Jack Dorsey Unveils Bluesky Social(ssaurel.medium.com)
ssaurel.medium.com
Jack Dorsey Unveils Bluesky Social
https://ssaurel.medium.com/jack-dorsey-unveils-bluesky-social-the-decentralized-twitter-killer-cc6eec0c56e5
186 comments
I guess it's strategic to announce an announcement when your potential competitor has billions in funding, and potentially half a billion users to migrate to a similar platform (in terms of goals at least).
No doubt. And it's strategic for HN to not have duplicate threads and to maximize the substance of the threads it does have.
It's also awfully quit on mister musk's twitter about this :)
Just read up on Bluesky, and it turns out most of the article is misleading or incorrect.
Bluesky was an initiative launched by Jack Dorsey while he was CEO of Twitter, and it was intended to develop a set of federated social media protocols and eventually move Twitter to those protocols. (https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/11/twitter-ceo-jack-dorsey-anno...)
He hired a development team for it (led by Jay Graber) who still work on the project today, probably as employees of Twitter? Jack's role in the project is unclear, apart from being a board member of the organization.
I have no idea what the relations between all the parties are at the moment, considering Dorsey x Twitter x Musk x everything else that has happened since December 2019, but as far as I can tell Bluesky – while working independently – is still fully funded by Twitter. It is not Dorsey's company as everyone seems to believe.
Bluesky was an initiative launched by Jack Dorsey while he was CEO of Twitter, and it was intended to develop a set of federated social media protocols and eventually move Twitter to those protocols. (https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/11/twitter-ceo-jack-dorsey-anno...)
He hired a development team for it (led by Jay Graber) who still work on the project today, probably as employees of Twitter? Jack's role in the project is unclear, apart from being a board member of the organization.
I have no idea what the relations between all the parties are at the moment, considering Dorsey x Twitter x Musk x everything else that has happened since December 2019, but as far as I can tell Bluesky – while working independently – is still fully funded by Twitter. It is not Dorsey's company as everyone seems to believe.
Technically yeah, Jack is not working on Bluesky but it's his vision and they're still following his vision even after he left Twitter. The Bluesky people kind of downplay their connection to Twitter but IMO without that connection they're just yet another protocol with no users and no killer feature.
I am somewhat saddened to ascertain that most of this project is still rather somewhat under corporate twitter control. Oh boo.
I've spent less than an hour reviewing atproto. So far it has passed my sniff tests; seems legit decentralizing. But there's definitely room for gotchas I havent seen yet.
Thanks for detailing where the powers lie. So far, I'm still willing to attribute great intent & purpose. But it's important to consider, to know influences. Your post is much appreciated, evem if, for now, I believe it all, ascribe- hestinatly- to this system.
I've spent less than an hour reviewing atproto. So far it has passed my sniff tests; seems legit decentralizing. But there's definitely room for gotchas I havent seen yet.
Thanks for detailing where the powers lie. So far, I'm still willing to attribute great intent & purpose. But it's important to consider, to know influences. Your post is much appreciated, evem if, for now, I believe it all, ascribe- hestinatly- to this system.
I am also on the Bluesky board, and while the original funding did come from Twitter (at Jack’s direction), the company has no control over Bluesky and it is 100% independent.
The title here is a bit misleading. I thought this would be an announcement from Jack Dorsey, instead it just appears to be a blogger summarizing this Twitter thread from @bluesky a few days ago:
https://twitter.com/bluesky/status/1582437529969917953
@dang, could we get the link changed to point to the original thread?
https://twitter.com/bluesky/status/1582437529969917953
@dang, could we get the link changed to point to the original thread?
An even better link is https://blueskyweb.xyz/blog/10-18-2022-the-at-protocol which is what that original tweet pointed to
But I'll settle for anything that isn't a medium.com link, particularly a "member-only" post. Fuck that noise.
But I'll settle for anything that isn't a medium.com link, particularly a "member-only" post. Fuck that noise.
