Mastodawn

So it turns out the geniuses over at Bluesky trust the client app to fetch, and honestly report, webpage metadata for preview cards, so with a little tinkering in the debug tools you can post whatever news stories you like and they look exactly the same as real ones.

https://bsky.app/profile/andrewt.net/post/3ljo2dja62224

Andrew (@andrewt.net)

Let's see what happens if I spoof the article metadata from the backend... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/69420

Bluesky Social

anyway so bluesky continue not to fix this nonsense so i am going to keep abusing it until someone does something about it

The next pope should be ...

Mark Zuckerberg

3.1%

Mr Beast

8%

Davros

26.4%

Chappell Roan

62.6%

Poll ended at Apr 24 at 5:43am.

Well Roan is the clear favourite, but electing a pope requires a two-thirds majority, which she didn't quite get, so it's black smoke this time.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-904185ba-2600-4d37-9419-9204b4da5167

The new pope should be:

Chappell Roan

20.4%

John Mastodon

8.9%

Luigi Mangione

43.8%

Michael Caine and all the cardinals are Muppets

26.9%

Poll ended at Apr 24 at 12:59pm.

How the next Pope is chosen - BBC News

The secret conclave that will determine the new Catholic leader and what happens next

News

BLACK SMOKE! We vote again!

The new pope should be:

Luigi Mangione

49.2%

10,000 bees in a cassock

27.2%

Tom Holland (as Rihanna)

17.4%

ChatGPT

6.2%

Poll ended at Apr 24 at 7:00pm.

BLACK SMOKE! We vote again!

The new pope should be:

Luigi Mangione

66.9%

John Locke (philosopher)

4.4%

John Locke (Lost character)

9.6%

Johnlock (BBC Sherlock fan ship)

19.1%

Poll ended at Apr 25 at 7:34am.

unlofl [Promoted Toot]4d ago

@andrewt Can the vatican extradite Mangione for a crime, try him, convict him, and sentence him to wear a silly hat and talk to world leaders for the rest of his life?

@unlofl that might result in a number of countries having better leaders

Kristian Haapa-ah0)))3d ago

@andrewt He's already a saint, isn't he? Like he skipped the whole pope thing?

Pwassonchat the enby catboy 3d ago

@eryops @andrewt can't be, he's not even dead yet. Also you have to perform miracles to be a saint, unfortunately what he did is perfectly explained by current science.

Pwassonchat the enby catboy 3d ago

@eryops @andrewt if insurance company billionaires were suddenly inspired to act decent to their fellow human beings after this, maaaaybe that would count? Wishful thinking though.

Kristian Haapa-ah0)))3d ago

@pwassonchat @andrewt To be fair, no one, dead or alive, has ever performed a confirmed 'miracle', so he's just as eligible as anyone else on the planet.

Pwassonchat the enby catboy 2d ago

@eryops @andrewt he has to do something that looks like a miracle, is what I meant.

Alex von Kitchen 4d ago

@andrewt the 10,000 bees are going to need a pretty small cassock

@Dangerous_beans I'm imagining them buzzing around and kind of occupying more space than their total body volume

Alex von Kitchen 4d ago

@andrewt hmm, that makes more sense
Also creepier

@andrewt imagine if they did choose Luigi - the Swiss Guard would have to invade the US to stop them from killing the pope

@lambda as a head of state, would he gain diplomatic immunity?

Chris Pitts 4d ago

@andrewt @girlonthenet I’m torn between Father Douglas (“How hard can it be, Ted?”) and Papa V Perpetua 🤔🙂

Elie ايلي 🇵🇸🏳️‍🌈 (He/Him)4d ago

@andrewt the only correct answer is my future husband Luigi Mangione

@elie a lot of people in this thread forgetting about catholic celibacy rules

Elie ايلي 🇵🇸🏳️‍🌈 (He/Him)4d ago

@andrewt very minor detail, as the head of the church he can change it.

Joscelyn Transpiring 4d ago

@andrewt EX-COM-UN-I-CATE!

Sordid Amok!4d ago

@andrewt The people demand Fleet Admiral Gial Ackbar!

Glenn Seto 4d ago

@andrewt That gay club in Santa Monica ain't that godless now, huh, mom?

aburka 🫣4d ago

@andrewt I mean... "chapel" is right in the name...

Les Orchard 5d ago

@andrewt This is why Mastodon has the collective DDoS orbital death laser, because every instance does this individually on the server when a link rolls in. Would be nice if there were a happy medium for this

@lmorchard I mean there is, though, if you're BlueSky, because BlueSky is not in fact decentralised, so they could just fetch the image themselves instead of letting me do it

Les Orchard 5d ago

@andrewt Yeah, that's true, they can avoid being a thundering herd if they're just one critter

@lmorchard @andrewt Mastodon could also do better than this, since Mastodon is not a zero trust environment. Mastodon is a system which is largely *made of* mechanisms for rating actors according to levels of trust! Servers could easily configure "well, mastodon.social, THEM I trust to generate accurate preview cards, but racistfurries.club we don't trust so I'll generate my own"

Leonard Ritter 5d ago

@mcc @lmorchard @andrewt racistfurries.club? inconceivable!

