Bluesky has just started officially hosting and verifying dozens of accounts from Trump's regime including the Whitehouse, Homeland Security / ICE, the Department of War etc (https://cyberplace.social/@GossiTheDog/115393404732174116).
-
@OhOkayKay @FediTips
Maybe am I too optimistic, but nobody will create a Bluesky account in order to follow this dictator.
And as there is no "trendy threads" algorithm to hijack, there won't be an X like echo chamber.So will these accounts really have any impact?
Once you have millions of people on a platform, there will always be a certain amount of people who can be radicalised by hateful lies.
And it's not just about the accounts themselves, it's about Bluesky being so happy to host them and verify them. There's no law compelling them to host far right politicians, but here they are doing so willingly. It implies that Bluesky is comfortable spreading these lies about vulnerable groups.
-
N nicholai@helvede.net shared this topic
-
Bluesky has just started officially hosting and verifying dozens of accounts from Trump's regime including the Whitehouse, Homeland Security / ICE, the Department of War etc (https://cyberplace.social/@GossiTheDog/115393404732174116).
*All* of these accounts are spreading bigotry, hatred and dangerous lies about vulnerable groups.
It is NOT enough to just "block and forget", here's why: https://social.chinwag.org/@FediThing/112581263140051643
This is a 1930s moment, and #Bluesky is choosing to host vile hatred. It is going down the same path as Twitter/X.
p.s. You can stop Bluesky having any connections or interactions with your server by asking your server admin to defederate bsky.brid.gy
If you are a server admin and want help with how to defederate, there's a guide at https://fedi.tips/how-to-defederate-fediblock-a-server-on-mastodon
-
Bluesky has just started officially hosting and verifying dozens of accounts from Trump's regime including the Whitehouse, Homeland Security / ICE, the Department of War etc (https://cyberplace.social/@GossiTheDog/115393404732174116).
*All* of these accounts are spreading bigotry, hatred and dangerous lies about vulnerable groups.
It is NOT enough to just "block and forget", here's why: https://social.chinwag.org/@FediThing/112581263140051643
This is a 1930s moment, and #Bluesky is choosing to host vile hatred. It is going down the same path as Twitter/X.
@FediTips This affects all ATProtocol servers though, not just bsky.social. I'm sure there's a better solution than blocking a few hundred innocent servers just to get one bad one.
-
No, the "block and forget" thing does not work in real life: https://social.chinwag.org/@FediThing/112581263140051643
@FediTips
Right! So what we’re talking about here is a failure of moderation, or more broadly, a failure of Trust & Safety. Bluesky *was* a functioning social network because its users temporarily browbeat them into doing actual T&S, and not just leaving everything to public blocklists as they originally intended to do. But now their failures in moderation have outed them as the crypto-enthusiast neo-reactionaries that many suspected them of being, and their most vulnerable users will not be protected on that platform.But also, let’s not pretend like T&S was a solved issue here on the fedi. As if the biggest de facto instance mastodon dot social, currently federating with Meta, wouldn't host those same government accounts if approached.
Large swaths of vulnerable minority users came to Mastodon first looking for places safer than twitter and quickly abandoned it for bsky because Mastodon did NOT protect them. The servers they adopted repeatedly failed their minority users because intersectional moderation is a rarity, and fundamental T&S is routinely ignored in the fedi.
I’ve repeatedly seen server meltdown after meltdown because a mod wouldn’t restrict obvious hate speech, or a mod turned out to be a fascist and the admin team shrugged it off, or an admin showed their ass so blatantly it was clear to all their judgment was not to be trusted.
Adding troublesome accounts to blocklists on bsky and defederating troublesome servers on Mastodon are both technical workarounds that do not address the underlying problem of moderation failure. We can point at bsky’s failures, but they do not detract from the planks in our own eyes. The network the platform is built on, while important, is not as vital as Trust & Safety.
-
@FediTips This affects all ATProtocol servers though, not just bsky.social. I'm sure there's a better solution than blocking a few hundred innocent servers just to get one bad one.
These aren't "servers" in any meaningful sense, they're just part of Bluesky corporation's centralised network which has control of who and what is banned or allowed.
AT Protocol only allows properly independent servers if they're running their own relay, which is very rare and much more difficult and expensive.
Blacksky apparently had to do a lot of work to break free from Bluesky, and even after that Bluesky was still able to delete a user from Blacksky.
-
@FediTips
Right! So what we’re talking about here is a failure of moderation, or more broadly, a failure of Trust & Safety. Bluesky *was* a functioning social network because its users temporarily browbeat them into doing actual T&S, and not just leaving everything to public blocklists as they originally intended to do. But now their failures in moderation have outed them as the crypto-enthusiast neo-reactionaries that many suspected them of being, and their most vulnerable users will not be protected on that platform.But also, let’s not pretend like T&S was a solved issue here on the fedi. As if the biggest de facto instance mastodon dot social, currently federating with Meta, wouldn't host those same government accounts if approached.