That one was discussed when the post came out:
The AT Protocol - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33252108 - Oct 2022 (99 comments)
The AT Protocol - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33252108 - Oct 2022 (99 comments)
In principle yes, but that announcement was discussed elsewhere (see my comment downthread) and there doesn't seem to be any significant information yet, otherwise, so I think it makes sense to downweight the follow-ups until there's significant new information (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...).
The content is about what I expect from content on 'Medium' today. Which is why I generally avoid reading post hosted on Medium.
"Unveils" is somewhat misleading -- this project has had a web presence for a number of years already.
They have recently distinguished the project proper from the "Bluesky community," which was -- as far as I could tell -- just a chatroom with a Matrix/Discord bridge, vaguely sanctioned by but distinct from Twitter. I couldn't understand most of what was under discussion, but it's a moderately amusing space if people arguing about what buzzwords mean is amusing to you.
They have recently distinguished the project proper from the "Bluesky community," which was -- as far as I could tell -- just a chatroom with a Matrix/Discord bridge, vaguely sanctioned by but distinct from Twitter. I couldn't understand most of what was under discussion, but it's a moderately amusing space if people arguing about what buzzwords mean is amusing to you.
Since the blog post is not really concrete in any way (and even using expressions like "it's not yet known what network it will run on", next to citing Ethereum, like it has to run on a Blockchain), I've dug deeper, and this looks like a sensible guide into the protocol underneath: https://atproto.com/guides/overview
It doesn't mention Blockchain, nor NFTs, nor web3, so plus points for that.
Looks interesting in general. The architecture looks quite nice, with a lot of separation of concerns (like we have in the www).
TLDR is that name resolution, storage, indexing, and recommendation algorithms can all be provided by separate entities, with a sprinkle of cryptography to make it possible. Will be following this to see if anything comes out of it.
It doesn't mention Blockchain, nor NFTs, nor web3, so plus points for that.
Looks interesting in general. The architecture looks quite nice, with a lot of separation of concerns (like we have in the www).
TLDR is that name resolution, storage, indexing, and recommendation algorithms can all be provided by separate entities, with a sprinkle of cryptography to make it possible. Will be following this to see if anything comes out of it.
Yea I took a look at the source code as well and I can’t find anything crypto related. It seems to be more so in the realm of matrix, dat, mastodon etc. I think where a lot of the newer attempts at distributed web went wrong was attaching themselves closely to crypto.
I’d like to dig in more this weekend, it does seem like a pretty nice synthesis of other ideas and if it has major backing + not being attached to crypto I think it could have more longevity and adoption than other distributed web attempts.
I’d like to dig in more this weekend, it does seem like a pretty nice synthesis of other ideas and if it has major backing + not being attached to crypto I think it could have more longevity and adoption than other distributed web attempts.
Well they’ve already hit the “blockchain isn’t fit for service issue” so left it out:
https://atproto.com/guides/identity#did-methods
That said, and while I have serious doubts about it, they are seemingly approaching with an open mind. Unlike others they aren’t just shoving“blockchain” into every part of it so they can grab VC money and run.
https://atproto.com/guides/identity#did-methods
That said, and while I have serious doubts about it, they are seemingly approaching with an open mind. Unlike others they aren’t just shoving“blockchain” into every part of it so they can grab VC money and run.
We have gotten to the ugliest place in tech marketing where even things that have nothing to do with blockchain feel the urge to market themselves that way, or at least for the press to report on them as if they do...
In our defense, we didn't write this article, have clearly said we're not a blockchain, and can't seem to get people NOT to describe us as a blockchain (https://twitter.com/arcalinea/status/1583229012725633024)
Ok good to hear. I feel for you.
It is pretty funny to “unveil” a social network in a blog post that links to a business page where clicking “Join” links to a job posting for a mobile developer.
If you go to bsky.app it has been “unveiled” that there’s a form to give strangers your email address to notify you when it’s been uh, double-unveiled or whatever.
If you go to bsky.app it has been “unveiled” that there’s a form to give strangers your email address to notify you when it’s been uh, double-unveiled or whatever.
