New article in @TheConversationUS from me and @rwg:

theconversation.com/the-fedive…

#fediverse #bluesky #socialmedia

The fediverse promises social media without Big Tech – if it can avoid familiar pitfalls

The fediverse promises an egalitarian, noncommercial alternative to Big Tech for social media, but there’s a lot of work needed to make it work.

^{The Conversation}

Bluesky To Sell Your Content To AI Data Miners

So it begins. Hidden in Jay Graber's recent charm offensive is this innocuously framed initiative: Bluesky is weighing a proposal that gives users consent over how their data is used for AI (techcrunch.com/2025/03/10/blue…)

Not so fast.

1) Shows they are planning on doing content deals with AI companies.
2) Seems like it is Opt-out vs. Opt-in (see below).
3) It is just a voluntary robots.txt file

h/t @Lydie tech.lgbt/@Lydie/1141490233448…

more...

#Bluesky

ℒӱḏɩę

2025-03-12 10:37:48

This is why I deleted my BlueSky the other day. If the question even has to be asked, then the platform is not safe

EDIT: I'm mostly worried about the Federal Nazis scraping our data. At this point I don't give a shit about Microsoft.

techcrunch.com/2025/03/10/blue…

Bluesky is weighing a proposal that gives users consent over how their data is used for AI | TechCrunch

Speaking at the SXSW conference in Austin on Monday, Bluesky CEO Jay Graber says the social network has been working on a framework for user consent over

^{Sarah Perez (TechCrunch)}

I just came across an article that says #Bluesky now supports uploading videos up to 3 minutes long.

Sorry for the extremely newbie question but I wonder what the impact would be on the hypotethical of a self-hosted relay?

In a phenomenal article from last year @cwebber wrote that running a relay in November 2024 required 5 TERABYTES of storage (dustycloud.org/blog/how-decent…)... up from 1 TB in July 2024.

Does video make Bluesky decentralization / self-hosting a relay even more unattainable? 🤔

Just found out about #FreeOurFeeds, a campaign aiming to "free social media from billionaire control". Signed by... millionaires?
freeourfeeds.com

#SocialMedia #Bluesky #ATProto

Free Our Feeds

Let's take social media away from billionaire capture.

^{Free Our Feeds}

In essence #Bluesky is a trap, a Potemkin village with an appealing facade, but behind the false exterior it's the same old centralized corporate walled garden (journals.plos.org/plosone/arti…). Users now have the illusion of reach and freedom, but that can be denied at a moment's notice. Alternatively, it can be suppressed gradually, and they may not even know it.

And all the while users are building their corporate prison, they are not engaged in fortifying a defensible public resource.

Bluesky: Network topology, polarization, and algorithmic curation

Bluesky is a nascent “Twitter-like” and decentralized social media network with novel features and unprecedented data access.

^{journals.plos.org}

People ask: "Why the preoccupation with #Bluesky? Lots of good folks are going there and love it."

@Daojoan does a great job of providing the long answer in this brilliant piece: joanwestenberg.com/big-tech-wa…

But the short answer is that, by funneling users onto another unsafe centralized corporate platform, #Bluesky inhibits the construction of truly defensible public social media.

So now, when something happens over on Bluesky, the Fedi will not be ready to absorb a rapid mass migration.

more...

Big Tech Wants You Trapped. The Open Web Sets You Free

Big Tech designed their platforms to keep you trapped. YouTube, X, Instagram, and TikTok aren't neutral spaces. They're businesses built on capturing your attention and data.

^{Joan Westenberg (westenberg.)}

It had been raining for days in Canada's Thousand Islands region, and despite numerous disappointments, I kept trying. Persistence paid off, the sun broke through, and painted it all in breathtaking light.

#bluesky #photography #landscape #landscapephotography #naturephotography #travel

bsky.app/profile/beautysurroun…

Someone on Threads claims that BlueSky is looking to become a non-profit. Any truth to that? I can't find anything.🤨

threads.net/@ycswid/post/DGuBY…

#BlueSky #SocialMedia

Tricia/Off Grid Crafter 🇨🇦 (@ycswid) on Threads

Actually Bluesky is looking at becoming not for profit to keep the oligarchs out so I'll be sticking with it over META

^Threads

Bluesky Free Our Feeds initiative turns out to be a blockchain play.

Remember a couple months ago when #FreeOurFeeds showed up asking for $30M to save Bluesky from billionaires by making a second 'relay'.

Well, now the plan is to hook the #Bluesky 'firehose' up to some kind of blockchain thing and declare it 'distributed' and safe from billionaires.

prnewswire.com/news-releases/w…

If you read this techno mumbo jumbo release and it makes no sense to you, it is not you. It literally makes no sense.

