I did, I do, and I’m calling this article bullshit for not pointing out that while the protocol might be open-source, they have yet to share the server software that’s required to operate it.
BlueSky “lets” people host their own profile data because it reduces how much data they have to host. It does not allow them to login and browse the network without going through their centralized servers to do so.
So, it’s not really decentralized, not really open source, and remains under corporate control until such time as they decide to let anyone compete with them on their own network.
I understand all of that. What I’d like the OP to address is how Bluesky could turn into something resembling Twitter if it’s, technically, very different.
wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 12 Apr 03:50
collapse
The point being made is that it isn’t very different. Focusing on the technicalities ignores the broad strokes of it. Missing the forest for the trees and all that.
The discussion of Bluesky’s flaws, drawbacks, misleading claims of “federation”, etc… has already been done to death.
This also isn’t debate club. “What I’d like OP to address” good god.
But in the interest of good faith, here’s the cliff notes: It’s run by a corporation headed by one of Twitter’s original founders, and there’s not significant evidence it will not fall to the same path to shittiness that Twitter did. It is only technically federated, not actually in practice. It is not fully open source, as key portions of the infrastructure code have not been released. Of the portions that have been released, it is nearly impossible to run your own node due to the major amount of storage space required. Beyond that, all communications must ultimately go through BlueSky’s centralized infrastructure. There’s no point to running your own node because their centralized infrastructure won’t talk with it. No one has actually been able to do anything more than host their own profile in regards to federation. At this point there is no financial incentive for them to invest money in solving the issues preventing it from being able to be truly federated.
Most of all, mastodon already exists as a mature system for federated microblogging without the major drawbacks of bluesky.
I’m glad to see a lot of different people trying different models. I don’t think microblogging really has the capability of being nontoxic, but who knows? Maybe they’ll succeed where everyone else has failed. I certainly know we’re trying to have nontoxic social media around here, and we have plenty of issues at a much smaller scale.
I would venture to say that despite those issues, thanks to y’all’s moderation this space is non-toxic on the whole. It may be that size is a de-facto limit on maintaining a space like Beehaw, or it may be that we (as in, internet users) just haven’t figured out the best format/ structure for scaling up safely.
I think a microblogging platform that allows moderated, invite-only sub-groups (and which doesn’t show you any posts by users or groups you don’t subscribe to) could be a good step towards that. Sort of a combination of BlueSky feed + Beehaw communities/ FB groups. That could give you a Beehaw-like moderation experience in a microblog platform.
I think most microblogging platforms’ failure in this area likely stems from them being ad and engagement-driven, and their corporate “need” for users to be more and more active across “interest domains”, clashing with their users’ need to stay isolated from users who are toxic to them.
SweetCitrusBuzz@beehaw.org
on 12 Apr 15:33
collapse
clashing with their users’ need to stay isolated from users who are toxic to them.
Sadly Lemmy does not solve this problem as the creators think like a corporation or do not want to be fully cut off from other users and thus do not have proper blocking (which is something built into ActivityPub mind you), for now it is only one way blocking which does not solve being isolated from toxic users as it still allows for some toxic behaviour etc.
If Lemmy ever gets that feature it would actually prove that it is dedicated to user safety, but a lot of people in the open source social media world seem to be ‘concerned’ with not being able to see everything due to entitlement, as others unrelated to Lemmy also are lacking the same or similar features.
thirtyfold8625@thebrainbin.org
on 11 Apr 23:09
nextcollapse
This seems to be a general overview of (the history of) Bluesky, rather than being focused on "nontoxic social media"
IMO, toxicity isn’t as much about who comes into your environment as it is about who you allow to remain. There are plenty of low- and non-toxic spaces online, they’re just heavily moderated.
SweetCitrusBuzz@beehaw.org
on 11 Apr 23:17
nextcollapse
Corporations cannot create nontoxic social media, the incentives will always be there to make it toxic.
