irelephant

@irelephant@lemmy.dbzer0.com

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⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Be Wary of Bluesky⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

answered with lists of theoretical protocol features instead of engaging with how the network actually operates

I’m not just listing theoretical features, these are things that happen in the network right now. Is there anything I mentioned in my comment that I forgot to give an example for?

Doesn’t matter whether migration is technically possible under ideal conditions because if you’ll need it they won’t be ideal.

I don’t see why so many people say migration is only “technically” possible, migration can be done today. If there is more demand for third party servers, say, if Bluesky starts fucking up with moderation more, more third party servers will pop up, because right now the user concentration isn’t a technical problem or fault of the protocol. I don’t disagree that it’s a problem.

And ATProto’s architecture, particularly the cost and complexity of running the more demanding components that need to have a global view of the network, structurally favors concentration at those layers.

It’s not necessary to have a global view of the network to participate in the network.
It is possible to have a global view of the network without a relay using constellation, constellation instances are very cheap to run, and work by indexing backlinks. It’s what powers reddwarf and recently wafrn (wafrn optionally supports relays as well).

Atproto isn’t significantly more complicated than AP, it’s just different.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Be Wary of Bluesky⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:
Blacksky doesn’t just run a relay, they run an appview (way more expensive than a relay) and pds (admittedly pretty cheap).

The point of atproto isn’t to have many different groups running the entire stack, you can use an appview by one group, powered by a relay by another, while using a pds by a third.

A relay I listed in the comment is a real-world one that is currently only costing the creator $30/month, which is ingesting all PDSes, and being used by a lot of apps.

true, although no one said the contrary

While the article itself didn’t say it, the overall attitude of most people on the fediverse is that.

I do agree with you that users aren’t exposed enough to third party infrastructure, and that most users using bluesky’s servers is a problem, but the alternative is the jankiness of the fediverse, which completely puts new users off.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Be Wary of Bluesky⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:
It feels like you haven’t read my comment thoroughly.

To start, relays do not require large capital to run. This has been a misconception from the very beginning. I linked to this blog post, where a bluesky engineer runs a relay for ~$34 a month. If relays really had astronomical costs to run, I doubt Bluesky would run a whole separate one.
AppViews aren’t limited to one relay, most I know point to blacksky’s one as well.

technically, users can leave. Technically, you can self-host. Technically, you can run your own relay. The capability exists at every layer.

There’s no need to self host as there’s already public third party instances you can switch to. The alternatives already exist at each layer.

I do agree that too many users are on bluesky’s servers, but that’s not a fault of the protocol, and it’s not something the fediverse is immune to either.

They never have with any protocol. Not email, not RSS, not XMPP. The default wins. Always.

This is just incorrect. RSS is probably one of the least centralised protocols right now, it’s not even federated, which makes me question why the author even included it as an example. If anything, this reads as an argument against federation, rather than an argument for the fediverse.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Be Wary of Bluesky⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:
Copy/pasting a comment from another thread:

That’s the same argument people made about Twitter. “If it goes bad, we’ll just leave.” We know how that played out.

This conclusion is based on a misunderstanding of both what Frazee meant, and how the protocol works. He wasn’t saying to switch to a different platform altogether, but to switch to a different appview, akin to switching instances on mastodon.

If I were to make the same argument for mastodon: Mastodon.social has gone evil, there’s a new alternative called mstdn.social that people are rushing to. I’m switching to mstdn.social.

In the case of bluesky, the bluesky appview has made some bad moderation decisions, so users annoyed at this can (and do) use blacksky’s appview.

Switching appviews doesn’t have the hassle of switching mastodon instances though, you just have to go to a different site, and login again. You can continue using your old PDS.

You may recall that there were some articles about how one user on blacksky’s servers got banned, but he was still gone from blacksky’s app?

That’s not even true, the user is available on blacksky’s appview: staging.blacksky.community/…/spacelawshitpost.me .

