Bora M. Alper

Bluesky has started honoring takedown requests from Turkish government

https://lemmy.world/post/28275799

Bluesky has started honoring takedown requests from Turkish government - Lemmy.World

Original post: https://bsky.app/profile/ssg.dev/post/3lmuz3nr62k26 [https://bsky.app/profile/ssg.dev/post/3lmuz3nr62k26] Email from Bluesky in the screenshot: > Hi there, > > We are writing to inform you that we have received a formal request from a legal authority in Turkey regarding the removal of your account associated with the following handle (@carekavga.bsky.social) on Bluesky. > > The legal authority has claimed that this content violates local laws in Turkey. As a result, we are required to review the request in accordance with local regulations and Bluesky’s policies. > > Following a thorough review, we have determined that the content in question violates local laws in Turkey, as outlined in the legal request. In compliance with these legal provisions, we have restricted access to your account for users.

Apr 15, 2025 at 9:32pmWeb
Show threadcarrion0409Apr 15, 2025
How much you wanna bet the trump regime will force them to start removing people too ?
Show threadZorqueApr 15, 2025
The odds are 1000:0 that they won’t, and I still wouldn’t take that bet.
Show threadtaladarApr 15, 2025
The relevant question here is if you are in Turkey because if you aren’t this is a much bigger deal than if you are.
Show threadAutoPastryApr 15, 2025

The account is still up and viewable for me. US.

Show threadthesohoriotsApr 15, 2025
Even if it’s a Turkey-specific restriction for users based in the country, it nonetheless shows that Bluesky is willing to comply with government requests.
Show threadxak47dApr 15, 2025
Do they have the choice?
Show threadwagesj45Apr 15, 2025
Always, if they can deal with the consequences. But if the consequence is being blocked by a country they could make money from, chances are slim.
Show threadtvbusyApr 16, 2025

Let’s imagine BlueSky is absolutely decentralized and does not need to make money, would it have done the same? The answer is unfortunately yes. The other option is to get completely blocked in the country, which after all, does not help.

I’m in favor of decentralization but let’s not pretend that dealing with authorities is not a problem for decentralized services.

Show thread73msApr 16, 2025
it’s an entirely different problem because decentralization implies there is no “BlueSky” that could “do the same” as the power to comply is not theirs alone anymore at that point.
Show threadj4yt33Apr 15, 2025
And so it begins
Show threadniketunicApr 15, 2025
everything dies
Show threaddb2Apr 16, 2025
Usually not that fast.
Show threadtoy_boat_toy_boatApr 15, 2025
pardon my ignorance, but how is a de-centralized and de-federated online community bound to such annoyances?
Show threadReallyActuallyFrankensteinApr 15, 2025
They’re still a corporate entity, and they still want access to markets to make money.
Show threadtoy_boat_toy_boatApr 15, 2025
i think i’m conflating lemmy with bluesky. can’t anyone just host an instance? is it open-source? sorry, i should probably just look into this myself.
Show threadwagesj45Apr 15, 2025
My understanding is that it is technically a "federated" standard, but I think there is a lot of technical hurdles to implementing and hosting a compatible server. So no one actually does it, and I'm not sure they'd federate even if someone went through the trouble of getting it up and running.
Show threadtoy_boat_toy_boatApr 15, 2025
someone else said something that made me think i’m conflating Bluesky with Mastadon. and apparently “conflating” is my word of the day.
Show threadwagesj45Apr 15, 2025
hell yeah i love learning new words
Show threadtoy_boat_toy_boatApr 15, 2025
i learned it a while ago, but i just can’t stop saying it today.
Show threadMeekerThanBeakerApr 15, 2025

I think Mastodon is closer to Lemmy as a Twitter alternative over Bluesky.

However, this does a good job explaining the differences:

socialbee.com/blog/mastodon-vs-bluesky/

Mastodon vs Bluesky: How are they different?

Learn the key differences between Mastodon vs Bluesky, from decentralization to features like custom domains, moderation, and communities.

