this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2026
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So, trying to parse what's going on here.
Bluesky has verified that an account claiming to belong to the US government agency ICE really is controlled by that agency. Somehow that shows that Mastodon is better. Because Trump has his own Mastodon instance and doesn't need anyone to vouch for his goons?
Looking at the comments, maybe the issue is rather that the Bluesky company provides services to ICE. Tech companies should refuse service. Huh. I guess there is more diversity of opinion on Lemmy than I had thought, regarding the power of tech companies, democracy, and law.
Bluesky is a centralized platform and their mods don't ban Nazis.
Trump being able to clone Mastodon is not the same as letting Trump on Mastodon.social
Every Mastodon instance can choose to defederate with truth social
BlueSky can choose to kick ICE off their platform
It's that simple
The Mastodon devs made a choice in releasing it as open source. They could have decided to pick and chose who is allowed to use it. It was completely foreseeable, that the software would be used for something like Gab or Truth.Social. When they release update, they know that these will also be used by such services.
This is merely a statement of fact, not criticism. They chose not to exercise power or become arbiters of good and evil. That is laudable.
I get it. You feel that tech companies should deny service to bad people. For example, to a government agency acting on behalf of a president elected by a solid majority of the popular vote.
I agree that the voters got it wrong, but I don't think that the rich and powerful vetoing voters will lead to good outcomes. Look at medieval Europe. Life got better with democracy, not with a supposedly more just king.
The tech lord most in line with your ideas is Elon Musk, except that he's kinda nazi. So, on a purely practical note, it doesn't seem very likely that tech companies being more political would lessen racism.
Do you think it would be better if all the billionaires, who are probably mostly non-nazi, were activist like him?
narrow plurality
It's worth pointing out that "lesser of two evils" reasoning is used by both parties. White privileged "libertarians" voted fascist because they felt unrepresented too.
Every single elected official who isn't explicitly against FPTP was OK with this outcome. They know about the spoiler effect.
Even then it's highly dubious that it was even a plurality. Vote counts in swing states were HIGHLY irregular and 100% controlled by Musk.
I think that tech companies taking a stand on what their employees and/or users believe in is a reasonable thing.
Idk what the employees of bluesky believe, but I'm fairly familiar with the bay area tech scene and I think that there is a decent chance that the employees would like to take a stand by not providing services to ICE.
That being said, idk if simply allowing them to have an account is providing services. I think it's probably better to have govt agencies have verified accounts so people know when things are official statements, even if you disagree with the agency.
How would that actually work? Like, you'd have pro-Trump and anti-Trump companies that only employ pro- and anti-Trump employees and only serve pro- and anti-Trump customers? What happens when someone who is basically pro-Trump thinks that ICE goes too far?
It's illegal to hire people or refuse to hire people based on political beliefs or affiliation, so you're not gonna have companies that only employ Trump supporters or employ no Trump supporters. Politics is considered a protected group wrt employment law in the USA and many countries.
But how would it actually work?
It's not like it's difficult to gauge employee sentiment about ICE. If your employees are strongly against it, then you simply don't enter the competition for ICE contracts, or you choose to not renew the contracts when they expire.
i mean, this is how it works in practice.
it's just that the company is on whomevers side that's in power. they donate to both campaigns usually.
The majority of USA citizens voted for Trump. Why should Bluesky take a stand on what a minority believe in?
Actually, less than a quarter of citizens voted for him. Less than a 3rd or registered voters.
Not even half of a half of citizens said they wanted this.
Even if that was true, which it isn't, a company should reflect the beliefs of its employees and community.
It's just all emotion and no rational thought now. People just go into outrage mode when certain topics are mentioned.
Really it opens a channel to criticize ICE without needing to logon to X to do so. But that's bad because preventing communication is good?
Of course I doubt ICE will care about criticism directed towards their account on bluesky. But that means things said on the internet don't have much of an effect on things, which means it doesn't matter whether they're on bluesky (or any other forum).
Mostly it's about some weird belief by some about controlling what is being said on the internet gains power. You'd think the events that have happened would have proven this wrong, but still people continue to be upset about things being said on the internet and want some power over those things.
Really words on the internet don't matter as much as people think, and the idea of blocking unwanted information is annoying at best and can lead to ignorance. What matters is the horrible acts ICE is doing. We should want more light being shown on them, and welcome any potential channel of discussion.
Wanting to prevent discussion indicates you feel you're in the wrong. ICE is indicating they want discussion, while those that are outraged by ICE being on bluesky are indicating they don't want discussion on ICE. Why would anyone want to make is seem ICE is in the right while they're in the wrong? It's people not thinking and only reacting emotionally and handing ICE a W because they are raging instead of thinking.
Yep. Better to have these assholes than not.
Also verification isn’t complicated. Anyone can do it.
Yeah, the reactive group signaling stuff does more harm than good, just further perpetuating the conditions that allow propaganda to proliferate. This includes intentionally using the wrong words, for dramatic effect. Wholly agree that more, rational conversation and LESS insularity is the best path forward.
To me, this feels like school politics.
OMG! Jaden invited ICE to his birthday party! I'm never talking to him again!
Oh No! ICE nabbed Julio! I'm telling the teacher and they will get suspended!
Probably a good number of these people are actual children. I know there are adults who have broadly similar ideas. For someone living a very sheltered and privileged life, being trolled on the internet is the absolute worst form of aggression they ever experience. Particularly in Europe, activists and politicians talk about "digital violence", which tells you that they have no sense of proportion.
it's called guilt by assocation. it's shitty and lame type of logical fallacy
if you live on the same street as a nazi, you must be a nazi. because apparently you have to sell your home and move away if a nazi moves in.
of course, if you do this and it's a non-white person you are racist... and a bad person, but if you do it for a nazi you're a good person.
it's not as if the logic of the thing is what at's fault, and the accuser has hyperbolic sense of other people's social obligations to appeal to their sensibility.
I would like an explanation as to exactly why a Nazi and a non-white person are comparable categories of people.
I'm not sure where to start here, so here are two equally important building blocks.
First, aside from other reasons the Nazi/minority is wrong, you are comparing a label somebody gets for existing the way they were born with a label somebody gets for actions they take that harm other people.
Second, some kind of mishmash of the terms "social contract" and "paradox of tolerance."