What had happened here was:
- Link had an account on a blacksky pds (blacksky.app)
- Blacksky runs a bluesky client (not appview, just the frontend–that makes requests to another appview), pointed towards bluesky) at blacksky.community.
- Link gets (unfairly) banned from bluesky, but his account is still safe on his PDS, but viewing it on blacksky.community shows that it was banned, because blacksky.community was pointed at bluesky’s appview.
- Some people assume bluesky is the same as fedi (without the split between data storage and applications), and this means bluesky banning him banned him on his home instance, since the client said he was banned.
- Blacksky didn’t run an appview at the time (iirc, they are writing their own implementation from scratch), but they do now.
In reality, his account was still viewable on alternate appviews, like wafrn instances. You could (and still can) also view and intereact his account on reddwarf.app , a client that works through direct PDS queries, that doesn’t rely on a relay or appview.

When you use any ATProto app, it writes data to your Personal Data Server, or PDS. Your Bluesky posts, your Tangled issues, your Leaflet publications, your Grain photos. All of it goes to the same place.

This is done intentionally, and it has a lot of advantages over how the fediverse does things.
Instead of having to make a new account for every different “style” of platform, you can use your existing PDS account. PDSes are also very flexible in what they can hold, you can create a record that contains basically anything.

Also, data isn’t just stored on your PDS, it’s also stored on relays and appviews. Data is content addressed, meaning that it is portable, you can easily move all your data to another PDS. This isn’t possible on the fediverse as all data is “centralised” to it’s instance. While you can move your followers, your posts immovable.

You can self-host a PDS. Almost nobody does. Why would they? Bluesky’s PDS works out of the box with every app, zero setup, zero maintenance. Self-hosting means running a server, keeping it online, and gaining nothing in return.
To be fair, migration tools exist. You can move your account to a self-hosted PDS for as little as $5 a month

This sounds like the author is implying your only option is to self host, when there’s many different PDSes with open signups already.

I was able to migrate to altq.net (semi-open PDS, you have to ask an admin for an invite code to stop spam), with no self hosting involved.

Bluesky has made this easier over time and even supports moving back. But this only works if you do it before the door closes. If an acquirer disables exports, it doesn’t matter that the tools existed yesterday. And we know from every platform transition in history that almost nobody takes proactive steps to protect their data.

This isn’t exclusive to atproto. A fediverse instance could decide to block incoming migrations, or to block outgoing migrations (pixelfed.social has had outgoing migrations disabled for a while recently).
It’s also possible to move permissionlessly, if you get your rotation key, you can migrate PDSes, even if your old pds is gone, or your admin tries to block exports.

It’s not just the PDS. Bluesky controls almost every critical layer:

The Relay. All data flows through it. Bluesky runs the dominant one. Whoever controls the relay controls what gets seen, hidden, or deprioritized.

Relays are less relevant than everyone thinks they are. Appviews don’t have to use relays, they just help solve the missing data problem of the fediverse. AppViewLite is a project that lets you crawl PDSes directly–no relay involved!

Relays are also a part of the fediverse, for the same reasons they exist on atproto.

Third parties can run their own, but without the users, it doesn’t matter.

This again feels like the article is implying that there isn’t third party relays running already. Blacksky runs a relay at atproto.africa . There’s also:
- relay.fire.hose.cam
- and three relays ran by firehose.network
  off the top of my head. As stated previously, relays aren’t an integral part of the network. With direct PDS crawling and stuff like constellation.microcosm.blue, there’s no inherent need for a relay.
It’s worth mentioning that relays aren’t that expensive to run. It’s possible to run one for $34 a month.

The DID Directory. Your identity on ATProto resolves through a centralized directory run by Bluesky. They’ve called it a “placeholder” since 2023 and said they plan to decentralize it. There’s still no timeline.

Plc.directory is currently in the process of being moved to an independent swiss company. It’s just taking time because legal stuff takes time.
If plc.directory disappears, the network doesn’t fall apart, there’s many different mirrors. I have a mirror on a PC in my attic.

There’s also a second supported did: did:web. This runs entirely independently of bluesky.

At every layer, the answer is “anyone can run their own.” At every layer, almost nobody does.

This ignores the fact that people do run stuff.

The protocol says you can leave. But the company that just paid billions for the network has no incentive to let you.

