All the lefties fled to Bluesky following Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover. But CEO Jay Graber says the app is for everyone—and could revolutionize how people communicate online.
  • cygnus@lemmy.ca
    86·
    13 days ago

    I stopped reading when the “journalist” asked this question:

    How did you end up starting a decentralized social platform?

    How little research must one do to credulously repeat that PR talking point for a platform that is in fact completely centralized?

    • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
      42·
      13 days ago

      I stopped at the bit about revolutionizing communication online. That revolution happened over a decade ago with the rise of social media. More social media is just more, not new.

    • XNX@slrpnk.net
      17·
      12 days ago

      Yall are so annoying. Bluesky is 2 years old. Mastodon is like 8 years old. Also theres already another instance and relays running on a raspberry pi.

      Yall have such a hate boner you dont even do research. No wonder normies will never use mastodon or lemmy yall are insufferable and mastodon is still just a copy of twitter with no new features

      Edit: to anyone curious about keeping up with bluesky’s progress in decentralization and all the other stuff theyre working on here’s a good blog https://fediversereport.com/

      • Michael@slrpnk.netEnglish
        47·
        12 days ago

        We don’t have a hate boner. We see “decentralized” being thrown around like a buzzword and we know that it really doesn’t apply to their platform.

        It’s like the Libertarian Party taking the word “libertarian” and flipping the meaning to describe their ideology.

        It’s a distortion of the spirit of the word and actual libertarians obviously want to clear up the misunderstandings that result from being introduced to the concept of libertarianism through such a group.

        • Detun3d@lemm.ee
          6·
          12 days ago

          Someone clearly has never used context menus or opened their account settings in Mastodon.

      • cygnus@lemmy.ca
        12·
        13 days ago

        Also theres already another instance and relays running on a raspberry pi.

        Oh yeah? I can join that second server right now and communicate with folks on the main server?

      • tyler@programming.dev
        8·
        12 days ago

        Bluesky’s model is built in a way that means it won’t ever be decentralized. There are plenty of articles about it.

      • Melmi@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        2·
        12 days ago

        Do you have a link to people talking about running a relay on a raspberry pi? I find it hard to believe that’s possible. A PDS, sure, but a relay requires multiple terabytes of storage alone and plenty of bandwidth/CPU/RAM that I just don’t see a raspberry pi being able to support.

        I’d be curious to hear about any progress on setting up new relays though.

      • Lime Buzz (fae/she)@beehaw.orgEnglish
        1·
        12 days ago

        Oh, when did twitter add CWs that required a clickthrough? The ability to set your own character limit? When did it remove its algorithms to show you posts it considered relevant? When did it become open source? When did it become decentralised and federated? When did it start working on end-to-end encryption for DMs? When did it allow for built in themes?

        • XNX@slrpnk.net
          2·
          12 days ago

          Lmao cant tell if youre trolling because all of that is already possible or being worked on (assuming you meant bluesky idk why you wrote twitter)

    • zygo_histo_morpheus@programming.dev
      5·
      12 days ago

      I think that it’s fair to want the interviewer to ask more critical questions and in general be more precise with their phrasing but

      repeat that PR talking point

      is a very cynical and uncharitable take on bluesky and decentralization. Cynical takes aren’t necessarily wrong but they’re not necessarily correct either.

      The AT protocol is by its own account an ongoing project with problems that still need be solved before it is able to provide a social network with all the properties that they’re interested in.

      I don’t think that it’s accurate to say that bluesky is “completely” centralized (it is less centralized than most social media) as much as it’s de-facto centralized. One reason for this is that it’s prohibitively expensive to self-host relays. This is something that the AT protocol devs have plans for addressing, so it’s possible that this de-facto centralization is a temporary stage in the evolution of bluesky and AT proto.

      It is of course possible that they are lying or that they will be unsuccessful despite best intentions but taking for granted that it’s just a “PR talking point” is, once again, very cynical in a way that I don’t think is completely motivated.

      • cygnus@lemmy.ca
        4·
        12 days ago

        I don’t think that it’s accurate to say that bluesky is “completely” centralized (it is less centralized than most social media) as much as it’s de-facto centralized.

        That’s like me calling myself a millionaire because I could theoretically be one at some point in the future. I am de facto not a millionaire, but I also have more than zero dollars. so I’m not completely a non-millionaire.

        • zygo_histo_morpheus@programming.dev
          1·
          12 days ago

          So first of, the part of my comment that you quoted doesn’t make sense because what I’m saying is that bluesky theoretically allows for decentralized relays but it’s impractical in practice. Your analogy doesn’t really apply to that.

          I do think that it’s misleading to call bluesky decentralized today (at least without any caveats). The goal of the project however is to eventually create a more meaningfully decentralized social network and they have tangible plans for moving in that direction so I think it’s unfair to dismiss this aspect of bluesky completely.

          • cygnus@lemmy.ca
            2·
            12 days ago

            If they do achieve decentralization in the future I’ll gladly call it decentralized, but “tangible plans” don’t warrant use of a descriptor like that. If someone is training in the hope of making their country’s Olympics team they don’t get to call themselves an Olympian. You have to have gone to the Olympics to justify that title. Working towards decentralization is the same thing. You don’t get to call yourself decentralized just because you wrote it down as a goal on your roadmap.

            • zygo_histo_morpheus@programming.dev
              2·
              12 days ago

              I agree that the interviewer shouldn’t have implied that they are decentralized today! I don’t know if bluesky even say that they are decentralized themselves, on their website it says that they’re “building an open foundation for the social internet” which is more accurate but maybe they mischaracterize themselves somewhere else.

