an instance of an admin being tagged and pressured to remove an individual off their server or be blocked. was around a year ago
  - Zak 2y ago
    From what I've seen, some niche servers have very detailed and very strict rules intended to address the needs of certain marginalized groups. An example I've seen is requiring a content warning for any image where a person or animal is staring directly into the lens, appearing to make eye contact with the viewer. Of course pressuring mainstream servers to adopt such a rule is not reasonable. Automatically applying a content warning to all media from servers that don't have the same rule would be a good solution. Bluesky's labelers provide a way to do something similar, but I don't think the Bluesky appview has a way to express something like "blur all media without the 'safe for my needs' label".
- BeetleB 2y ago
  Things like one instance banning another whole instance because that instance is not agreeing to the same moderation policies as the first. I think some instances block all Pleroma instances, because there is an association of Pleroma being used by right wing folks. Here are failed attempts to ban Pleroma instances outright: https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/11816 https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/11816 https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/9708 https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/9708 Here's an example of an instance that blocks other instances if the other instance doesn't have a code of conduct similar to theirs: https://mastodon.art/about https://mastodon.art/about Note - they partially block mastodon.social!
  - aftbit 2y ago
    >mastodon.art is a safe space instance So don't join them if you don't want to be coddled. Anyone who does wants to engage with a different slice of the fediverse, and why do you care if they don't see you?
    - BeetleB 2y ago
      I'm not sure what this has to do with my comment or the one I was replying to.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
  - amatecha 2y ago
    fyi mastodon.social is by far the biggest (almost sole) source of spam, thus more and more servers are "limiting" it (as opposed to outright blocking/defederating) so people only see posts from users they explicitly follow from that server.
- tqwhite 2y ago
  I was in a discussion with someone and the instance just booted me out. No explanation. No appeal. I still had a handful of windows open to various conversations (I’m a slob) and could not find a single reason. I shopped around for another home and found fussy rules. I got rejected for reasons that made no sense. It encourages narrow minded balkanization and it retains your identity so you have to form a new one.
vidarh 2y ago
Mastodon is worse if you pick servers that insist on being activist, and bother to care about the drama, sure. You don't need to do either.
- griomnib 2y ago
  But then you need to research the severs, shop around, and a bunch of other shit people don’t have time for. A bad user experience is just that: bad.
  - XorNot 2y ago
    I mean sure, but it's entirely an optional communal space? Like...who cares? The only reason there was even an opinion about Twitter was mainstream news started reporting "what was on Twitter" and it's still centralized in that way - it "felt" non-optional.
    - Karrot_Kream 2y ago
      Some people enjoy "socializing in the large". For one, I already have a robust personal friend group grounded in traditional social spaces (like my local physical community, former coworkers, friends from my college days, etc) that I don't need to find a communal space online to engage in "socializing in the small". There's nothing wrong with "socializing in the small" of course but for me that's just a group chat.
  - amatecha 2y ago
    Mastodon/ActivityPub is not Twitter. It's not millions of people in one stadium. It's more like dozens of rooms in a big mansion. (sorry, the analogy isn't perfect) ... You don't just walk into the room with a bunch of nazis because that place is probably going to suck to have a conversation in. Look at what the conversations and social expectations are before you jump in, and things will work out a lot better for everyone. That's not a bad user experience, that's just "socializing with fellow humans".
    - 2y ago
sureglymop 2y ago
I think that is federation working as intended. These instance admins are exercising their right to free speech by not federating with instances that contain content they disagree with or disallow on their instance. I think it's not at all comparable to a corporate entity like X being in full control and able to censor any content. You may create your own instance and federate with the instances you want. If an instance chooses not to federate with yours you get to decide what's more important to you, your principles or their content. The solution is to create your own instance. I understand your frustrations but I have a hard time being empathetic to these issues when you are using someone elses instance, probably administered by volunteers in their spare time.
- SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
  Of course they have a right to free speech, but when I'm choosing a platform it's the user experience that matters to me and not the rights of the operators. Twitter lets me visit or follow any other account on the platform and see what they have to say, and the ability to do that across a wide range of interests and viewpoints is exactly why I use it. If Mastodon requires setting up a custom server to replicate that experience, it's not a good replacement for me.
  - ChocolateGod 2y ago
    Look at how many instances agreed to block Threads even before it added ActivityPub support because Mark Zuckerberg doesn't ban (legal) opinions and comments he doesn't agree with. Some people are so insecure about their own opinions that the pure idea that someone exists that might not agree the same is a threat, never mind seeing their content.
    - rchaud 2y ago
      Mastodon.social is the single largest instance and does not block Threads. Where did you get this information, and furthermore, how did you manage to draw a line from that to "Zuck supports free speech, Mastodon doesn't like that?"
  - 2y ago
rayiner 2y ago
They should complete the circle and allow instances to invade and take over other instances/subjecate other instances’ users.
glenstein 2y ago
>Mastodon ends up creating significant echo chambers where admins ban communication with other instances for having people with different opinions to them The echo chamber argument itself is a politicized argument that I think fundamentally misunderstands why communities converging on common values can be beneficial rather than simply echoing. If people are interested in astronomy, or tech security, or FOSS, or politics, weeding the garden leads to more dynamic, diverse and nuanced communication, not less, and the diagnosis of such things as "echo chambers" is a shallow misdiagnosis. Opening up your garden to weeds kills everything and leads to takeover of the one dominant kind of weed that already dominates everywhere else, which is more echoey.
- int_19h 2y ago
  The problem is that many Mastodon servers go far beyond what you describe. Your server can blocked because it doesn't block somebody else, for example. Or because it doesn't have such and such in its rules.

