Comment by verdverm

Comment by verdverm 5 months ago

17 replies

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It's not that it is "better" but that the choice is individual, not up to the mastodon server. In Mastodon, you trade Elon for some other group of individuals, so what happens if they make decision on moderation or content you do not agree with?

ATProto is designed around accounts that are independent of data host, application, and moderation, all in the name of giving users individual control over these things. It's like if every Mastodon user ran their own server, but without the overhead

immibis 5 months ago

You have the opportunity to demonstrate this. I am banned from Bluesky. (They didn't tell me why - just a generic "you violated community guidelines")

Tell me, concretely, how people can choose to continue following me, even though I am banned.

Profile: immibis.bsky.social

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  • verdverm 5 months ago

    Create an account you own instead of having someone else run it. Maybe you can get your data, maybe you can ask Bluesky for a review (there were bugs and scaling issues against bot networks that cause false positives)

    I'm not seeing that handle resolve in the normal places. Do you have the DID? You should use a custom domain so that you can control the the reference and lookup.

    You can run your own PDS and manage complete account lifecycle

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    • immibis 5 months ago

      So after you're banned from Bluesky you create another account on a different server and hope the admins of your original server, which still hosts all the people you want to follow, don't block your new account from interacting with their server?

      You said it was different from Mastodon, but how is this different from Mastodon?

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      • verdverm 5 months ago

        I have my own domain already attached, I can point it at any server and my identity on the network remains the same.

        When you use a *.bsky.social handle, you have not made yourself independent and resilient to arbitrary decision by the org that manages that service

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  • verdverm 5 months ago

    We would need the DID, not the handle, to further investigate

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fc417fc802 5 months ago

Are you suggesting the "big few" can't largely censor a given account?

I don't see how ATProto is doing noticeably better than the scenario where a large ActivityPub instance blocks your external account.

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  • verdverm 5 months ago

    Generally, yes. Currently, because Bluesky requires the use of their labeler if you use their app, this could happen.

    Two points of note

    1. You can participate in Bluesky without the Bluesky app, so you can remove this requirement by using an alternative app

    2. The most blocked account is blocked by around 0.25% of the full network (https://clearsky.app/)

    This second point does not account for users banned from Bluesky by Bluesky for breaking the ToS or PDS abuse.

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    • fc417fc802 5 months ago

      > does not account for users banned from Bluesky by Bluesky for breaking the ToS or PDS abuse.

      Then you are missing the point. I am asking how much censorship power the largest node in the network has.

      If being blocked by the largest provider means 95% of users can't see me anymore then the situation is strictly worse than Mastodon vs ActivityPub-at-large.

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      • verdverm 5 months ago

        What did you do to get banned? Most people who make this claim are unwilling to share the behavior that led to it. Bans are not arbitrary, nor is anyone obligated to host or show your speech

        ATProto is young compared to the alternatives, give the network time to build out an ecosystem and the resilience we need.

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VectorLock 5 months ago

>It's like if every Mastodon user ran their own server

No, it's like every Mastodon user used the same server, and all the coordination is done by one server that nobody can replicate.

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  • verdverm 5 months ago

    Every user in ATProto gets their own database that amounts to a tar file (technically sqlite with car export format)

    This is nothing like having a single server for every user. Perhaps you are confusing Bluesky (one app) with ATProtocol the shared network? There are already independent servers and apps operating separate from Bluesky

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