Large swaths of vulnerable minority users came to Mastodon first looking for places safer than twitter and quickly abandoned it for bsky because Mastodon did NOT protect them. The servers they adopted repeatedly failed their minority users because intersectional moderation is a rarity, and fundamental T&S is routinely ignored in the fedi.
I’ve repeatedly seen server meltdown after meltdown because a mod wouldn’t restrict obvious hate speech, or a mod turned out to be a fascist and the admin team shrugged it off, or an admin showed their ass so blatantly it was clear to all their judgment was not to be trusted.
Adding troublesome accounts to blocklists on bsky and defederating troublesome servers on Mastodon are both technical workarounds that do not address the underlying problem of moderation failure. We can point at bsky’s failures, but they do not detract from the planks in our own eyes. The network the platform is built on, while important, is not as vital as Trust & Safety.
"As if the biggest de facto instance mastodon dot social, currently federating with Meta, wouldn't host those same government accounts if approached."
If mastodon.social was hosting Trump & co, I would be calling for them to be defederated in exactly the same way.
Unlike Bluesky, the Fediverse is not under anyone's control, each server is truly independent in every sense. Servers can defederate mastodon.social (which is only about 20% of overall network), and many do that already.
-
These aren't "servers" in any meaningful sense, they're just part of Bluesky corporation's centralised network which has control of who and what is banned or allowed.
AT Protocol only allows properly independent servers if they're running their own relay, which is very rare and much more difficult and expensive.
Blacksky apparently had to do a lot of work to break free from Bluesky, and even after that Bluesky was still able to delete a user from Blacksky.
@FediTips No, a PDS is a server. It stands for "personal data server". It runs its own data store for its own users & interfaces with a relay server to allow others to access that data & see its users' posts. Bluesky does not have control over PDSs that aren't hosted by them. ATProtocol relays are pretty heavy compared to a PDS, but the point is so people can more easily run a PDS for themselves. Anyone can run a relay too if they have the hardware for it, & a few do exist & are not under control of bluesky. We shouldn't be taking moderation action against other PDSs & other relays that are actually well run, only bsky.social & its relay, since those are the problem here & not anyone else.
I haven't heard of Blacksky, but if bluesky could delete a user from it, then that user's account must have been on bsky.social & not Blacksky's PDS.
-
@FediTips No, a PDS is a server. It stands for "personal data server". It runs its own data store for its own users & interfaces with a relay server to allow others to access that data & see its users' posts. Bluesky does not have control over PDSs that aren't hosted by them. ATProtocol relays are pretty heavy compared to a PDS, but the point is so people can more easily run a PDS for themselves. Anyone can run a relay too if they have the hardware for it, & a few do exist & are not under control of bluesky. We shouldn't be taking moderation action against other PDSs & other relays that are actually well run, only bsky.social & its relay, since those are the problem here & not anyone else.
I haven't heard of Blacksky, but if bluesky could delete a user from it, then that user's account must have been on bsky.social & not Blacksky's PDS.
@FediTips This is comparable to adding *.net to your blocklist just because threads.net is unmoderated. Blocking an entire TLD because of one server doesn't make much sense, does it? Neither does blocking an entire protocol just because of one unmoderated PDS & relay.
Block posts from bsky.social, not anyone else unless they're also misbehaving.
-
@FediTips No, a PDS is a server. It stands for "personal data server". It runs its own data store for its own users & interfaces with a relay server to allow others to access that data & see its users' posts. Bluesky does not have control over PDSs that aren't hosted by them. ATProtocol relays are pretty heavy compared to a PDS, but the point is so people can more easily run a PDS for themselves. Anyone can run a relay too if they have the hardware for it, & a few do exist & are not under control of bluesky. We shouldn't be taking moderation action against other PDSs & other relays that are actually well run, only bsky.social & its relay, since those are the problem here & not anyone else.
I haven't heard of Blacksky, but if bluesky could delete a user from it, then that user's account must have been on bsky.social & not Blacksky's PDS.
A PDS is nothing like a Fediverse server.
Fediverse servers are truly independent of each other and can communicate directly. No one controls a Fedi server except its owner.
PDSes cannot communicate with each other, they have to pass all their data through a relay and almost all PDSes are using Bluesky corporation's relay. So, PDSes are not independent the way Fediverse servers are.
"that user's account must have been on bsky.social"
No, it wasn't.
-
@FediTips This is comparable to adding *.net to your blocklist just because threads.net is unmoderated. Blocking an entire TLD because of one server doesn't make much sense, does it? Neither does blocking an entire protocol just because of one unmoderated PDS & relay.
Block posts from bsky.social, not anyone else unless they're also misbehaving.
That's a ludicrous comparison, Bluesky is 99.9% running through Bluesky corporation's infrastructure. It is a de facto centralised platform controlled by a for-profit corporation that is owned by VC investors. Unless their structure and owners change, Bluesky are locked on the path to enshittification.