      • Andy@slrpnk.net
        2·
        12 days ago

        I want to second this, and go further with a hot take: I liked Graber’s answers a lot.

        I think skepticism of her and the entire artifice of VC and big tech is totally warranted. But a lot of people in this section seem to basically say, ‘no matter what she says I don’t trust her and I’m certain that BlueSky will be another bad actor.’ And I think that’s an overly simplistic take.

        It’s true that there are no trustworthy CEOs. You shouldn’t trust Graber. It will always be a mistake to pin hopes of good management of a platform on the magnanimity of any business leader. However if we want to see a new era of decentralization but are honest about the fact that most users are more likely to join big, corporate-styled platforms (in the short term, at least) then the ideal platform is one that attempts to build their business model around portability.

        It’s totally true that BlueSky isn’t there yet. But they’re basically building a set of escape hatches for users. Cory Doctorow talks a lot about how restricting users from leaving a platform is a key requirement to enshitify. So if BlueSky uses a protocol that at least has the potential for this, they’re creating an incentive structure that really does serve a purpose. They may later on try to reverse course. But at least for now, they’re doing the thing that gives users and the third party developers the best chance of escape if things go bad. And that is exactly what I want to see from a big tech platform.

        • zygo_histo_morpheus@programming.dev
          2·
          12 days ago

          Yeah I in general think that Graber is very good at giving good answers in interviews!

          Honestly even if bluesky does become enshittyfied, which is a very real possibility, the work they’ve done on AT proto so far will probably be extremely useful for whoever takes a crack at a more decentralized internet next. There are a lot of clearly smart and passionate people who are given space to research and experiment with different ways of doing things and I think that’s both very valuable and interesting

  • madame_gaymes@programming.devEnglish
    59·
    12 days ago

    Let’s see here… ahh yes, it’s a company run by a board with a CEO based in Amerikkka. Who gives a shit if it’s non-profit or not, the users are not in control. No thanks.

  • Butterbee (She/Her)@beehaw.orgEnglish
    23·
    13 days ago

    Decentralized app plotting a total takeover of the social internet? Are these tryouts for the mental gymnastics invitational?

  • Pete Hahnloser@beehaw.orgEnglish
    23·
    13 days ago

    All the lefties fled to Bluesky following Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover. But CEO Jay Graber says the app is for everyone—and could revolutionize how people communicate online.

    … but probably not.

  • AntelopeRoom@lemm.eeEnglish
    22·
    12 days ago

    You have mastodon, which actually made a federated social media platform, but which has failed to become mainstream, and Blue sky which became mainstream, but has failed to actually become federated.

    • Andy@slrpnk.net
      14·
      12 days ago

      Overall, I like the options today a lot better than what we had 10 or even 5 years ago.

      I am glad that both Mastodon and Blue Sky exist. I would like both to be successful.

    • Drew@sopuli.xyz
      4·
      12 days ago

      Mastodon didn’t eat the world, but it’s pretty successful. I have a great time over there.

  • 0xtero@beehaw.org
    16·
    12 days ago

    this is potentially the last social identity you have to create.

    …as long as you stay centralized on the central BlueSky instance. Once you move out to a (potential, future) federated server, that identity (and it’s super duper verification) doesn’t follow you.

    • samus12345@lemm.eeEnglish
      1·
      12 days ago

      “Egad, Jay, brilliant! Oh, wait, no, it’s just going to become enshittified like every other centralized platform.”

  • IninewCrow@lemmy.caEnglish
    11·
    13 days ago

    Are they building an army with troops, tanks, aircraft and naval ships? Are they going to physically and violently take over the social internet?

  • T (they/she)@beehaw.org
    6·
    12 days ago

    Y’all are forgetting how hostile Mastodon users can be. Personally I feel a little bit scared of posting anything there.

  • jcarax@beehaw.org
    2·
    12 days ago

    Now if only I could get a meaningful reply to a bug preventing complete account deletion, either on github or from support. It seems they modeled their support structure on Google’s.

  • kbal@fedia.io
    2·
    12 days ago

    As I waited to meet with Pleroma-tan, the mascot and CEO of Pleroma, on the 5th floor of a walk-up in Alphabet City, I stared out at the city’s grimy streets and thought: Goddess forbid it. Stretching in every direction was a wall of dense, gray, tragically kaleidoscopic fog. And here I was about to interview the head of a social platform named after some kind of ancient Greek spiritual shit, or something. In camera, no less.

    Then something miraculous happened. Moments before the legendary fox-maiden showed up, the haze lifted. Avenue D glittered in the sun. I could see past shitposter.club’s rolling hills all the way to a emoji-capped peak, and the skies were, yup, completely and totally whirling.

    The 324-year-old executive cuts a different figure than most social media bosses. Earlier this year, after Mark Zuckleborg wore a shirt winking at his king-like status at Meta, Pleroma-tan was busy doing a 24-hour live stream of Mario Kart while delivering a lecture about the metaphysics of Stoicism and didn’t even hear about it.

    Indeed, she seems most energized when she’s talking about the unique infrastructures underlying social media and all reality as well as several smaller apps, the Fediverse, or Fedi, which is a spellbook that servers use to communicate. The open source protocols allow the sovereign nations of the digital mindspaces to fully integrate with one another as needed. Any number of apps with complementary or contradictory ideas about moderation or immoderation or teleportation can work in tandem — or not. It’s up to them.

    Pleroma-tan sees fedi as nothing less than the deocratized future of the social socials, and she emphasizes to me that developers are actively building new projects, here and elsewhere. In her dreams, these projects are as big, if not bigger, than Manhattan. Her ambitions might not be kinky, in other words, but they are fluffy. For now, call her an insurgent wonder worker — on whom the sun still shines.