I know this is an unpopular thing to say, but I'm broadly skeptical of any federated/decentralized communication network. Email and phones exist for historical reasons; and both are absolutely infested with scams and spam.
I'm not saying that any of the centralized networks are immune from those maladies, but the problems seem to be substantially less challenging on that front.
I'm not saying that any of the centralized networks are immune from those maladies, but the problems seem to be substantially less challenging on that front.
> and both are absolutely infested with scams and spam.
So is Twitter and Instagram and more. Bots and ads. Just peruse fitness channels anywhere for the most blatant shilling you've ever seen.
So is Twitter and Instagram and more. Bots and ads. Just peruse fitness channels anywhere for the most blatant shilling you've ever seen.
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Neither email nor phone anticipated the spam problem at the protocol layer, and solutions have instead been tacked on. At least anecdotally, the solutions mostly work, if slow to gain the adoption throughout the network to make them useful. Even phone spam hasn’t been as bad for me since SHAKEN/STIR became law.
> I know this is an unpopular thing to say
That's actually the mainstream opinion outside politically-charged/weird nerd circles.
That's actually the mainstream opinion outside politically-charged/weird nerd circles.
I think in this context, these protocols just makes\ it so that multiple private "bluesky"s can exist and interact. Users can move between being hosted on bluesky or redsky or whatever.
So it's like mastadon but with better security/privacy?
So it's like mastadon but with better security/privacy?
Worse, what are you going to do about things like child porn or other highly objectional material? If it's decentralized then you can't block these things. Often advocates of these sorts of things say that the good outweighs the harms, but I don't buy that it's really that simple. Imagine if its your kid that has objectional material posted without their consent. Now you have no way of removing it even if it's against your local laws?
This isn't the sort of balance we need.
This isn't the sort of balance we need.
You remove illegal material by finding the server, physically seizing it, and arresting the people who run it.
Is this decentralized platform going to kill Twitter like decentralized currency killed the USD?
99% of people don’t care enough to put up with the complexities that decentralization brings.
99% of people don’t care enough to put up with the complexities that decentralization brings.
99.99% of people don't care enough to deal with the complexities that TCP/IP bring, but that's why we hide it from them with software.
The Internet is already quite decentralized. Not perfect of course, but at least this nice forum we're on is totally separate from Facebook, which is separate from Reddit...
Social media platform killer is always quite the murder mystery. No one ever knows who the killer is, and the killer never announces it (tiktok > everyone, insta > almost killer, Facebook > MySpace, Friendster).
So this ain’t the killer.
So this ain’t the killer.
TT may be popular but I wouldn't put it in the same category as FB in this case. MySpace was actually killed - it's barely used these days. On the other hand TT coexists with other platforms pretty well and has its own use cases. Nobody why cares about contact with specific people leaves another platform for TT.
I think parent means that services like FB didn't claim to be the MySpace killer, they just were in retrospective.
And those who are called killer vanished without a hit.
Remember Vero, the FB and Insta killer?
And those who are called killer vanished without a hit.
Remember Vero, the FB and Insta killer?
The next generation of social networks seems to be focused around decentralization.
The protocol they developed (https://atproto.com/) seems to differ with ActivityPub at least in "Algorithmic Choice", a "market of open algorithms". The other features are already offered by ActivityPub - which is what Mastodon, Pleroma, GNUSocial use.
I wish they had built on top of ActivityPub instead of making their own federated protocol, but they may have some particular reasons as to why.
The protocol they developed (https://atproto.com/) seems to differ with ActivityPub at least in "Algorithmic Choice", a "market of open algorithms". The other features are already offered by ActivityPub - which is what Mastodon, Pleroma, GNUSocial use.
I wish they had built on top of ActivityPub instead of making their own federated protocol, but they may have some particular reasons as to why.
They’ve got some good ideas in their protocol design but god damn it reads like urbit lite.
Why did you need to invent xrpc/lexicon? (which is not xml-rpc by the way) but a purposely leaky a schemafull RPC abstraction over HTTP with introspection.
