this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2025
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Have you ever heard of the term federation-washing?

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[–] Hafty@lemmy.world 12 points 1 hour ago

None of the people I follow are active on Mastodon. The selling point to me for Bluesky is that it’s essentially a Twitter clone not owned by a billionaire. It’s friendly to the communities I’m part of specifically and doesn’t have ads. What more should anyone ask for from a social media platform?

[–] venotic@kbin.melroy.org 1 points 51 minutes ago

Bluesky didn't have a strong of a hold on me, tried it, wasn't impressed with what was there before deleting the account. Getting too burned out on social media in general to really be invested in these kinds of platforms. The fediverse is more or less my last rodeo.

[–] CitricBase@lemmy.world 92 points 5 hours ago (4 children)

People didn't go to Bluesky because of an informed choice based on features or security. People went to Bluesky because that's where everyone they want to follow went.

[–] FauxPseudo@lemmy.world 6 points 2 hours ago

Bluesky isn't Twitter. That's all that mattered to most people. A few influential people went there first and the network effect kicked in.

[–] TheFogan@programming.dev 9 points 3 hours ago

Hell I wouldn't even say that... they don't understand it, they don't care to understand it, they don't know or care what federated means. They went there because, it's not currently nazified twitter.

I get that it's "technically" federated... but practically it's for all practical purposes just a proprietary program, run by a group that isn't currently horrific. Unfortunately everything I see in it says, it's every bit as vulnerable, and it can be good for as long as the owners care about not becoming a nazi propoganda machine. Actual recourse from it going evil... is non existant.

[–] realitista@lemm.ee 10 points 4 hours ago (2 children)

But Bluesky does have a lot better features when it comes to actually effectively using the platform. Getting set up on Bluesky is orders of magnitude easier than Mastodon, and I do think that's a big part of why it's become the preferred destination recently. Mastodon had a real shot early on but didn't make it easy enough for people.

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 7 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Getting set up on Bluesky is orders of magnitude easier than Mastodon,

I'm so tired of hearing this. Just click the mastodon.social button in the app and it's not any different.

[–] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Wouldn't that mean everyone is centralized on the same instance? I don't use Mastodon so I don't know if it's the same as here...

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 2 points 1 hour ago

Not everyone. Just those users who don't care enough to be picky. I wish they would rotate the instances but this is better than nothing.

[–] TORFdot0@lemmy.world 2 points 3 hours ago

You can convenience or security, never both. Unfortunately bluesky’s compromises towards convenience hurt it’s security measures against enshittification

Yup, the network effect is real.

[–] ryan213@lemmy.ca 44 points 6 hours ago

Come join Mastodon where the skies are bluer and the grass is greener.

[–] Mist101@lemmy.world 36 points 6 hours ago

I had a nice little profile on there until about a month ago. I didn't delete when I saw AI spammers join. And I kept my profile even when the mods were starting to become reddit-ish. What sent me over the edge was when they announced a partnership with an AI company who said they were "just there to beef up security". Yeah, no, not for me. Super sad, too, because Bluesky is a good idea, but I'm sticking with the fediverse.

[–] Darkcoffee@sh.itjust.works 25 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

it's not yet federated properly, or would not be completely, but it's still a good player in the game for now. I'll advocate against it if shareholders start shenanigans.

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 5 points 3 hours ago

I'll advocate against it if shareholders start shenanigans

I mean, they will. It's inevitable. So why bother? BlueSky also ultimately retains the final word on moderation as well.

[–] danc4498@lemmy.world 21 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (5 children)

I get the mentality, but that’s the problem with enshitification. It always starts good, but once all the twitter traffic moves over, and the world becomes dependent on BlueSky the way it still is for Twitter, what do they become next?

It would be better to push people away from the closed platform and towards the actual open platform.