The only way to do it is something like mastodon where actual people run it and thus can deal with people who are being toxic either by blocking etc because the fear of losing money, or the likelihood of the entire site/platform disappearing etc just isn’t there (obvioiusly individuals sites go down sometimes but the entire network is unlikely to disappear), or by the use of people explaining why what they did was wrong and the toxic people listen.
Edit: If Bluesky actually ever becomes decentralised as in users can run their own servers and federate or block other servers then perhaps it might become good, but until such a time then I do not trust them.
They should also make a non-profit foundation if they want to be seen as trustworthy, so that they can’t ever be sold off.
Those are the only way we and many others will ever trust them.
Oh I think they can do it for a while… But then they need to start bumping up the profits.
SweetCitrusBuzz@beehaw.org
on 12 Apr 00:20
collapse
Yes, I meant more long term but didn’t express that fully. So you are correct, corporate social media will go that way eventually unless they do the things we recommended.
Corporations cannot create nontoxic social media, the incentives will always be there to make it toxic.
I don’t know that’s true. The incentives to make it toxic come from engagement being the goal, which is a function of advertising being the income. I’m not advocating for it, but if there were a flat subscription and no ads, I don’t think they’d have any economic pressures for toxicity.
SweetCitrusBuzz@beehaw.org
on 13 Apr 06:55
nextcollapse
We think Minds tried something like this (though it might be different tiers) and it didn’t exactly go well, forcing users to pay one way or the other always leads to economic pressures to keep users around, even if they are being toxic at least from what we have observed.
Fredthefishlord@lemmy.blahaj.zone
on 13 Apr 10:27
collapse
Social media requires free users to function on to fundamental of a level for that to really work tbh
And that’s fine.
Bluesky is in its last phase of proving the important point. Once all the regular journalists move away from Twitter, it will have been proven, that migration away from a defacto “standard” platform can happen, even though it’s a pain in the ass.
Fredthefishlord@lemmy.blahaj.zone
on 13 Apr 10:26
collapse
threaded - newest
Remember when Twitter tried that? And look at it now. A festering pool of feces and maggots…
Also Google’s now retired motto: “Don’t Be Evil”.
Did you read the article? Do you understand, technically, how Bluesky differs from Twitter (X)?
I did, I do, and I’m calling this article bullshit for not pointing out that while the protocol might be open-source, they have yet to share the server software that’s required to operate it.
BlueSky “lets” people host their own profile data because it reduces how much data they have to host. It does not allow them to login and browse the network without going through their centralized servers to do so.
So, it’s not really decentralized, not really open source, and remains under corporate control until such time as they decide to let anyone compete with them on their own network.
I understand all of that. What I’d like the OP to address is how Bluesky could turn into something resembling Twitter if it’s, technically, very different.
The point being made is that it isn’t very different. Focusing on the technicalities ignores the broad strokes of it. Missing the forest for the trees and all that.
The discussion of Bluesky’s flaws, drawbacks, misleading claims of “federation”, etc… has already been done to death.
This also isn’t debate club. “What I’d like OP to address” good god.
But in the interest of good faith, here’s the cliff notes: It’s run by a corporation headed by one of Twitter’s original founders, and there’s not significant evidence it will not fall to the same path to shittiness that Twitter did. It is only technically federated, not actually in practice. It is not fully open source, as key portions of the infrastructure code have not been released. Of the portions that have been released, it is nearly impossible to run your own node due to the major amount of storage space required. Beyond that, all communications must ultimately go through BlueSky’s centralized infrastructure. There’s no point to running your own node because their centralized infrastructure won’t talk with it. No one has actually been able to do anything more than host their own profile in regards to federation. At this point there is no financial incentive for them to invest money in solving the issues preventing it from being able to be truly federated.
Most of all, mastodon already exists as a mature system for federated microblogging without the major drawbacks of bluesky.
I know that BlueSky has investors and soon enough every company has turned into shit when investors are involved.
I’m glad to see a lot of different people trying different models. I don’t think microblogging really has the capability of being nontoxic, but who knows? Maybe they’ll succeed where everyone else has failed. I certainly know we’re trying to have nontoxic social media around here, and we have plenty of issues at a much smaller scale.