Coulda honestly just used an real xmlrpc server at that point. They borrowed every concept except made it JSON. If nothing else it would have given you pre-built libraries for every language ecosystem.
Why did you need to invent xrpc/lexicon? (which is not xml-rpc by the way) but a purposely leaky a schemafull RPC abstraction over HTTP with introspection.
Coulda honestly just used an real xmlrpc server at that point. They borrowed every concept except made it JSON. If nothing else it would have given you pre-built libraries for every language ecosystem.
Decentralized social networking has been around for decades and never caught on because the pain of setup isn't worth it for most users.
Do people actually want even more social media in their lives? I get the feeling Instagram is a enough. then chat apps do the rest. all of these networks are on the decline. rehashing something old seems like its doomed to fail.
Imo the problem is not quantity but quality. And even then, the most important characteristic of that quality is the known transparency behind the platform itself, which affects the mentioned quality of behavior & content.
I personally don't think this will rise that quickly(for many reasons, the main 2 being the focus on web3 and the second being jack's past), but the fact remains that the market for a non-censorable or at least trustworthy social media platform exists.
I personally don't think this will rise that quickly(for many reasons, the main 2 being the focus on web3 and the second being jack's past), but the fact remains that the market for a non-censorable or at least trustworthy social media platform exists.
> …the market for a non-censorable or at least trustworthy social media platform exists.
i’m not sure that it _actually_ does beyond extremely niche. any platform where it is impossible to censor would quickly be overrun with dick pill and millions of other forms of spam.
i’m not sure that it _actually_ does beyond extremely niche. any platform where it is impossible to censor would quickly be overrun with dick pill and millions of other forms of spam.
I don't mind what information a platform might display to me, as long as in practice it only shows what I want to see.
Give me control over the algo that filters my wheat, and let the chaff flow in abundance.
Give me control over the algo that filters my wheat, and let the chaff flow in abundance.
I want a way to find news outside of front pages. I'm on HN for that reason. Reddit can work for a few topics, but it's eh. I also made my own news-sharing site that has an interesting way of controlling quality, but nobody uses it outside my friend groups.
TikTok, BeReal, and many messaging networks (WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal) are growing.
I just want a chat app that has an autocorrect system that works decently...
I say we just meet up in the comment section of pornhub.
Using only flag emojis and exclamation marks
Not that that word has any real meaning, but what exactly is "web3" about this (as the author keeps touting)? From what I can see it is a new protocol that social media servers can use to communicate with each other, very similar to Mastodon, ActivityPub and the rest of the Fediverse ecosystem.
Nothing at all. The medium article is simply trying to fit as many buzzwords as possible into one incorrect post.
Web3 in theory means you, rather than the service itself own the data. In practice that's pretty much synonymous with "involves blockchain and/or cryptocurrency".
Only decent explanation I read is here:
https://moxie.org/2022/01/07/web3-first-impressions.html
What it’s really about though:
https://web3isgoinggreat.com/
https://moxie.org/2022/01/07/web3-first-impressions.html
What it’s really about though:
https://web3isgoinggreat.com/
If it's from Jack, it's probably based on Bitcoin/lightning.
Jack's pushing web5 even. The name is pretty much just tongue in cheek, mocking web3.
https://developer.tbd.website/projects/web5/
https://developer.tbd.website/projects/web5/
is web3 decentralization? or crypto? guess it depends on the answer
Jack and Elon seem to be good friends. Elon clearly knew this was coming and still made a bid for Twitter. Could Elon be planning to bring Twitter to Bluesky? It seems crazy, but you never know.
i don't think weirdo billionaire tech executives are able to have friends in the same way normal people do
For one, it's not so clear anymore that Elon actually wants to buy Twitter, is it? Then Bluesky would have to succeed, for Twitter to move there. How many web3 projects have succeeded yet?
Maybe this is the Year of The Web3 project.
Maybe this is the Year of The Web3 project.