Paul Sutton 4d ago

@mcc @lmorchard @andrewt

This is what I like about it here, we admit we are not perfect, and could do things better. Is the discourse forum still up to discuss issues around activity pub / Fediverse, I am sure I was signed up at some point, but not sure what the website is.

@mcc @lmorchard @andrewt Mastodon is actually zero trust as far as I'm aware, unless there are things I don't know about?

@lmorchard @andrewt Realistically, though, it's not like there are thousands of Mastodon instances killing a site by each fetching the news story once.

@JordiGH @lmorchard I'd rather get an unexpected hosting bill from a bunch of Mastodon instances than OpenAI tbh

Ciggy Bringer of Smoke 5d ago

@andrewt @JordiGH @lmorchard

LET THE HIJINKS ENSUE!

Les Orchard 5d ago

@JordiGH You'd be surprised how sub-optimally some folks' sites hosting is configured @andrewt

@lmorchard @JordiGH @andrewt Early on everyone was blaming Mastodon and I was like "tell me you are generating pages with php (or worse, JavaScript) for every.single. page view without telling me that.

@lmorchard @JordiGH @andrewt I feel like I should be less surprised that Bluesky is doing this after learning that they remove moderated content in the AppView (client-side), but here we are

Eli the Bearded 5d ago

@JordiGH @lmorchard @andrewt

There are a lot of Mastodon sites and if your post reaches even most of them quickly, it can be thousands. In 2022 I ran a test with new domain (wildcard DNS FTW) that got about 2100 hits for the cards in one day, 1900 of those in first ten minutes, 1100 of them in first sixty seconds. Amost 10% came from masto.host which doesn't do anything smart about grouping requests from the Mastodon servers hosted there.

@elithebearded @JordiGH @lmorchard I mean 2100 hits is about 2000 more than ought to be necessary, but it's still not exactly a DDoS attack, I get more hits than that on an average day and I don't have huge expensive hosting or anything

Eli the Bearded 5d ago

@andrewt @JordiGH @lmorchard

Oh yeah. I tested because of people complaining, but my peak was 33 hits a second. That shouldn't be breaking your stuff.

Persephone 4d ago

@elithebearded @andrewt @JordiGH @lmorchard heck if that's breaking your stuff then ai bots are going to melt your servers.

@lmorchard @andrewt i feel like each and every client hitting up the server for opengraph isn't better, it's just staggered. id be fine with federating opengraph.

@lmorchard @andrewt intentionally disabling caching then complaining about unchached requests shouldn't be the driving force behind how we do decentralization.

@lmorchard @andrewt I can't believe slashdotting is still a thing in common era 2025 and all it takes is a handful of fedi users to take down a website. (sarcastic)

edit: this post is not meant to be read 100% seriously. I've given up on trying to stem the tide of misinformation by simply being factual, so now I act like a smartass and exaggerate the misinformation being spread in a way that HOPEFULLY clues people in on why it's bullshit while entertaining them.

@gothodile @lmorchard @andrewt no, this is absolutely not true. we have posted countless links to our website onto the Fediverse and our server (which runs from our basement) has never once suffered any issues from it. a raspberry pi on a residential connection can handle it if you configure the server properly and don't generate everything on the fly to shove 10 layers of ads in.

moth.monster

moth.monster

@eri @andrewt @lmorchard yes, this would be the undertone of sarcasm in my post.

Stacey Campbell 5d ago

@andrewt davros ftw

@stacey_campbell @andrewt If nothing else, he 100% has seniority.

Cameron 💙🏳️‍⚧️🦌5d ago

@andrewt in this timeline we will 100% for sure get Davros.

@old_angry_queer davros is practically pope already, he's an ancient man with millions of emotionally stunted followers, who trundles around in a little bulletproof golf cart

Indieterminacy 5d ago

@andrewt Dont forget, the Shepherd's crook https://www.thetimes.com/imageserver/image/%2Fcf612d89-3c1f-4d06-8981-ef8b8e4254e0.jpg?crop=3260%2C1834%2C323%2C167&format=webp&resize=1500 @old_angry_queer

jfml - Jonas Laugs 5d ago

@andrewt Let me guess: If they "do" something about it, it's gonna be blocking / suing you instead of fixing it.

Heathen 🐈5d ago

@andrewt
This is distressing in many ways, but I'm giggling too hard to be serious about it.

Fabos (not an OS)5d ago

@andrewt Davros for pope!!

@fabos a *lot* of people seem to be here for pope davros

Fabos (not an OS)5d ago

@andrewt I mean, yes! Maybe we also get the Clerics from the Byzantium

haluzinelle bin chicken nicole 5d ago

@andrewt ok so I realize that's not your point, but I vote for Chappell Roan!

ok, on second look most people half decent will say that, assuming the second one from the left fits the neighbouring ones

ovelhaEmborcada

@cadusilva rindo imaginando a Chapell Roan com chapéu de Mestre Ensinador sendo a próxima papisa.

(Nenhuma dessas palavras está na bíblia)

disorderlyf 5d ago

@andrewt Okay but unironically I think Chappel Roan would be a better Pope

@disorderlyf oh, no question, straight to the top of the pope rankings, absolute S-tier pope