igravious 2y ago

The whole https://chrisholdgraf.com/blog/2024/bluesky#why-not-use-mastodon https://chrisholdgraf.com/blog/2024/bluesky#why-not-use-mast... section is very unconvincing ??? i'm not using it because no one else is using it > If social media is about having interesting, dynamic interactions with people, then you need to go to the place that maximizes the chance of this happening if that was the case people would stay with Twitter/X > For example, one of its core features - federated servers and identity - is actually a pretty confusing UX pattern for the vast majority of people that don’t care about that kind of thing (“you’re telling me there’s a @choldgraf@hachyderm.io and a @choldgraf@mastodon.social and they’re two different people?!”). how on earth is this confusing to anyone? it's a different model > Moreover, while having federated servers means that communities have more control over their norms and rules, it also means communities have to do a lot more work to understand the idiosyncratic policies of each server. These are features if you think of a social networks as a tightly-interconnected and self-contained community, but the appeal of these kinds of platforms is having global reach to people that you may otherwise never have met. people forget in real life that we aren't all in the same social network and there are different protocols for different meat-space social networks and we internalise and navigate them all the time – in fact there are genres of literature out there (comedy of manners) that exploit social misunderstandings

dartos 2y ago

“Political” and “decentralized” Are not mutually exclusive. In fact, any platform that uses decentralization as a selling point is inherently political, as the only ones that care about decentralization are the ones who care about politics. Everyone else is just trying to see what the famous person said last week or what their friend did on vacation. Corpo social media does solve for that.

swed420 2y ago
> “Political” and “decentralized” Are not mutually exclusive. > any platform that uses decentralization as a selling point is inherently political This hasn't said anything of value, since everything is political. Limiting your interaction with the world to sanitized corporate/Hollywood social media is political. Using no social media at all is political. And so on.
- threatofrain 2y ago
  Decentralization is political because even from a sniff test it is very very concerned about evading existing centers of power. Common Lisp is not political. Technical people might say it is political, but non-technical people outside would just chuckle at the conversation — nerds fighting among themselves in an unseen corner with no power, thinking that there's "politics" there and perhaps everywhere too.
- dartos 2y ago
  > This hasn't said anything of value, since everything is political. I really disagree with this statement. Many things are political, but not everything. (Unless you’re abstracting the word political to the point of it meaning any human relationship. At which point the word isn’t useful) Some choices are just convenience. Most people with an iPhone don’t choose to text on messenger because of a political opinion, it’s just because it’s the default app on their phone. I use discord frequently because all of my friends are on there, not because I particularly care for their politics. My choice to not use social media sites like fb and Twitter was fueled by mental health concerns and the time I’d sink into them, not because they lean left or right. > Limiting your interaction with the world to sanitized corporate/Hollywood social media is political. Not necessarily. Most people don’t know they’re limiting their interaction. They just want updates about things they care about. That need not be about politics. Just because a choice may have political ramifications doesn’t mean that it was a choice made for political reasons.

