Leave X - Protect DemocracyFeb 11

A perspective on Mastodon, by @markus_netzpolitik and Joris Leander:

Usability: Decentralization is a feature – but also a barrier to entry that deters less tech-savvy users.

Inconsistent product development: Because no single instance can make design decisions and Mastodon app development is chronically underfunded, the user interfaces seem outdated and less „smooth“ than Big Tech apps – despite many good (rather unknown) third-party clients.

https://digitalrechte.de/news/eurosky-mastodon-wedium-w-social

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#Mastodon #Fediverse

Zentrum für Digitalrechte und Demokratie

Zentrum für Digitalrechte und Demokratie

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Show threadeverton137Feb 11

If Mastodon is chronically underfunded, shouldn't we discuss serious public investment in its development, including its usability and design?

Twitter was purchased for $43 billion and is now widely used to amplify disinformation and polarization through hate speech and an extremist agenda.

How much are we willing to invest in a bold, interoperable, European alternative that strengthens democratic discourse?

If projects like “EuroSky” move forward, will public funding be diverted there, instead of supporting and scaling the Fediverse?

Mastodon already exists and has millions of users, official EU servers, and institutional accounts. Why start from scratch when what works can be strengthened?

Cc @EUCommission @HennaVirkkunen @mellifluousbox @alexandrageese @Gargron

Show threadSebastianFeb 11
@everton137 @EUCommission @HennaVirkkunen @mellifluousbox @alexandrageese @Gargron We should fund both the fediverse and projects like Eurosky. AP is great at building communities while AT scales well and offers true alternatives to X. Both protocols complement each other. So we should work on solutions together.
Show threadeverton137

@seboslaw If public funding is being considered for a for-profit model, a robust and transparent technical assessment should be conducted first, including an evaluation of whether the AT Protocol is truly more scalable than ActivityPub.

I disagree that the two are technically complementary. Currently, BlueSky operates as a largely centralized platform, allowing it to avoid many of the governance and moderation challenges inherent to decentralized networks.

Its growth, with ~40 million users, shows that strong product design, marketing, and familiar timelines attract nontechnical audiences. This is a lesson in usability and investment, not necessarily a protocol advantage.

If they complement each other, it is politically and socially, not architecturally. One has capital and media visibility. The other has a live, interoperable ecosystem in which public institutions are already participating.

Public funding decisions should be made accordingly.

Feb 11 at 7:47pmWeb
Show threadSebastianFeb 11

@everton137 Eurosky (or rather the Modal Foundation) is a Non-Profit.
AT was engineered to scale. That's why the protocol facilitates a global timeline and a global search - something that is not possible with AP because it wasn't designed for that.

The 40 million users and the content they create will be ‚addressable' to developers and accessible to researchers through Eurosky under European legislation and DSA conform - something that is currently not available in Europe. (1/2)

Show threadSebastianFeb 11
When it comes to decentralization I would argue that AT is actually very decentralized in that it lets users take their data wherever they want to take it (no lock-in), they can freely choose a relay to disseminate their data and if they want to do microblogging there are multiple apps and 2 (soon 3) AppViews available already. (2/2)
Show threadikuturso 🇪🇺Feb 11

@seboslaw taking your data is only one aspect. In practice current real-world AT is not decentralized at all.

I don't see Eurosky even begin to challenge the official BSky user numbers in any meaningful way anytime soon which also means Eurosky is going to not offer sovereignty from the US platform anytime soon.

It will simply be running subservient to a US company that drives the development of the US software it relies on.

Show threadSebastianFeb 11
@ikuturso AT today may look concentrated but that’s a deployment phase not an architectural constraint.
ATProto separates identity, storage, relays, feeds, moderation, etc. via self-certifying data. No single operator is structurally required to control all layers. That’s fundamentally different from platform monoliths. (1/2)
Show threadSebastianFeb 11

About Eurosky: Eurosky doesn’t need to “beat” Bluesky’s user numbers. Sovereignty isn’t about majority market share. It’s about who runs the infrastructure: PDS, relays, AppViews, moderation, compliance tooling under EU law…users have the freedom to migrate.

Control of components > control of one app. (2/2)

Show threadikuturso 🇪🇺Feb 11

@seboslaw Yeah I think that's just a cop out, the real situation on the network matters more than what could be possible on paper.

And I do think it very much matters for sovereignty what the user shares look like on that real network too. If 99% of the users are under the control of the US company they can completely destroy the visibility of your users on those Eurosky servers if the Trump administration were to one day force them to do so.

Show threadSebastianFeb 11
@ikuturso “What happens in practice” matters, but 99% of users are *not* structurally “under the control” of one company. AT accounts are tied to DIDs and self-certifying data. Identity and storage are portable. That’s fundamentally different from a closed / monolithic platforms. (1/3)
Show threadSebastianFeb 11
If Bluesky were to try to suppress visibility of European users, it would only control its AppView and feeds. European-operated infrastructure can index and rank independently. Visibility is not structurally monopolized. (2/3)
Show threadSebastianFeb 11
And if political pressure ever escalated that far, users could migrate their accounts to Eurosky. That’s the key difference to protocols you may be more familiar with: exit is real. No powertripping admin can hold your account hostage. You are not depend on someone's grace to forward requests to your account to your new instance. (3/3)
Show threadikuturso 🇪🇺Feb 11
@seboslaw 1. "only" is cold comfort when the users are almost all there so they can effectively make the people not on their servers disappear from the overall network. 2. nothing is ever going to prevent them from holding you hostage if they really want to because they are running the infra. The most trivial way they'll prevent you from migrating is by shutting the PDS that hosts your data down but of course there's ways to do it without denying service.
Show threadSebastianFeb 12

@ikuturso This is all highly speculative, and everything that has evolved in the past two years contradicts your thesis. People have already migrated away from Bluesky PDSs, and Blacksky houses already thousands of accounts. EuroSky will house even more.

And to be fair, everything you fear could also be applied to mastodon.social.