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This is what solidarity looks like (thenexusofprivacy.net)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/fediverse@lemmy.world
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While most of this post is about Blacksky, there are a couple of sections that focus on the fediverse -- "And yet..." and "A great learning opportunity for the ActivityPub Fediverse"

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[–] 6 points 1 year ago (15 children)

Is Blacksky a racially self-segregated competitor to Bluesky?

I read the article and watch one of the videos linked in it and that's the impression I got, but I'm hoping someone can confirm/explain.

I'm not on either network, so I think I'm woefully ignorant on this. I apologize if it's a silly question.

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  • [–] 14 points 1 year ago* (10 children)

    It's a platform using AT Proto (the protocol Bluesky uses), independent but still connected (think about Lemmy instances). That way they can apply their own moderation policies and don't have to follow Bluesky censorship.

    More details here: https://blacksky.community/profile/did:plc:w4xbfzo7kqfes5zb7r6qv3rw/post/3lye7kyekw22m

    There is another one coming up: https://northskysocial.com/posts/about

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (9 children)

    independent but still connected (think about Lemmy instances)

    It's not really connected in the same sense two Lemmy instances are connected. They're able to pull in the same data as Bluesky as it's all public and PDSs don't really have the ability to block a relay from crawling them.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (8 children)

    Indeed, I was just giving a broad analogy, thank you for adding more details

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (7 children)

    A better analogy would probably saying it's like Bing/Google. They're independent of each other but broadly what's on one is on the other.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    At the app level (blacksky.community / bsky.app on the web) it's more like TweetDeck/Twitter: different client interfaces to the same underlying network. That's not a perfect analogy though because Blacksky makes different moderation decisions than Bluesky.

    But also, people using either of these apps can store their data in arbitrary PDSs, so when people migrate their accounts to the Blacksky PDS they can use either of the apps. So there it's more like Piefed/Lemmy -- different implementations of the same protocol. Again though it's not a perfect analogy because the AT Protocol architecture lets you migrate all your data between PDSs seamlessly, and so far only a few niche ActivityPub implementations support that (Hubzilla et al with nomadic identity, ActivityPods using Solid Pods).

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    Oh, I thought blacksky.comnunity used Blacksky's relay. If it uses Bluesky's then yeah, disregard what I said.

    That's not a perfect analogy though because Blacksky makes different moderation decisions than Bluesky.

    I'd hope so given how abysmal Bluesky's moderation is. The discovery feed is filled with transphobia, but you can't say Charlie Kirk should rest in piss.

    Again though it's not a perfect analogy because the AT Protocol architecture lets you migrate all your data between PDSs seamlessly, and so far only a few niche ActivityPub implementations support that (Hubzilla et al with nomadic identity, ActivityPods using Solid Pods).

    I don't believe Hubzilla's nomatic identity works with APub though, irrc it uses something called Zot.

    I've been thinking about how to add nomatic identity to Lemmy quite a bit and it's something I'd like to work on after 1.0 is out, but it's hard a problem for sure.

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  • [–] [S] 3 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Yeah, Bluesky's moderation really is abysmal. Somebody I know got suspended for 24 hours for saying something about Charlie Kirk and when they came back immediately moved their account to Blacksky ... and who can blame them!

    Right now blacksky.community is an app that uses Bluesky's AppView, which in turn uses Bluesky's Relay. They're working on their own AppView (which will have the equivalent of local-only posts) and that will use their Relay. I didn't mean to undercut your point though, they often talk about PDSs as analogous to web pages, so your "different search engines" analogy is very accurate, it's just not quite there yet.

    And good point about Hubzilla ... if I recall correctly either in (((streams))) or Forte (or maybe both) MIke implemented the nomadic identity over ActivityPub as well. It's really frustrating that AP development in general hasn't paid more attention to his ideas! If you're thinking about this kind of stuff for Lemmy, it's also worth looking at https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/fep-ef61-portable-objects/3738

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Right now blacksky.community is an app that uses Bluesky’s AppView, which in turn uses Bluesky’s Relay. They’re working on their own AppView (which will have the equivalent of local-only posts) and that will use their Relay.

    Interesting, from what I understand of ATProto, this would be hard to do on protocol, it'll be fascinating to see how they do it. Maybe something off protocol like the recent bookmark feature Bluesky got.

    I didn’t mean to undercut your point though, they often talk about PDSs as analogous to web pages, so your “different search engines” analogy is very accurate, it’s just not quite there yet.

    I'd love to take credit for this, but the ATProto docs themselves make this comparison which is where I'm getting this from.

    if I recall correctly either in (((streams))) or Forte (or maybe both) MIke implemented the nomadic identity over ActivityPub as well

    This sent me down a bit a of a rabbit hole. It seems (streams) used an updated version of Zot, Zot/11 but was renamed to just Nomad. I can't find anything about this, the (streams) repo only contains the spec for Zot/6, so I'm not sure about it's APub compatibility. Apparently, Nomad had been discontinued in Forte in favour of pure APub, anyway.

    If you’re thinking about this kind of stuff for Lemmy, it’s also worth looking at https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/fep-ef61-portable-objects/3738

    Oh, I know about Silverpill's work, it's really interesting! I even mentioned it recently. I'm glad we have someone smart like them working on this stuff.

    I do think some kind of separation of user data from servers, like what AT Proto does, is actually quite desirable. I just don't like that PDSes can have their data harvested by whoever, I think data sharing with a server should be opt-in.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I do think some kind of separation of user data from servers, like what AT Proto does, is actually quite desirable.

    Curious as well to see how Blacksky develops, having that split would be useful.

    I just don’t like that PDSes can have their data harvested by whoever, I think data sharing with a server should be opt-in.

    Same

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  • [–] [S] 3 points 1 year ago

    Also agreed that sharing should be opt-in (and here on fedi as well).

    In terms of Blacksky's approach to private data, Rudy shared this earlier today https://blog.smokesignal.events/posts/3lvehxge7oo2a-atprotocol-record-hydration-building-privacy-aware-views ... the working group on private data is having its first meeting this week, and there are a couple of other proposals as well, so it'll be interesting to see how things converge. Bluesky has said they're going to add it to the protocol but the timeframe isn't clear. My guess is people will go ahead with off-protocil implementations initally and plan to adapt once it's standardized (famous last words).

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago* (1 child)

    As I understand, its an ATproto instance separate from Bluesky. Racially self segregated is a weird phrase and a wrong assumption. You don't to black to join but is a focused on black cultures and communities

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    Sorry if it was a weird phrase. I just didn't know if other racial identities were allowed/wanted there. I didn't want to presume what the intent of the community founders was.

    Thank you for your answer(and thank you to the others too).

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago*

    To add to what blaze said, you don't need to be black to join it, from what I've understood, it's just a platform for poc that has moderation and feeds that fit the goal of beimg a great place for them.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 1 year ago

    It's not a silly question! I'd describe it more as an alternative to Bluesky, not really a competitor; all of the infrastructure and algorithms we’ve designed are fully interoperable with the rest of Bluesky. Rudy Fraser's 🔭🖤🚀 Social media’s next evolution: decentralized, open-source, and scalable is a good overview, including a description of the approach to decentralization

    And no, it's not only for Black people. That said, as they get farther down the line they'll have some areas that are Black-only (using an approach that's based on fedi's local-only posts).

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