Who Owns the Future of Social Media? A giant leap to decentralize core components of Bluesky's AT Protocol ecosystem

/PRNewswire/ -- Project Liberty and Free Our Feeds are taking a decisive step toward reshaping the digital landscape by securing the long-term decentralization...

^{Cision PR Newswire}

“that would involve involve cutting back its work on a #Mastodon instance” — #NabhiaSyed, #MozillaCorporate, #Mozilla

And replacing future technical work to improve #Mastodon with this dog pile of AT Protocol concept. 👇👇👇

“Free Our Feeds solicits funds to foster AT Protocol that powers decentralized social media”

#FreeOurFeeds / #BlueSky / #Meta / #ATProtocol #ActivityPub <theregister.com/2025/01/14/fre…>

Shot: mastodon.social/@aral@mastodon…

Chaser: neuromatch.social/@jonny/11407…

#FreeOurFeeds #SiliconValley #Bluesky #blockchain #bullshit

jonny (good kind)

2025-02-28 05:06:15

Everyone who distrusted Free Our Feeds was 100% right but in a more hilarious way than anyone anticipated: what if we take the bluesky firehose.... and put it on a blockchain
prnewswire.com/news-releases/w…

Who Owns the Future of Social Media? A giant leap to decentralize core components of Bluesky's AT Protocol ecosystem

/PRNewswire/ -- Project Liberty and Free Our Feeds are taking a decisive step toward reshaping the digital landscape by securing the long-term decentralization...

^{Cision PR Newswire}

!Friendica Support is there a reason i can't set notifications for new post of friends on #Bluesky (via the plug-in)

like I can for friends that are using #ActivityPub?

Again, #bluesky can censor. They have a centralized relay that can shut down anything. Taking VC money means maximizing profit, which will mean the largest possible network with content control and the fewest possible moderators. However this happened, more of it is inevitable.

But not on fedi. Like the web, you'd just need one of thousands of servers to host it. If you value free expression, you need to support real decentralization, #ActivityPub and the #SocialWeb.

404media.co/bluesky-deletes-ai…

Bluesky Deletes AI Protest Video of Trump Sucking Musk's Toes, Calls It 'Non-Consensual Explicit Material'

Bluesky has deleted the most viral post reporting on an internal government protest agains the President of the United States and the world's richest man.

^{Jason Koebler (404 Media)}

Who owns Bluesky? #Bluesky users demand straight answers from CEO Jay Graber on who owns the platform.

Just kidding. No they didn't. No one knows who owns Bluesky and the company isn't telling.

What precious little we do know: mastodon.online/@mastodonmigra…

Mastodon Migration

2025-01-30 17:01:40

So, in our ongoing investigation into...

Who Actually Owns Bluesky?

...there is a new mystery to solve.

Three weeks ago the tech press was reporting #Bluesky was about to close a new funding round led by Bain Capital which would value it at $700M. 👀 !!!

businessinsider.com/x-competit…

Since then, nothing. No information on whether the round closed nor who the investors are.

Anyone know anything?

Before signing up for another corporate honey trap, wouldn't you like to know who owns your future?

X competitor Bluesky's valuation jumps to around $700 million

Bluesky is raising new funding led by Bain Capital Ventures that would value the social media company at around $700 million, according to sources.

^{Ben Bergman (Business Insider)}

Here is a thread about what precious little we knew a month ago about who owns #Bluesky

mastodon.online/@mastodonmigra…

Mastodon Migration

2025-01-30 17:01:40

So, in our ongoing investigation into...

Who Actually Owns Bluesky?

...there is a new mystery to solve.

Three weeks ago the tech press was reporting #Bluesky was about to close a new funding round led by Bain Capital which would value it at $700M. 👀 !!!

businessinsider.com/x-competit…

Since then, nothing. No information on whether the round closed nor who the investors are.

Anyone know anything?

Before signing up for another corporate honey trap, wouldn't you like to know who owns your future?

X competitor Bluesky's valuation jumps to around $700 million

Bluesky is raising new funding led by Bain Capital Ventures that would value the social media company at around $700 million, according to sources.

^{Ben Bergman (Business Insider)}

Another week goes by with no idea who owns #Bluesky. 🤷

In early January they were supposedly finalizing a huge deal lead by Bain Capital (yes that Bain Capital) valuing the company at $700M.

businessinsider.com/x-competit…

No details on the investors was shared, and since then crickets, no information. 🤔

They have to be running out of money from their earlier $15M Blockchain Capital cryptobro funding round. 🤔

So, who now owns Bluesky?

