Bluesky thoughts

I don’t know anything about that project tbh, it sounds promising. Going to their repo though it doesn’t seem to contain any code, when I’ve seen elsewhere claims that it’s open-source.

It depends what you mean by censhorship protection. IMO, there is a limit where one can spew hate without consequences. Tate was already banned on Bluesky which is a good thing.

There are some rules that need to be in place and need to be followed and the consequences for not respecting those rules could and should be a ban.

bluesky:

  • main website (bsky.social) contains tracking from Google (google tag manager)
  • bsky.app & their mobile apps contain tracking from Sentry & Statsig
  • no way to opt out of this
  • android app contains proprietary libraries like google play/firebase
  • android app is only available from play store, can’t be installed from ex. accrescent or f-droid

in the grand scheme of things, these may seem like minor issues; but these are problems that similar widely adopted platforms in the space, such as mastodon and nostr, simply do not have. if bluesky claims to be “free and open”, and about giving users control, there’s no way around the fact that these issues must be addressed.

i’ve been using bluesky a good bit lately and overall i’ve enjoyed it, nice breath of fresh air, and it’s definitely far better than ex. X/twitter & facebook. but it leaves a lot to be desired in areas like this. only time will tell how it turns out :woman_shrugging:

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This is true, but you forgot to mention that you can install it with Obtainium/GitHub at https://github.com/bluesky-social/social-app/releases

true, which is nice - but that’s just bare minimum IMO

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Sure, even though Bluesky has open-source app and protocol, in practice this will mostly be good to check the code and how their algorithms for BS work, so ==> transparency. I don’t expect it to be FOSS or anything, this is Mastodon.

Maybe I should clarify. I mean extreme left : who believes AI Alt text are bad, that AI is just pure garbage, who say NYT is transphobic, etc.
.
Too much. Now on Bluesky I actually see topics I like.

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True. This is what it looks like in the DNS log when you open the app on iOS:

At least you can block those trackers and the app still works fine.

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Maybe compared to parts of Europe, but otherwise I think you have a very distorted view of what the rest of the world looks like politically.

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Imo, those “twitter files” have mostly been a nothing burger. Just right wing extremist crying wolf because they can no longer spread hate messages.

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I use uBO hardmode. Google Tag Manager is everywhere. I’m not saying this is good practice, but yeah, the bar’s pretty low nowadays unfortunately. Also, it’s pretty much impossible to get rid of Google when you realize re:captcha is everywhere and needs Google + gstatic to run.

Yep, but at least it’s not a hate platform. Again, the bar is pretty low nowadays lol…

Edit : more news!

Bluesky, the formerly Jack Dorsey-affiliated, decentralized answer to Elon Musk’s X is closing the gap with Threads at breakneck speed. The browser version of Bluesky surpassed Threads in total usage weeks ago, but now the Bluesky app has exploded to 3.5 million daily active users, putting it just 1.5 times behind Meta’s Threads — an impressive feat considering the Threads app had 5x Bluesky’s active users at the start of the month.

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the number of daily active US users on X has dropped by 8.4% since early October, from 32.3 million to 29.6 million. The number of Bluesky users has risen by 1,064%, from 254,500 to roughly 2.7 million since 6 October.

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I really honestly could not care less about social media. People who use it seem to inhabit a weird and different world with odd social norms and values. No one treats you like a person, because on these websites, you aren’t! You are a machine filled with attention that people want to take for themselves to satisfy their own ends, be it for ego, for money, or ideological indoctrination or whatever. I cannot understand the notion of keeping up with some friend or influencer or “the news” or whatever every single day or even week. If people live like that, they are probably missing out on something intrinsic in human experience.

I’m also surprised how long it took the “public”, if we can even call them that?, to figure out that federation is pretty cool. It just sucks that it’s from this Bluesky app I’ve never heard of before. Maybe it’s because there was never any good ones out there? IDK.

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As someone who’s writing blogs and the only way I ever get to be discovered is through social media, it’s unfortunate if not for Twitter then for Bluesky perhaps. Just recently went to reddit to try and share my blog here and I’ve just realized what a mess this community can be. And honestly this is in stark contrast to the same post here I made, much better interaction than the other which is a good example of what a mess social media can really be which validates your statement but also when it doesn’t have to be.
You don’t really need to understand anything to even get the stark contrast between them, the edits alone and the threads says alot.
However it does feel an obligation to use social media to get discovered so yeah, Maybe quite unfortunate but it is what it is.

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I don’t use any social medias, but I know it does impact my daily life mostly because of politics. So I am excited for Bluesky, even though I won’t be joining it.

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That’s true if those rules are for everyone and not just one particular side but sadly, that doesn’t seem to be the case on most of these platforms.

Love the metaphors used here lol

I ran the site through Markup’s Blacklight but it was not able to detect any tracking. I was able to confirm that bsky.social does though.

PG forums is a form of social media. Do you feel that way about yourself? Seems a bit hypocritical to say things like this while using social media to do it.

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Forums have been around for ages compared to modern social media as how it is depicted and used today. But yes, your point holds water. I should instead clarify what kind of social media I am referring to and that it is a critique on the culture of that social media usage, not necessarily social media itself. I see now how my comment is really reductive, which does not help further discussion.

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So does that mean people who use bluesky can follow mastodon and other activity pub powered profiles and visa versa.

No cause it isn’t the same protocol. Just like you can’t E-mail someone to a SMS.

But once complete, this means anyone can spin up an instance (already can) and be fully compatible with official instances and other instance (just like Mastodon).

I think currently there is only “a credible exit” meaning if BSKY go shit, everyone can migrate to another plarform and keep their account (AFAIK).

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