Edit: maybe BlueSky is open source. In such case, if they start fucking around, maybe it would be simple to fork this source code and form your own community. I think until other instances gain tractions, it is hard to consider BlueSky comparable to mastadon.

https://github.com/bluesky-social/social-app

[–] kazerniel@lemmy.world 2 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

There is a recent community project that focuses on federating Bluesky without the Bluesky devs' involvement:

Free Our Feeds wants to build a social media ecosystem ‘resistant to billionaire influence’ | The Verge

[–] danc4498@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago

This would be good. I just hope it can do so while still being a part of BlueSky (as it is today).

[–] Die4Ever@programming.dev 2 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

maybe it would be simple to fork this source code and form your own community

The network effect makes this extremely difficult, even with the source code, it's basically starting from scratch again.

[–] Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 2 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

It's not from scratch; every piece of old data is public. I've sent a link somewhere else here.

[–] Die4Ever@programming.dev 2 points 1 hour ago

In theory I guess. But you'd need a ton of funding just to get the server power for that, and there's no guarantee that users will switch over to your service. And if they start turning bad then they could start blocking that. Also the users are much more valuable than the data. There's lots of ways this could fail to pan out. The Fediverse is much more flexible to new instances joining.

if shareholders start shenanigans.

That happens only when user count and platform lock in are past the point of no return. This sentence is the essence of why platforms have been allowed to do this again and again.

Its already too late for bluesky, because even if they started federating now, any other instance would be in such a minority that it would have zero sway over the wider federation if bluesky HQ went rogue.

[–] Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 5 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

That's exactly what Bluesky was designed for: so that anyone can clone their qubibytes of data and start a new central platform anytime without any account loss (though this mechanism relies on user domain owners staying the same). You can read more at https://dustycloud.org/blog/how-decentralized-is-bluesky/ from the 'Bluesky is centralized, but "credible exit" is a worthy pursuit' section on.

[–] danc4498@lemmy.world 2 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Is this possible to do now? If BlueSky was bought out by somebody like Trump, could he disable this feature?

BlueSky is not open source, is it? The entire premise of things like mastodon and Lemmy is that they are open source and federated at their core. Nobody can change that.

BlueSky is not federated at its core or there would be other BlueSky instances.

[–] Flisty@mstdn.social 3 points 4 hours ago (1 children)
[–] danc4498@lemmy.world 3 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Sure, but the federated aspect is not at the core of its functionality the way it is for Mastadon/Lemmy. If Elon Musk ever bought BlueSky, would he be able to shut down 3rd party instances? Or stop supporting them with security updates? Would the instances be forced to abide by whatever rules Elon says in order to stay active?

This is a hypothetical scenario, but if the answer is “yes” to any of those questions, then it is not worth the risk of moving to BlueSky. You’re just kicking the can down the road.

There is no way for Elon to come in and take over mastadon. He could buy the organization, but the software is open source he cannot ever stop that. Meaning he could never force his values onto the fediverse the way he did with Twitter.

[–] Flisty@mstdn.social 2 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

@danc4498 agree! Just interesting to note that someone is trying a new instance. Unclear, as you say, what control they will have.

[–] danc4498@lemmy.world 2 points 3 hours ago

I did some digging, and it seems like BlueSky is open source. I’m not sure the process of creating an instance, or how easy it is for an instance to interact with the main instance. So maybe I take back much of what I’ve said.

[–] Darkcoffee@sh.itjust.works 3 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

The devs also made it clear that if ever bsky became crap, the system is made so that you could just jump over to another instance and go from there.

So far so good, but yeah I get it, the more they talk about investors, the more I'm reluctant to jump in fully.

[–] MysticKetchup@lemmy.world 6 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Except they haven't actually backed that up with a way for you to jump servers. If the central Bsky server goes down, it takes the network with it. Until they actually let other people host, it's just meaningless posturing. Without a way for people to leave their network you are as captive there as you are on Twitter

[–] Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 4 points 5 hours ago

They do let other people host; it's just that they're not going to be federated and one has to clone quite a lot of data. And there's people mirroring Bluesky's servers.

[–] SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 4 hours ago

That's a great write-up!