SocialBee
Show threadtoy_boat_toy_boatApr 15, 2025
thanks - you’ve got it. i forgot about mastadon. ironic, really, since it’s the resource that everyone will be scrambling for in a few days. mark my words: something horrible is going to happen this weekend, and it will change your life forever.
Show threadWaxApr 15, 2025
What makes you think that? Genuinely curious.
Show threadMeekerThanBeakerApr 15, 2025

Probably referring to this, but don’t know for sure:

snopes.com/…/trump-martial-law-insurrection-act/

Investigating rumor Trump will declare martial law on April 20 after invoking Insurrection Act of 1807

Snopes.com
Show threadJeenaApr 15, 2025
Interesting, April 20 is also Hitlers birthday so it has symbolix significance to all the neo nazis.
Show threadsamus12345Apr 16, 2025
It’s also Easter this year. I’m picturing a stoned Hitler with bunny ears.
Show threadtoy_boat_toy_boatApr 15, 2025

someone cited a snopes article, and i don’t think that’s what i’m talking about.

april 20 (or thereabouts) has been a pretty infamous date in american terror.

everyone else is talking about it like the government is going to do something. i’m saying the other. or at least it’ll look that way.

i’m just some asshole on the internet. i’m just taking all the time i’ve lived and all the things i’ve seen, and i’m projecting them forward to the weekend. and your lucky numbers are 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42

Show threadchingaderaApr 16, 2025
Godamnit those are all 6 of my lucky numbers
Show threadMeekerThanBeakerApr 16, 2025
We have to go back!!!
Show threadColeSlothApr 16, 2025
Not really much “American terror” on 4-20 except for the columbine massacre.
Show threadHalosheepApr 16, 2025
Don’t forget the terrible munchies many Americans are about to get.
Show threadtoy_boat_toy_boatApr 16, 2025
holy crap, i did not see those doritos until you said that!
Show threadTheOneAndOnlyApr 16, 2025
It’s Hitler’s birthday. Do with that what you’d like…
Show threadtoy_boat_toy_boatApr 16, 2025

just off the top of my head:

  • columbine
  • oklahoma
  • deepwater
  • waco
Show threadColeSlothApr 16, 2025

Deepwater was not terror related. It was just an accident of ineptitudes. Waco did not begin or end on 4-20, or was even going on over 4-20.

I did forget about Oklahoma happening on 4-20, though. So like two things in the past 100 years, both over 20 years ago. That’s not a pattern at all.

Show threadparodyApr 16, 2025
Perhaps it would be interesting to chat April 21
Show threadtoy_boat_toy_boatApr 16, 2025
we shall meet again under trump’s new “marshall law”
Show threadroofuskitApr 15, 2025
Bluesky claims to support federation while being designed to make it entirely impractical and is currently entirely centralized.
Show threadacockworkorangeApr 22, 2025
Claims of Bsky’s federatedness and decentralizedness were greatly exaggerated.
Show threadheavybootsApr 15, 2025

The answer it’s, they’re neither thing right now. And the claim has been made that in order to run your own instance that forwarded all traffic generated by the primary instance, you would need equivalent hardware to what BlueSky currently has. Vs Mastdon, which is…

  • not commercially owned
  • has a proven federation capability
  • Running a pretty large number of instances right now
Show threadtoy_boat_toy_boatApr 15, 2025
interesting! so i’m probably conflating my expectations for bluesky with lemmy, when all the while i should actually be on mastadon. i was starting to wonder if bluesky was just a new us dem party project :\
Show threadparaphrandApr 15, 2025
Wouldn’t your “home” server in an activity pub network always be subject to such requests?
Show threadBakedCatboyApr 15, 2025
The difference is that if your home server is outside of Turkey then you can tell them to kick rocks. Bluesky probably complies because they don’t want to be blocked from Turkey. In a truly decentralized system like activitypub, only the server hosting the account / content in question risks being blocked, which means almost nothing the closer you get to a single account instance. Meanwhile every other server not in Turkey would not notice a difference.
Show threadJeenaApr 15, 2025
But don't all other servers host copies of it? So if a server is hosted in Turkey then they could tell that server to block access to that content a least from Turkey or not?
Show threadBakedCatboyApr 15, 2025

The other servers do cache the content for some time yes, but if your server is based in a country not friendly to your posts then you are vulnerable to takedowns as you say.

The benefit I’m saying we have in the fediverse is that you can pick a server in a politically safe area (ie outside Turkey in this case), so they are less likely to comply, especially if they are small or don’t care about being blocked by that country (that’s usually the only thing they can do unless you have an office or staff there that can be arrested - less likely to be the case if your server is run by some dude in another country).

Show threadparaphrandApr 15, 2025

I’m not an expert on how activity pub works, but… You’re saying if I had an account on mastodon.social, and if mastodon.social took down a post from my @[email protected] account that, regardless of takedown reason, it would still be visible from other instances?