We must have better moderation tools if we ever want this instance to grow.
Maybe, but social problems cannot entirely be solved with technology.
I would venture to say that despite those issues, thanks to y’all’s moderation this space is non-toxic on the whole. It may be that size is a de-facto limit on maintaining a space like Beehaw, or it may be that we (as in, internet users) just haven’t figured out the best format/ structure for scaling up safely.
I think a microblogging platform that allows moderated, invite-only sub-groups (and which doesn’t show you any posts by users or groups you don’t subscribe to) could be a good step towards that. Sort of a combination of BlueSky feed + Beehaw communities/ FB groups. That could give you a Beehaw-like moderation experience in a microblog platform.
I think most microblogging platforms’ failure in this area likely stems from them being ad and engagement-driven, and their corporate “need” for users to be more and more active across “interest domains”, clashing with their users’ need to stay isolated from users who are toxic to them.
Sadly Lemmy does not solve this problem as the creators think like a corporation or do not want to be fully cut off from other users and thus do not have proper blocking (which is something built into ActivityPub mind you), for now it is only one way blocking which does not solve being isolated from toxic users as it still allows for some toxic behaviour etc.
If Lemmy ever gets that feature it would actually prove that it is dedicated to user safety, but a lot of people in the open source social media world seem to be ‘concerned’ with not being able to see everything due to entitlement, as others unrelated to Lemmy also are lacking the same or similar features.
This seems to be a general overview of (the history of) Bluesky, rather than being focused on "nontoxic social media"
Yeah. Clickbait title.
It’s owned by a billionaire. I don’t think enshittification is far away
ain’t gonna happen
need no anonymity and a complete reversal of human nature to achieve this.
IMO, toxicity isn’t as much about who comes into your environment as it is about who you allow to remain. There are plenty of low- and non-toxic spaces online, they’re just heavily moderated.
Corporations cannot create nontoxic social media, the incentives will always be there to make it toxic.
The only way to do it is something like mastodon where actual people run it and thus can deal with people who are being toxic either by blocking etc because the fear of losing money, or the likelihood of the entire site/platform disappearing etc just isn’t there (obvioiusly individuals sites go down sometimes but the entire network is unlikely to disappear), or by the use of people explaining why what they did was wrong and the toxic people listen.
Edit: If Bluesky actually ever becomes decentralised as in users can run their own servers and federate or block other servers then perhaps it might become good, but until such a time then I do not trust them.
They should also make a non-profit foundation if they want to be seen as trustworthy, so that they can’t ever be sold off.
Those are the only way we and many others will ever trust them.
Oh I think they can do it for a while… But then they need to start bumping up the profits.
Yes, I meant more long term but didn’t express that fully. So you are correct, corporate social media will go that way eventually unless they do the things we recommended.
If they never go IPO… I think they can do it. I think people can make money and not be cunts at the same time.
Even if they go IPO… they have the choice.
I don’t know that’s true. The incentives to make it toxic come from engagement being the goal, which is a function of advertising being the income. I’m not advocating for it, but if there were a flat subscription and no ads, I don’t think they’d have any economic pressures for toxicity.
We think Minds tried something like this (though it might be different tiers) and it didn’t exactly go well, forcing users to pay one way or the other always leads to economic pressures to keep users around, even if they are being toxic at least from what we have observed.
Social media requires free users to function on to fundamental of a level for that to really work tbh
Bsky is just Twitter, 10 years ago.
Capitalist media is always toxic.
Enshitification commencing in 10… 9…
And that’s fine. Bluesky is in its last phase of proving the important point. Once all the regular journalists move away from Twitter, it will have been proven, that migration away from a defacto “standard” platform can happen, even though it’s a pain in the ass.
Honestly I think they already hit critical mass.
Not until news media starts quoting posts on Bluesky as much as, or more than, they do Xitter.
There’s still the force of habit and larger engagement on Xitter for many established names.