vidarh 2y ago

I agree with the sentiment, but I'd say specifically the Fediverse is the only real place for a truly decentralised option. It doesn't need to be Mastodon. You don't need to be on Mastodon to interact with the Fediverse or be part of it, and that is the key strength. Mastodon can be corrupted and the Fediverse is still there. That could include Bluesky over time - you can follow my Mastodon from Bluesky via a bridge [1] - any desirable parts of their protocol, will be copied or emulated or bolted on the side for other Fediverse projects. [1] https://brid.gy/ https://brid.gy/

tqwhite 2y ago
This is absolutely true. Bluesky can become decentralized but it will take a fair amount of work. What BLuesky does do is keep the door open for competition. If you want, you can stand up a version of its entire system (all open source). Or, you could write your own system that uses the AT Proto DID stuff to let people access their posts and follows, etc, in any way you want. And, BLuesky also serves as a bootstrap for AT Proto writ large. The whole distributed identity thing has huge potential going forward and it’s use by Bsky is an excellent start.

Gigachad 2y ago

Have you used Bluesky? I’ve been on it since it was invite only and I don’t see any politics on my feed. It’s basically just posts from friends, friends of friends, and artists for me. Bluesky seems the least pushy with rage bait content of all the social media’s.

bdangubic 2y ago
curiosity-joined a month ago, 90% of discover feed is politics
- Gigachad 2y ago
  Hm, maybe for a fresh account today. I just checked and my discover feed is pretty much just art and photography.
  - ziml77 2y ago
    Maybe Bluesky needs to ask a few questions the first time a new user looks at the discover feed to prime it for them. Personally I'd prefer if there was no default algorithmic feed but I know that just doesn't work. People will create an account, see nothing in their feed, and leave because the site seems dead or because they can't even fathom how to get started finding people to follow or custom feeds to add.
    - bdangubic 2y ago
      they do - they ask… the “problem” is that it is too broad… I picked “science” and there were myriad of post with pictures of various galaxies… pretty but after you see 27 of them… with the new accounts it is also asking to like 10 posts and follow 7 accounts so that it can try to figure shit out. it can be trained for sure but when I first joined to try it out it was just politics - mostly left-leaning praising Dr Fauci (very confusing) and stuff like that. I don’t use social media - no X, Facebook, Insta, TikTok… all were tried but eventually discarded … bluesky will suffer the same faith :)
    - 2y ago

grumbel 2y ago

Mastodon isn't true decentralization to begin with, it's just federation like email, where every user is attached to a server and the server operator holds all the power, while the user holds none. I find that approach a waste of time, as it's just replicating past mistakes verbatim. On top of that, the whole Fediverse is extremely political. Email providers don't care much what you write or with whom you communicate outside of spam, so it works quite well. Meanwhile Fediverse is blocking people and servers left and right, it's completely unusable unless you follow the group-think on whatever server you are on. Real decentralization is what Nostr is doing, where serves are just dumb relays, user-ids are public-key pairs and all the intelligence is in the client. BlueSky's AT-protocol should be capable of similar stuff, though in practice is still very much focused around the main BlueSky server.

