Mastodawn

Mastodon Migration

How About Some AI With Your Bluesky?

A tale of two social networks.

Last week some enterprising Mastodon account was discovered to be scraping posts to feed to an AI for the purpose of helping people navigate the Fediverse. The response was swift. The alarm went out. The account was widely blocked and shunned.

Yesterday to great fanfare #Bluesky announced, as a new corporate feature, all posts would be scraped and an AI would now help users navigate the ATmosphere.

https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/28/bluesky-leans-into-ai-with-attie-an-app-for-building-custom-feeds/

Bluesky leans into AI with Attie, an app for building custom feeds | TechCrunch

Bluesky’s new app Attie uses AI to help people build custom feeds the open social networking protocol atproto.

TechCrunch

@mastodonmigration So glad I never created an account over there. Just as fucked up as the bird site

datenwolf 4d ago

@mastodonmigration @lawyersgunsnmoney

Create an account that you'll never use, just to occupy the namespace, and prevent impersonators from taking the handle.

F4GRX SÃ©bastien 4d ago

@datenwolf @mastodonmigration @lawyersgunsnmoney it doesnt even matter. People who matter to you know on which platforms you are. The others do not matter. Stop thinking "exposure" and "fame". Think " friends".

datenwolf 4d ago

@mastodonmigration @lawyersgunsnmoney @f4grx

It's not about exposure. It's about impersonation. Without occupying the namespace, some malicious actor could just set up a bot to mirror your activity on – say – the Fediverse, and give the people you think you know the impression, that you're on that other service, too.

And when the time is ripe, do nefarious stuff with that.

datenwolf 4d ago

@mastodonmigration @lawyersgunsnmoney @f4grx

Create the account, set it to private, lock it, and archive. But occupy that namespace!

Annie in Progress 4d ago

@datenwolf @mastodonmigration @lawyersgunsnmoney @f4grx

Could you tell me how to set the acct to private? I'm not seeing the setting. I just want to occupy the namespace.

foundseed 4d ago

@LikeItOrLumpIt @datenwolf @mastodonmigration @lawyersgunsnmoney @f4grx the private setting I've seen disallows the public from viewing the profile, while still leaving it open to see and follow by bskies. Did they do an update for actual private account settings???

Mother Bones 3d ago

@foundseed @LikeItOrLumpIt @datenwolf @mastodonmigration @lawyersgunsnmoney @f4grx

No, it's still the same. You can either be public or set to only be visible to others logged in.

Annie in Progress 3d ago

@_L1vY_ @foundseed @datenwolf @mastodonmigration @lawyersgunsnmoney @f4grx

I found it. It's not quite the "followers only" option as on the fedi though. But I'm not surprised.

I AM BANKSY ☕ / 🗑‍🔥3d ago

@datenwolf My brand doesn't matter. If I have xinit@bs, someone could use x1nit or xinit0 or xirit or anything else and throw a "hackers stole my original account, send me iTunes gift cards. That shit happens with celeb impersonators pretty frequently.

I could see registering domain names, but accounts on BS, Twitter, Truth, Gab, ALL the fedi instances? Security theatre.

F4GRX SÃ©bastien 4d ago

@datenwolf @mastodonmigration @lawyersgunsnmoney people will quickly know it's a bot. Dont worry.

GunChleoc 3d ago

@f4grx @datenwolf @mastodonmigration @lawyersgunsnmoney Impersonation doesn't have to be done by a bot though https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckg9xvrxz8jo

German outcry over deep fake porn targeting TV presenter prompts plans for change in law

Collien Fernandes has accused her ex-husband of spreading sexualised images of her online.

BBC News

F4GRX SÃ©bastien 3d ago

@gunchleoc @datenwolf @mastodonmigration @lawyersgunsnmoney again it was immediately detected LOL

GunChleoc 3d ago

@f4grx That particular article doesn't say so, but it took her a long time to notice that this was going on, because she doesn't use social media.

@datenwolf @mastodonmigration @lawyersgunsnmoney

F4GRX SÃ©bastien 3d ago

@gunchleoc @datenwolf @mastodonmigration @lawyersgunsnmoney so she had nothing useful to say. That is fine. What a big deal!

