Bluesky’s growing pains strain its relationship with Black users | TechCrunch
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Bluesky is facing increased pressure to crack down on hateful and violent rhetoric, even though robust moderation conflicts with its decentralized goals.
  • araquen@beehaw.orgEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    Bluesky was a no-start when they pushed their exclusivity marketing BS. And this after I was loath to use Mastodon because I thought “federation” was too complicated to understand (I’m old: 57 and should be at a point where all this “newfangled” technology is way beyond my wheelhouse).

    Bluesky never responded to my request (nor did Tildes, which is why I am here). Mastodon.world was very easy to set up (as was signing up on Beehaw). Federation is not that complicated to understand or work with.

    The bottom line is the federation architecture is what folks are looking for when they talk about wanting a user experience that works for them, but they, we, have to put in the effort. Top-down solutions will always follow what the top thinks is best, which as we have seen is not for the benefit of the user.

    I get really frustrated by this paralysis through over-analysis (and I am INTP - the POSTER CHILD of over-analysis and it’s concomitant paralysis). Just do AB testing and see which platform gives you the experience you enjoy most. The perfect time to test new systems is to do so in parallel with the old system that is failing.

    As an old-fart GenX, I can’t believe I’m the one to tell people to stop being afraid of change.

    But really, I don’t have any trust in Bluesky with the ex-Twitter CEO in any way involved. And I am sure as hell not playing their exclusive club game.

    • 🦊 OneRedFox 🦊@beehaw.orgEnglish
      0·
      1 year ago

      Federation is not that complicated to understand or work with.

      Yep. Anyone who’s worked with email before should already be somewhat familiar with how this works. I personally side-eye the users I see on the corporate platforms saying that the sign-up process is too complicated. If you can’t decide on an instance in the long list of instances that every Fediverse platform provides, just pick the first one and make an account somewhere else later if you end up not liking it as there is no limit on making accounts; IMO this isn’t a difficult conclusion to reach.

  • Emi@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    When your platform advertises itself as decentralized, and a simple “host bluesky instance” search results in articles telling you to join the main instance’s waiting list… that sounds too stupid for me to give them the time of day.

    I am surprised anyone uses or takes them seriously.

    • jmk1ng@programming.devEnglish
      0·
      1 year ago

      Bluesky is still in beta. It’s intentionally not open to the general public because federation hasn’t yet been opened up and they only have one instance running.

      The nice thing about Bluesky’s architecture (over ActivityPub) is the fact your content and identity is portable. So you can move over to a different instance as they start to come online.

      I think the important takeaway from articles like this is the fundamental misunderstanding of decentralized social protocols. It shouldn’t be on one central authority how things are moderated globally. These kinds of articles kind of prove the point.

      • Emi@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        0·
        1 year ago

        Any “Decentralized” Solution that is not F.O.S. free and opensource was never “Decentralized” at all.