The protocol is designed so you can leave, even if your PDS/host has been taken over. This is why they did stuff like portable objects/identity, which the fediverse doesn’t do.
If bluesky gets taken over, they don’t have a way of stopping exports, whereas a malicious mastodon instance can.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YSK What to do if someone’s choking: Evidence says begin with back blows⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:
Spray liquid nitrogen directly down your throat
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Be Wary of Bluesky⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:
Jack dorsey didn’t create bluesky, and he had little effect on it.
He started the team for bluesky after reading protocols, not platforms. They were given a lot of independence from twitter (so much so that they were able to continue as a separate thing after twitter got musk-ed), but the goal was to eventually implement the protocol they come up with/choose on twitter.

He was on their board for a short period of time, but ragequit and deleted his account after they started moderating content.

I also find the idea the people working on bluesky are “holding back” the decentralisation efforts funny, considering they are making literally no money right now.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Texas Republican Primary having a normal one⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:
Why is this screenshot cropped, rotated and tinted?
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Dbzero has Defederated from Feddit.org following its Governance post about the later's Zionist Bar Problem⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:
There was a vote for it though. Any user right now could open a vote to refederate.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Dbzero has Defederated from Feddit.org following its Governance post about the later's Zionist Bar Problem⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:
I think they’re talking about stuff like the holodomor or the uyghurs in china.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Dbzero has Defederated from Feddit.org following its Governance post about the later's Zionist Bar Problem⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:
hexbear.net/api/v3/site has a list of them as json.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
Sometimes Lemmy doesn’t send a response saying that the follow worked
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
Information only gets sent to an instance if someone is following whatever created it.

If you follow a community as if it’s a user the posts will federate to your instance.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Fun fact: you can't upload this image on piefed.social⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
To be fair, it was only for new users, and it can be disabled now.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
This is exactly what I’m looking for, thanks!
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
How do you differentiate them then?
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
Ungoogled chromium has always referred to browsers based on chromium, but not branded as Google chrome.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
Also: ublock origin lite works excellently.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
Its my laptop being from 2010 <3
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
What non-google chromium based browsers would you guys recommend?

Firefox (and derivatives) are slow as shit on my laptop, but ungoogled chromium is fast enough.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
Is this new users or users switching from Lemmy ?
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Fun fact: you can't upload this image on piefed.social⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
Off the top of my head,

Since votes on Lemmy aren’t private, anyone can view them. Piefed added anonymized votes (iirc, by sending them from a shadow user with a username that was a hash of the actual voters username), this raised concerns, as vote spam could be harder to spot/stop, so it was removed.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Fun fact: you can't upload this image on piefed.social⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
I am very interested in what client you are using. Do you have a screenshot of this?
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Fun fact: you can't upload this image on piefed.social⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
Its already configurable—some people sent patches for those things already.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Fun fact: you can't upload this image on piefed.social⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
It is worth noting that almost all of these can be disabled by admins (anarchist.nexus has them disabled mostly iirc). Piefed has a lot of good features still.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Fun fact: you can't upload this image on piefed.social⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
You could mention this at lemmy.today/c/lemmytoday

Also, you could upload the images to postimages.org and use the direct link
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Fun fact: you can't upload this image on piefed.social⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
They thought it poisoned llms (it didn’t, and they ignored people who mentioned it). Not to evade any ai thing.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Fun fact: you can't upload this image on piefed.social⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
I think that’s unrelated.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Fun fact: you can't upload this image on piefed.social⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
Iirc, a thing was added that converted the thorn character to a th because some user was annoying everyone by using thorns instead of ths.

⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Fun fact: you can't upload this image on piefed.social⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

The snippet that does this is:

if site.enable_chan_image_filter:
                # Do not allow fascist meme content
                try:
                    if '.avif' in uploaded_file.filename:
                        import pillow_avif  # NOQA
                    image_text = pytesseract.image_to_string(Image.open(BytesIO(uploaded_file.read())).convert('L'))
                except FileNotFoundError:
                    image_text = ''
                except UnidentifiedImageError:
                    image_text = ''

                if 'Anonymous' in image_text and (
                        'No.' in image_text or ' N0' in image_text):  # chan posts usually contain the text 'Anonymous' and ' No.12345'
                    self.image_file.errors.append(
                        "This image is an invalid file type.")  # deliberately misleading error message
                    current_user.reputation -= 1
                    db.session.commit()
                    return False

(Link in the post body)

⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Fun fact: you can't upload this image on piefed.social⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
I’m not entirely against banning 4chan content (as you said, it’s his instance), but I think doing it this way is sloppy at best, and deceptive at worst.