GunChleoc 3d ago

@f4grx So, no problem then that she got impersonated and nude deepfakes of her shared? 🤦

@datenwolf @mastodonmigration @lawyersgunsnmoney

@f4grx @datenwolf @mastodonmigration @lawyersgunsnmoney For me, the problem is that I had a group of "friends" on the bird site, 2/3 of whom went blue. I signed up for bridgy, but it didn't really help as I couldn't persuade folk there to sign up to bridgy too. I do wish the original bridgy "federation" proposal had stood!

F4GRX SÃ©bastien 3d ago

@carusb @datenwolf @mastodonmigration @lawyersgunsnmoney I also lost some contacts on the bird site. That was sad, for a few months.

@lawyersgunsnmoney @mastodonmigration

I mean, I never quite got the appeal.

"Come join this site created by birdsite folks, it's like the birdsite before wannabe-square-mustache-guy took over!"

vs.

"Come join the fediverse, where we by and large care about each other and watch out for each other, and cooperate to build a better world."

"NAAAAAAH! Gimme the corporate crap, it's all I know, and I cannot grow as a person, or something."

Flippin' heck, people. 🤦‍♂️

@rl_dane @mastodonmigration I know, right?

DHeadshot's Alt 3d ago

@rl_dane
The advantage the birdsite had was during that magical time when you could use it to complain about companies in public and they'd do something about it. That time ended on the bird in about 2021ish and never started on Bluesky, so both are pointless now...
@lawyersgunsnmoney @mastodonmigration

@ddlyh @lawyersgunsnmoney @mastodonmigration

Yeah, I remember that. :D

@rl_dane @lawyersgunsnmoney @mastodonmigration Let's not forget that many haven't even heard of the fediverse, and at most tangentially of mastodon.

@bovaz @mastodonmigration @lawyersgunsnmoney

I mean, yes, but my point is that when they do hear of it, they want nothing to do with it because it's not a popular/dominant, ignoring the whole point that the dominant platforms should not be dominant, because they're utterly horrible.

Knightmare 4d ago

@mastodonmigration oh no.

Nicole Parsons 4d ago

@mastodonmigration

#TranslatedFromTheRepublican

"Authoritarian billionaires continue efforts to steal all human knowledge, then rent it back to us."

https://gizmodo.com/sam-altman-says-intelligence-will-be-a-utility-and-hes-just-the-man-to-collect-the-bills-2000732953

https://www.businessinsider.com/sam-altman-ai-utility-electricity-water-openai-2026-3

Refuse to pay a ransom to billionaires who struggle with executive function & who suffer from decision-making disorders

https://www.businessinsider.com/openai-sam-altman-adult-chat-sora-pivot-2026-3

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/26/movies/the-ai-doc-movie-anthropic-openai-claude-chatgpt.html

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2026/02/sam-altman-train-a-human/686120/

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/technology/tech-news/popular-twitter-user-explains-how-sam-altmans-openai-may-have-caused-the-worst-consumer-hardware-crisis-with-purchase-orders-that-were-never-real/articleshow/129879770.cms

https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/sam-altman-ai-labor

Sam Altman Says Intelligence Will Be a Utility, and He's Just the Man to Collect the Bills

"Intelligence too cheap to meter" doesn't quite come across the way Altman might intend.

Gizmodo

@Npars01 @mastodonmigration

Simply criminal…

:FreeBSD:4d ago

@Npars01 @mastodonmigration

Scam Altman still at it...

ItsComplicated 4d ago

@mastodonmigration

I’m sick of companies ignoring the fact many of us don’t want our information scraped and thrown in databases somewhere, for who knows what.

The Frog 4d ago

@NotKnown @mastodonmigration

The "help navigate" is more like "mass surveillance"...

Gillinger 4d ago

@mastodonmigration @MxVerda
Who could have foreseen that this would happen? 🤔

Mx Verda 4d ago

@mastodonmigration What’s the name of the masto account doing the scraping?

Maddad ☑️4d ago

@mastodonmigration

Which mastodon account (s) are scraping?

Paul Chambers🚧4d ago

RE: https://mastodon.tomodori.net/@vga256/116296743458567673

@maddad [email protected] was the scraper. Search for post "alpaca.gold" to find posts about the issue.

@mastodonmigration

This post has the link to the LLM announcement post in it: https://alpaca.gold/@seldo/116229243453108157

@paul @maddad @mastodonmigration Appreciate it!

