Adam DallianceApr 24

Bluesky is cancelling accounts when foreign governments ask them to, and Threads is doing adverts soon.

The thing to understand about the corporate public messaging systems is that they do not exist to let you publish or to talk to people. That is not the point of them. That's at best just the bait laid to lure you into their trap.

They exist to make money for the shareholders. That's why Threads exists, that's why Blockchain Inc invested to keep Bluesky running.

Only one network exists in order to let people communicate as the point and reason for it's existence. Only one network has no shareholders and no owners.

Only one is fighting for the user, not the shareholder.

#fediverse

Show threadwroongApr 24
@pre it’s nice that we have it cosy here, but if federated messenging gets enough traction how hard it would be for authorities to shut down instances and prosecute people they don’t like? it feels like there is little protection embedded into the federated tech. no?
Show threadAdam DallianceApr 24

@wroong Governments could shut down instances in their own jurisdiction pretty easily, but since instances are in general not global corporations with financial affairs in all countries around the globe they would have more trouble interfering with those outside their jurisdiction.

If you are, for instance, a Turkish opposition campaigner you should use an instance outside Turkey.

Government can of course also block instances from their entire country, if they fancy a game of whackamole.

Show threadSettovichApr 24
@wroong@s.basspistol.org @pre I'd say the fediverse is equally vulnerable to this for different reasons. Since identity is entangled to the url, if you manage to block access of a user to their instance, you have essentially deplatformed them by destroying their graph.
Show threadSettovichApr 24
@pre ah! I see you're on nostr too! so, we can agree there are 2 networks involved in this fight! 😁 Our odds are not too bad! 💫
@wroong@s.basspistol.org
Show threadAdam DallianceApr 24
@setto Yeah, maybe Nostr too. It also isn't really owned by anyone at least.
Show threadSettovichApr 25
@pre certainly, it really isn't owned by anyone! I'm really worried about the fedi in that regard. Seeing the network shares of dot social and players like meta lurking in, i find it hard to imagine fedi scale in any other way than a handfull of multi-million users instances. You can't just pause a community, or switch it over to software with cheaper maintenance costs without destroying the community graph.
Show threadSettovichApr 25
@pre and we're not even of a threatful size yet. I don't think it is very clear to a majority of people on here, how much power an instance admin really has over their identity. But as we grow, we're likely going to find out the hard way. I don't think any of it is intentional though. Fedi was designed at a time with different challenges, when trust was a different issue in the context of digital socialization. I'm enjoying this place thoroughly, but I'm not putting all my eggs in it. Nostr likely has issues we don't even know about yet, it's pretty boring as a social hub, and managing keypairs isn't trivial. But I'm very glad it exists.
Show threadAdam DallianceApr 25

@setto nostr is likely to have trouble with spam and hate and bullying. They are aiming for censorship resistance but what is usually more important is moderation.

We shall see. Moderation is a group activity really, nostr will need good ways to share blocklists or something.

Show threadSettovichApr 25
@pre Those two specific issues are mitigated already with proof-of-work for spam, and block lists already exists. The point that most people seem to misunderstand is that relays can have access-lists and two users can't communicate if they don't share at least one relay. So it's fairly easy to build a protected community. Very much like it works with fediverse servers, except no one is ever dependent on any given relay.
Show threadAdam Dalliance

@setto Wasn't aware that communicably editable group block lists exist.

Don't see them on nostrudel, which is the only web-app I've seen where even individual blocking was working at all.

Maybe it's only on the phone apps that I will never use.

Apr 25 at 10:15amWeb
Show threadSettovichApr 25
@pre Some clients will use lists, others use Kind 10 and 44. If you mute someone in nostrudel, you will see them appear in your profile kind-boxes thingies under any of those numbers.

Of course every client implements whatever their devs see fit. Luckily, most of those devs are decent idealists. We're getting there. I'm more curious about seeing the unkown unknowns of the protocol come into light.