I’m trying to understand precisely where the resiliency lies.

Show threadBakedCatboyApr 15, 2025

I’m saying that if your home server (mastodon.social) is outside of Turkey, then there is less reason for them to comply in the first place because they only risk the mastodon.social server being blocked in Turkey. That one is a bad example because they’re one of the largest, so if you want to be extra safe, you’d want to pick a server that isn’t so big so that they are less likely to care about complying with some other county that they might not have any users from.

If the server you use is based inside the country that has a problem with your content, then you’d be screwed - though all the other servers will still mirror and cache your content for a bit even if you get taken down.

The resiliency lies in the fact that you can choose to register in a country that is politically friendly towards your posts or if your home country is friendly but you want to avoid being taken down, you can self host a single user instance and refuse any requests from other countries.

Show threadBakedCatboyApr 15, 2025

I’m saying that if your home server (mastodon.social) is outside of Turkey, then there is less reason for them to comply in the first place because they only risk the mastodon.social server being blocked in Turkey. That one is a bad example because they’re one of the largest, so if you want to be extra safe, you’d want to pick a server that isn’t so big so that they are less likely to care about complying with some other county that they might not have any users from.

If the server you use is based inside the country that has a problem with your content, then you’d be screwed - though all the other servers will still mirror and cache your content for a bit even if you get taken down.

The resiliency lies in the fact that you can choose to register in a country that is politically friendly towards your posts or if your home country is friendly but you want to avoid being taken down, you can self host a single user instance and refuse any requests from other countries.

Show threadegerlachApr 15, 2025

For those who don’t know, Bluesky isn’t really federated. The only way to host a non-Bluesky instance required 1TB of storage in July 2024, and 5 TB of storage in Nov 2024. Could be way more than that now.

You basically have to be a company to federate into the ATProto (Bluesky) ecosystem. You can’t just “stand up an instance”.

Lots of detail: dustycloud.org/…/how-decentralized-is-bluesky/

(I know you’ve already realized that you were conflating Mastodon with Bluesky, I’m putting this here for others who come along so they can get the facts).

How decentralized is Bluesky really? -- Dustycloud Brainstorms

Show threadMeldrikApr 15, 2025
Also DMs always go through Bluesky themselves.
Show thread73msApr 16, 2025
yeah the DM system is something completely exclusive to their official servers and that they just rolled up without caring at all about trying to keep up the pretense of wanting to build something decentralized.
Show threadNatanaelApr 16, 2025

They’re planning on migrating to the new MLS group messaging encryption standard, which is built to support federated messaging encryption (more efficient than the current Matrix protocol)

(also, Matrix are also planning on adopting it, and the RCS spec is getting it too)

It’s long to take a while though. The standard is very recent and nobody has a complete implementation yet.

Show threadWolfLinkApr 15, 2025
That’s not an outlandish amount of storage. You can get more than that for $200.
Show threadcommunismApr 15, 2025
It’s not an outlandish amount, but for instance I have my own VPS where I host a variety of services, and it still has under 1TB storage. Most hobbyists who rent a VPS would have less storage than that.
Show threadAniviaApr 18, 2025
Why rent? If you have fiber and aren’t behind CGNAT you can host from your home
Show threadcommunismApr 18, 2025
I rent because of government surveillance; I want my server in a different country.
Show threadAniviaApr 20, 2025
So rent a budget VPS and tunnel your home server through it?
Show threadcommunismApr 20, 2025
I mean it also means I inherently have an off-site backup, which is important given that my home occasionally gets raided by the police. I’m not worried about data access since I use FDE on everything, but data loss is a real concern.
Show threadKecessaApr 16, 2025
Yeah anyone who runs a node is laughing at those numbers
Show threadfishosApr 16, 2025
My Jellyfin is 6 times that… And my PC is double that… Seriously, this person thinks 5TB is a lot? Don’t we have SD Cards/Flash Drives this big now? I’d be WAY more concerned about the bandwidth requirements.
Show threadAllHailTheSheepApr 16, 2025

its still not a small amount of storage. and no, there’s still not really sd cards or flash drives bigger than 1tb, but obviously that would never suffice as server storage. plus, if you’re hosting a node you’d want at least 4 or 5 times that storage to use a raid 6 array + at least one onsite backup, and one off-site backup.

now we’re talking thousands of dollars in equipment just for storage, not the actual server itself, internet connection, etc.