Mastodawn

Osma A 🇫🇮🇺🇦Aug 16, 2025

Related to @pluralistic thread: the largest (by far) not-Bluesky ATproto stack is #BridgyFed. But, because of toxic attitudes on Fedi, Bridgy users are cut off from seeing most Bluesky users, even if those users follow their accounts.
https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/115034644536017304

Cory Doctorow (@[email protected])

Attached: 1 image Today's threads (a thread) Inside: Bluesky creates the world's weirdest, hardest-to-understand binding arbitration clause; and more! Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/15/dogs-breakfast/ #Pluralistic 1/

Mamot - Le Mastodon de La Quadrature du Net

Osma A 🇫🇮🇺🇦

This is absolute madness, and a bad interpretation of how cross protocol federation should function, but it also highlights one of the biggest weaknesses of federation: someone else may cut off communication even when you do try to stay off services with problematic ownership.

Osma A 🇫🇮🇺🇦Aug 16, 2025

Bridgy connects over 40,000 Fedi accounts to ATproto, which is two orders of magnitude more than the next ATproto service that is not Bluesky. But these accounts while visible to all of Bluesky, can't see most of Bluesky.
https://martianbase.net/@mackuba/115006715109033199

Kuba Suder • @mackuba.eu on 🦋 (@[email protected])

Attached: 1 image We've got a first "normal" independent #Bluesky community PDS with >100 users, from Rudy Fraser's Blacksky :) Rudy has officially launched the PDS this weekend and has been helping people from his community migrate there from Bluesky PBC hosted servers whole day. (There's also a new third party migration tool that was launched this week, which has been very helpful in this: https://pdsmoover.com 🐮) Stats at: https://blue.mackuba.eu/directory/pdses #atproto #ATProtocol

Martian Base

Osma A 🇫🇮🇺🇦Aug 16, 2025

I should probably explain what the problem is:
If you're on Fedi and follow or reply to a bridged Bluesky account ([email protected]), that account won't see you.
If you're on Bluesky and follow or reply to a bridged Fedi account, same thing.

For the bridge to actually work, both parties must be bridged. And interacting with the person isn't enough - but nothing will inform you about that. So connections aren't made, even though everything looks like they should be.

Osma A 🇫🇮🇺🇦Aug 16, 2025

It's been like this from the start, and it's a known problem. But because of "bridging must be opt-in", it's not changing. Despite creating a clear method to stalk, even harass a person who signed up to be more connected, but didn't realize replies to them won't be forwarded.

Osma A 🇫🇮🇺🇦Aug 16, 2025

A gigantic issue. Yet Bridgy IS the largest not-Bluesky deployment of ATproto and an important tool in guarding that network from an enshittified future. If it worked to bridge all connected interaction, that would immensely enrichen both decentralized ATproto, as well as Fedi.

Osma A 🇫🇮🇺🇦Aug 17, 2025

Apparently I need to draw this for y'all.

Alice on server A posts a message. A is federated so message is relayed.

Bob on server B sees and likes Alice's message. Because federation is bidirectional, Bob's like and reply are sent to A.

Alice sees Bob.

Osma A 🇫🇮🇺🇦Aug 17, 2025

A is ActivityPub. B is Bluesky. Because neither speak the other's protocol natively, a protocol bridge is needed to translate.

Alice has opted in to the bridge function, Bob has never even heard of it.

Osma A 🇫🇮🇺🇦Aug 17, 2025

Alice on server A posts a message. Because A is federated and Alice is opted in, the message is relayed, including across the bridge.

Bob on server B sees and likes the message. But Bob has no idea there's a bridge and has not opted in to it.

Bob's like and reply will never make it to Alice.

Osma A 🇫🇮🇺🇦Mar 22

RE: https://mas.to/@osma/115316810978614013

The solution to these bridging problems, compatible with the opt-in policy, is to do what ActivityPub itself does: forward messages when they're directly addressed even if no follower relationship exists.

Denzil Ferreira Mar 22

@osma https://bsky.app/profile/anew.social/post/3mejgwxnfm22v

Maybe this is what you refer to?

A New Social (@anew.social)

We're excited to launch our most-requested Bridgy Fed feature: being able to interact with unbridged users! Starting today, when people interact with you on the other side of the bridge, you'll get a notification over DM along with a "respond" link, where you can like, repost, reply, or block. https://blog.anew.social/launch-interact-with-unbridged-replies-mentions/

Bluesky Social

Osma A 🇫🇮🇺🇦Mar 22

Nope. It's an extremely limited workaround which sends PMs about replies (at least from Bluesky to Fedi, I don't know what it does the other direction) but does not notify of likes, boosts, or followers. I have a bunch of invisible stalkers on Bluesky, as does anyone else who has Bridgy enabled.
@denzilferreira

Denzil Ferreira Mar 22

@osma got it. Yeah I also bridged my account but it does look very one sided.

Chuck Darwin Mar 22

@osma
@mastoreaderio unroll please

Masto Reader Mar 22

@cdarwin here's the unrolled thread: https://mastoreader.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fc.im%2F%40cdarwin%2F116271444610125672

Next time, kindly set the visibility to 'Mentioned people only' and mention only me (@mastoreaderio). This ensures we avoid spamming others' timelines and threads unless you intend for others to see the unrolled thread link as well.

Thank you!

Masto Reader

Silmathoron ⁂Aug 16, 2025

@osma you mean that the bridge does not reply with a "you're not following me so your post won't be transferred" in this case? That seems like a simple workaround to at least show that there is an issue...

Gytis Repečka Aug 17, 2025

@osma Problem is that people are willing to go extra-mile for a promise of a bit more exposure. I ban bridges and any other non-fediverse-native servers. Simply not need that - I am not an influencer hunting for additional likes and follows.

Bridges are bad because they introduce more problems than they solve