Bora M. AlperApr 15, 2025

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.

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 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 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 threadBakedCatboy

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.

Apr 15, 2025 at 11:42pmWeb