simonw 2y ago
"every user is attached to a server and the server operator holds all the power, while the user holds none" So run your own server.
- shwouchk 2y ago
  How many people are running their own mail outside of large orgs or privacy/security niche? How many of those have had trouble sending mail to eg gmail?
  - staunton 2y ago
    It's easier to run your own Mastodon server than your own mail server (for the exact reason you cite).
    - shwouchk 2y ago
      I never ran my AP server but i did run my own mail in my late teens/early twenties. I don't recall it being particularly difficult, compared to eg setting a webserver. Just install some software from your distro PM and go through some configs. Nothing stopped some hacker from bundling configs with a point and click installer for android eg - A mail server doesnt need 100% uptime - or for servers. As for reaching others, ive never had problems because my domains had dkim and whatever else was available set up - could be easily automated like web certificates were, and i never send spam... How is that inherently more difficult? I'm genuinely curious, not trying to argue - just citing my own experience. What's to stop major servers ("gmail" and "hotmail" of AP) from blocking you? Obviously some aspects are different from mail as it is geared for wide distribution rather than directed communication, but it's not obvious to me that the decentralization problem is solved by a model that seems superficially close to email. Again, im not trying to troll you as im unfamiliar with AP - i genuinely don't know.

BlueTemplar 2y ago

Isn't Truth Social a fork of Mastodon (that might or might not be compatible any more). Or am I confusing with Gab ?

rsynnott 2y ago
Both are non-federating Mastodon instances.

toss1 2y ago

And that 'truly decentralized option' comes with a problem that will permanently dissuade many serious people from using it — there is no way to prevent imposter accounts. Imposter accounts will be attempted for anyone of significant standing or authority posting anything authoritative (e.g., product or policy announcements) controversial or notable, and with no way to shut them down and maintain an authoritative presence of you, no one of note will even go there, or stay once they encounter the problem. Easier to stay somewhere else like Bluesky or Spoutible where they at least attempt moderation and authentication and declare "Any Mastodon accts purporting to be me are fake.". I've personally spoken to authors/speakers/officials who checked it out after Twitter was sold to Musk, and once they understood the no-authentication-in-principle problem, said "NFW".

rebeccaskinner 2y ago

> BlueSky became immediately political in its narrative and many people just view it in the same light as Truth Social now. I don't see this at all. Quite the opposite in fact. From what I've seen, BlueSky is trying very hard as a company to stay apolitical in an extremely naive way that's going to ultimately drive away users. There's simply no way to to be apolitical as a general social media platform today when social media is so widely used for discussing politics and current events, is a key target for propaganda campaigns, and in a highly fractured political climate. BlueSky gained momentum primarily from people who were driven away from X as it started to move further right, with a lot of engagement driven by left and center-left leaning people, along with people who might not have been directly engaged in politics except for being the target of right-leaning hate campaigns (LGBT people in particular). If they'd doubled down on that, I think they'd be a lot more successful in the long run. Sites like Truth Social, Parler, and X have demonstrated that there's a significant market for politically aligned social media spaces for the right, and both the significant activity in left and center-left spaces in Twitter before the buy-out, and the growth in Bluesky point to there being a significant market for an unapologeticly left leaning social media site as well (I'd point to Tumblr here as another example, although I don't use it and only have a passing idea that it seems to be a predominantly left leaning space). Instead of embracing product market fit with an underserved market though, BlueSky seems to be both-sides-ing themselves into a situation where they're likely going to see an exodus. By inviting and protecting right-wing provocateurs on the platform they are driving away their core audience in order to attract people who already have their choice of established competitors (X). The only value they can add over sites like X and Truth Social is a group of users ready to be the target of trolling and bullying, but having recent experience with migrating away from Twitter I don't see them sticking around BlueSky for long in that environment. In the end, the attempt at being apolitical will doom BlueSky to being a worse less populated X or Truth Social, rather than making the most of the opportunity to be a more decidedly left-leaning social media platform for an audience that prefers to avoid a strong right-wing presence in their social media experience.

Karrot_Kream 2y ago
I think Mastodon and the Fediverse is better equipped for this kind of thing. The software itself acts like a "common carrier", and the networks formed by the instance operators align according to their politics. Truth Social itself is built on Mastodon.

dingnuts 2y ago

can't someone just stand up another atproto AppView with different default feeds to solve this problem? BlueSky's moderation team has traditional Twitter-like biases but my understanding of the AT protocol, from reading the spec, is that they do not have a monopoly on moderation in the AT network.

anon7000 2y ago
Absolutely, and users can choose custom moderation and block lists to offload the work to someone else.