Mike MasnickJan 27
Have another big post today on the importance of Bluesky/ATprotocol/decentralization, but also hoping to get people to understand the path forward is taking control over their own social media experience... www.techdirt.com/2025/01/27/e...

Empowering Users, Not Overlord...
Empowering Users, Not Overlords: Overcoming Digital Helplessness

Disclosure: I’m on the board of Bluesky, so feel free to take as many grains of salt as you want in reading it, though all of it applies equally to other decentralized social media ecosys…

Techdirt
Show threadMike MasnickJan 27
I argue that the past decade and half has unfortunately taught a generation of internet users that their only options for change on the internet is "working the refs": that is complaining to companies, billionaires, or governments, and begging *them* to "fix" things.
Show threadMike Masnick
But the whole point of the internet was to give the power to the ends of the network: the users. It's about empowering users to have control and make the changes they want. Things like ATprotocol are a step in that direction, but people are eventually going to need to understand they have that power
Jan 27 at 5:47pmWeb
Show threadMike MasnickJan 27
There are places where, obviously, companies/gov't/billionaires can help things be better, but I've been dismayed seeing so many people think those are the only possible options. We can, and should, do better. And taking control of our own social media is one step towards that.
Show threadfaraiweJan 27
@mmasnick.bsky.social so why not #ActivityPub, instead, where vc crypto techbros don't control the API, and it's truly decentralized, federated, and we don't have to spend $30M to give to those vc techbros so they let us append a cluster to THEIR network??
Show threadmalcriada_lala🤚🏾Jan 27
@faraiwe @mmasnick.bsky.social as someone who has no programming knowledge and is super new to all this, I've wondered about this a lot. Why did Bluesky not use activitypub? And why is it apparently so much harder to host a server with them? Was the intention to *seem* interested in empowering people while still being the big fish in a small pond?