Maddad ☑️4d ago

@chad @paul @mastodonmigration

trying to block it, but I can't.

Paul Chambers🚧4d ago

@maddad I opened up your instance and searched for the account [email protected] and it shows up in the search

Not sure why you can't

@chad @mastodonmigration

Paul Chambers🚧4d ago

@chad For what it is worth, the dev of that AI timeline tool says it now supports several ways to stop it.

Zeitgeist now:
* respects the `noindex` preference if set on your account
* respects #noindex or #nobots if those are in your bio
* sends a unique user-agent ("Zeitgeist/1.0") if you want to block the client entirely.

Edit to add: It also says it respects the #noai tag in profile bios as of yesterday:
https://github.com/seldo/zeitgeist/commit/90b09ad6f683d7059ef4a5c4a3883704a7e71057

@maddad @mastodonmigration

Maddad ☑️4d ago

@paul @chad @mastodonmigration

I was just there reading that and I set the #noindex and #nobots in my bio now.

How could he make that account so you can't just block it?

Paul Chambers🚧4d ago

@maddad I replied to your other comment re blocking. Not sure what issue is causing you that. You should be able to block the account like any other account

Maddad ☑️4d ago

Thats what I thought too. There is no block option when I try to block it

Paul Chambers🚧4d ago

@maddad Just to clarify, There is no such fediverse account for anything zeitgeist.blue. The account to block is the [email protected] account, if that is the issue.

Maddad ☑️4d ago

Ok, my bad lol, I went to it using the account name and was able to block it.

Thanks for the tips. 👍

Paul Chambers🚧4d ago

@maddad K. Glad you sorted it out. lol.

Maddad ☑️4d ago

I must be low on caffeine 😆

Paul Chambers🚧4d ago

@maddad Do you need me to call 911 and have them dispatch Juan Valdez and his mule your way with some emergency coffee https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7To4Gkwkjk8

1991 Colombian Coffee TV Commercial

YouTube

Maddad ☑️4d ago

😂 it's ok, I have my caffeine drip attached now 😆

The alpaca server only has nine users so I blocked the whole thing.

Paul Chambers🚧4d ago

@BobLefridge I did also but I also added the user-agent to my robots file. Not sure how easy it is for others now to spin it up separate, since the source code is on github, I think. @maddad

Maddad ☑️4d ago

@BobLefridge @paul

Never thought about that, found it and blocked the server.
Why on earth would anyone think it's ok to scrape accounts here.

Paul Chambers🚧4d ago

@maddad Just looked, and they also added a #NoAI tag for Mastodon

🔗 Add #noai to Mastodon opt-out bio tags
https://github.com/seldo/zeitgeist/commit/90b09ad6f683d7059ef4a5c4a3883704a7e71057
@mastodonmigration

That might be something good for people to add to their bios

Maddad ☑️4d ago

@paul @BobLefridge @mastodonmigration

Thats excellent 👍

Mastodon Migration 4d ago

@paul @chad @maddad

Which amounts to "opt-out" for something that if it exists at all really should be "opt-in."

Don't Sweat The Technique ✊3d ago

@mastodonmigration
Absolutely. Fuck those AI grifters. Why should anyone have to expend bio characters to say no to thieving?
@paul @chad @maddad

Ben Todd 4d ago

I left a message on the original thread and it looks like he's blocked me 😂

@maddad @mastodonmigration @chad

Maddad ☑️4d ago

@monkeyben @paul @mastodonmigration @chad

Was he trying to twitterize Mastodon? 😂

Ben Todd 3d ago

Some people don't get the ethos of Mastodon 😂

@paul @mastodonmigration @chad

Paul Chambers🚧3d ago

@monkeyben From the website they run the app from for people who don't want to install the github application, this looks like the output.

IMO, he made a lot of enemies to gain obvious information and useless app. lol https://zeitgeist.blue/

The AI output of its timeline, "Overall vibe: The feed is running at a sustained high pitch of political dread and dark gallows humor — people are genuinely frightened about the Iran war, the economy, and democratic backsliding, but cope through sharp jokes, community solidarity, and the occasional Dolly Parton post.

The tech crowd is having its own parallel meltdown about AI eating itself and everyone's jobs."

@maddad @mastodonmigration @chad

Maddad ☑️3d ago

@paul @monkeyben @mastodonmigration @chad

This is one