I haven't sensed more anger from fedi towards #bluesky recently.

@mackuba @thisismissem

I don't think this renewed push started with that.

@wjmaggos @mackuba @thisismissem

Agree with this. It has been building for a while. Would say some correlation with the Bluesky Mississippi block and the online debate between Eugen Rochko and Mike Masnick.

@mastodonmigration @wjmaggos @thisismissem Yeah, I think that thread was the source of recent arguments and then a lot of people were tired of that

@mackuba @wjmaggos @thisismissem

Thing is, that the debate was about Bluesky PBC centralization issues, and the pushback ostensibly focuses on AT Protocol, but by extension includes criticism of Bluesky.

So, again there is a conflation of AT Protocol and Bluesky when it serves their PR interest, but a separation when it does not.

Edit: The point is AT Protocol again serving as a rhetorical shield for Bluesky PBC decentralization washing.

@mastodonmigration @mackuba @wjmaggos@liberal.city so the thing is: mastodon can implement, at a single server level, age verification. Just like there are other apps for bluesky/AT Protocol that don't implement age verification (deer.social, blacksky, others)

Mastodon does actually track IP addresses [ 1, 2 ]. It could do IP geocoding in order to provide integration points to perform age verification.

Yes, I think these age verification laws are terrible, but it is irresponsible for us to claim that age verification laws can't be followed by the software, and this just leaves server administrators liable and at risk, which isn't good either.

1. https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/blob/main/db/schema.rb#L1019
2. https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/blob/main/db/schema.rb#L655

@thisismissem @mackuba

Don't think this is really a technical matter. It's just software, so of course there is nothing fundamental that can not be done. The issue comes down to the feasibility of enforcing these measures. Because Bluesky PBC is a relatively small very centralized target for enforcement they are particularly vulnerable. Internationally decentralized Mastodon, writ large, is not something that can easily be subjected to enforcement action.

1/

@thisismissem @mackuba

Discussing this vulnerability is not dumping on AT Protocol, which, as you point out, could and does have independent decentralized components. The protocol itself is not the problem. The current topology of the network and overwhelming dominance of Bluesky PBC is.

We are in a time when susceptibility to forces that seek to exert control over social media is very important. As such, these discussions are not only warranted, but vital.

2/

@mastodonmigration @mackuba as mentioned, there's nothing stopping regulators or prosecutors from going after mastodon or other activitypub software for non-compliance. It's probably quite easy too given most servers are hosted in Germany, a country with one of the oldest age verification laws on the books and a right wing politician with a fetish for regulation enforcing it. Seriously, this guy had an entire AI bot built to help prosecute adults in Germany who posted material against his laws

@thisismissem @mackuba

No there is not. And yet, in this case regulators did not go after anyone. One network decided to proactively capitulated while the other said it would not comply and offered rationales for resistance. This too should be part of the discussion.

And not saying that banding together to push back on these laws is not also important. All of this needs to be fair game for discussion and strategizing.

@mastodonmigration @mackuba there's literally been a bunch of sex work and adult positive instances shutting down, and a bunch more questioning if they can afford the liability.

One service (bluesky) decided it was safer to avoid legal liability and find ways to work within the laws, this included a protest move to prohibit access from a state with a terrible age verification law (the very same thing Pornhub does).

The other (mastodon), seemingly decide that it didn't want to deal with any of the legal liabilities, essentially leaving admins to fend for themselves, whilst also ignoring the fact that Germany has had age verification requirements for accessing adult content since 2007 or something.

But fighting between us isn't going to win any push back against these terrible laws.

@thisismissem @mackuba

Yes, and you could also say that the one that chose to capitulate in advance and avoid legal liability did so because they judged (probably rightly) that they were a very vulnerable target.

No one should be blaming Bluesky PBC for taking this sensible action. It would be a disservice to their shareholders to do otherwise.

The point is that their highly centralized nature gave them no choice.

1/

@thisismissem @mackuba

And we need to be able to both have this discussion and band together to oppose these horrible laws.

And we will be better able to oppose them from positions of relative distributed decentralized strength than as highly concentrated centralized targets.

2/

@mastodonmigration @mackuba highly centralized targets.. you mean like this?

Like, if a regulator wants to enforce action, it's easy for them to find targets that would have a chilling effect on the entire network.

We aren't necessarily as decentralised as we may think, and I'll remind again that many platforms are either hosted by Hetzner, OVH, or behind Cloudflare.

You really don't want to draw the ire of regulators, but that's the way things have been going.

@thisismissem @mackuba

Yes. Like that too. Absolutely.

These are precisely the conversations we should be having. Fediverse decentralization has lots of room for improvement.

It's confounding that AT Protocol users are not demanding more diversification from Bluesky PBC. Blacksky is a great first step, but until a meaningful percentage are on independent nodes the entire network is at elevated risk.

We're heading into even more challenging times, and should be thinking more strategically.

@mastodonmigration @mackuba right, but arguing about protocol superiority isn't servicing this cause for anyone, and it divides us when we should be working together to tackle these risks

@mastodonmigration @thisismissem Tbh I generally agree with the PoV I've read a few times on Bluesky, that making Bluesky/ATProto more decentralized isn't something that is the responsibility of Bluesky PBC, but rather the community… Kind of by definition they can't work on setting up servers which aren't theirs. Other people/orgs need to do that. What they can do is only try to make it easier, maybe change the incentives etc.

@mastodonmigration @thisismissem So we can push them to make better docs, more configurable and easier to install distributions of the software, add the missing pieces and so on, but we can't really push Bluesky to create alternative non-Bluesky relays, appviews, PDS hosts etc. themselves, this is on us.

@thisismissem @mackuba

!!!

It can both be true that the protocols have interesting differences and the networks would be stronger if they were more decentralized.

Would argue that the decentralization issue is more acute with AT Protocol because of the overwhelming dominance of Bluesky PBC.

@mackuba @thisismissem

Kind of hard disagree.

Having been involved in standards efforts over the years, some of which where initiated by single corporations. Can without a doubt say the ones that were successful were spearheaded by companies intent upon fostering independent adoption of the standard, and insuring they were not the sole dominant enterprise using it.

This is very hard to do, and more failed than were successful.

@mastodonmigration @thisismissem I think how I understand the key of @thisismissem's call is that this isn't so much about not discussing decentralization and each protocol's problems and so on and pretending there are no faults when there are, but about keeping the discussion civil, having respect for each other, discussing real facts, trying to be well informed and objective when doing so, avoiding [dm]isinformation, and generally not crossing the line from criticism into attacks/fighting