Was it bought up by some billionaire? We just don't know.

X competitor Bluesky's valuation jumps to around $700 million

Bluesky is raising new funding led by Bain Capital Ventures that would value the social media company at around $700 million, according to sources.

^{Ben Bergman (Business Insider)}

Today I noticed that @TechConnectify has an account here in addition to #BlueSky and I was just about to ask how the two platforms compared for that sort of usage. And then I saw that my question had already been answered 🙂

I think this is a very useful bit of feedback for #fediverse / #mastodon from exactly the sort of content creator that a lot of you want to see coming to this platform.

I would only add one other thought, I'm suspecting the character count limits between interfaces to the two platforms might also be significant to TC.

Otherwise I had been wondering about whether it's better to have accounts on both platforms or just to use those gateway services between the two.

(Also, I don't know, maybe I should be doing a quote post with this, because it does seem to break the stream of conversation, but I don't know)

I've never understood how scientists, in particular, could flee from that Musk place only to take refuge in, wait for it, a Bannon place like #BlueSky. 🤦‍♂️

"On social media, Mastodon is managed and run by the community (e.g., neuromatch.social is a server run by neuroscientists) and is robust by design."

thetransmitter.org/policy/scie…

When rogue players multiply, single points of failure are worse than just a gamble.

#openscience is best on the #fediverse

royalsocietypublishing.org/doi…

Science must step away from nationally managed infrastructure

Scientific data and independence are at risk. We need to work with community-driven services and university libraries to create new multi-country organizations…

^{Dan Goodman (The Transmitter: Neuroscience News and Perspectives)}

FediDB respecting robots.txt has resulted in appr. 2M Fediverse accounts no longer being counted.

Prior to this change, #FediDB counted 12,923,233 accounts. Now it counts 10,868,233 accounts.

Now let me be blunt: respecting robots.txt is a good thing. But now when we look at #Fediverse accounts, it must clearly be seen with the acknowledgement that these only count services that haven’t opted out of tracking.

So when people compare user counts of #Bluesky vs. the Fediverse, remember that Bluesky has the luxury of a more complete count because they host all accounts there. In contrast, the Fediverse is actually decentralized, and a good many services simply do not want to be tracked – and are therefore not counted.

fedidb.org/

@fediversenews

FediDB, Fediverse Network Statistics

FediDB is a cutting-edge service providing detailed statistics and insights into the Fediverse network.

^fedidb.org

So I haven't been on BlueSky or Mastodon as much because I don't know how to get traction there as well?

Is it wrong to want to use the same tricks here on Facebook (like hearting and commenting on posts to raise help raise other indie comic posts) on BlueSky and Mastodon?

Does that go agains the design focus for those platforms? And if so then how to I reach more of an audience on there. I just don't have the bandwidth to use it like old social media

#bluesky #mastodon #comics #comicbooks

If you need to convince someone to choose Mastodon over Bluesky ✨

Share this excellent article by @philjreese with them: phillipjreese.com/the-social-n…

#Mastodon #Fediverse #Bluesky

The Social Network That Can't Sell Out: Understanding Mastodon vs. Bluesky - phillipjreese.com

As users flee from Twitter/X, two visions of social media's future compete: Mastodon's community-controlled network versus Bluesky's venture-backed promises.

^{phillipjreese@gmail.com (phillipjreese.com)}

Organizing on decentralized social networks (1 / N)

The Nexus of Privacy is planning a series of online discussions and video/phone calls focusing on organizing on decentralized social networks. There's a range of topics to cover, including looking at the tradeoffs between the different platforms for different use cases, brainstorming how organizers can leverage these platforms, easy ways to start exploring, and ways for groups to move as a whole.

privacy.thenexus.today/organiz… has a CryptPad survey (as well as a link to a version using Google Forms if you prefer that)

Or if you prefer, here are a couple of polls along with open questions, that cover some of the key information

#organizing #fediverse #bluesky

Organizing on decentralized social networks

A survey!

^{Jon (The Nexus Of Privacy)}

What do all of these have in common?

The Fediverse
Bluesky
Threads
Flipbook
Wordpress
and soon, Tumblr

The reach is growing! 😎👍🏼

#ActivityPub #Fediverse #Bluesky #Threads #Flipbook #Wordpress #Tumblr

techcrunch.com/2025/02/11/tumb…

Tumblr to join the fediverse after WordPress migration completes | TechCrunch

Since 2022, blogging site Tumblr has been teasing its plans to integrate with the fediverse -- the open social web powered by the protocol ActivityPub

^{Sarah Perez (TechCrunch)}