It doesn't seem to matter if he wants to at this point. Not only is he being told he has to, but also faces court rulings about messing about with the process. Unless something significant changes, it's likely a matter of time before he does. (or pays significant penalties)
A matter if time is COB Friday, BTW. If he misses things get superserious
My understanding was that he has a few days to execute on it and that he indicated he will ?
Meh
Meh
This project appears to be funded and at least initially staffed by Twitter.
I don't think Elon or anyone who knows Jack Dorsey thinks this will catch on. Dorsey is unfocused, a poor leader, and terrible at building B2C products.
Supposedly he's entertaining the notion of transforming Twitter into "X: The Everything App".
Maybe it's intended to become more like the vision behind Google Wave of old?
Maybe it's intended to become more like the vision behind Google Wave of old?
And he want to make an “everything app” by…checks papers…firing 75% of the staff
Lol, what a joke
Lol, what a joke
I mean the issue isn't really getting ride of 75% it's keeping the valuable 25%. I think most people can agree that in general twitter's staff does basically nothing of value. I just don't see how they can convince the others to stay after that degree of firing.
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Hopefully not x.com, I still owe them money
Judging by the bezels on the landing page’s iPhone, they’ve been working on this for a long time. https://bsky.app
As someone who doesn't use Apple devices, what am I looking at?
Looks like a generic smartphone to me.
Is this some kind of Apple consumer faux pas?
Looks like a generic smartphone to me.
Is this some kind of Apple consumer faux pas?
Not an Apple user either, but that Bezel looks like an iPhone 12, latest is 14, possible to tell from how wide the bezel (the part with the selfie camera) is - I guess.
Wow, fumble. I wonder if that's just a theme though.
This is great. In the first sentence I read both Bitcoin and blockchain, so I know I can entirely disregard this thing.
Fortunately it has nothing to do with crypto.
Well they say that they really want to use blockchain, just that doesn’t work very well (no surprise):
https://atproto.com/guides/identity#did-methods
https://atproto.com/guides/identity#did-methods
I guess I don't understand what this has in terms of appeal over say a Mastodon. Mastodon of course is famous for being decentralized, and not much else.
Also not sure why they had to invent a new protocol from scratch?
Am I missing something?
Also not sure why they had to invent a new protocol from scratch?
Am I missing something?
I tried mastodon once for a while, and aside from finding an instance filled with totally garbage people, it was OK. I didn't love the UI, or how federation worked or anything really. For its chosen mechanics, it had good polish.
The people that love it, love it not for its ease of use. But because it's OK for being decentralized and you can (more or less) have one pane of glass for your tech news, social media, and barking mad conspiracy forums filled with crazy people, degenerates and war criminals.
If anyone thinks this sounds like an endorsement, don't talk to me ever.
The people that love it, love it not for its ease of use. But because it's OK for being decentralized and you can (more or less) have one pane of glass for your tech news, social media, and barking mad conspiracy forums filled with crazy people, degenerates and war criminals.
If anyone thinks this sounds like an endorsement, don't talk to me ever.
My first thoughts are that it's very similar to Mastodon, but has a better chance at gaining traction because its supported by Dorsey and his influential friends.
Just skimming the docs, it seems like Mastodon built on top of DIDs to me: https://atproto.com/guides/overview
Mastodon and the dozen or so other fediverse projects are free which means they are not advertised and promoted. I have a personal rule not to buy anything that is advertised. So this is great for me. The masses don't know about it and probably never will. Some of us are fine with that as it keeps our instances manageable with participants generally smarter than average.
Not sure if this solves it, but as a relatively heavy twitter user and as someone who REALLY would like an e.g. Mastodon to succeed, the lack of something like a universal handle and an easy way to follow them and find people you're into is 100% why Mastodon just ain't it.
A blockchain is a 'not crazy' potential solution?
A blockchain is a 'not crazy' potential solution?
Before blockchain was the only thing anybody wanted to talk about, there were other systems that divided up trust between parties into dimensions, such that establishing whether a chain of events happened or not was an exercise of combining a bunch of independent facts and suppositions to come to a conclusion.
One that sticks out in particular is a time service. I don't know who April is, and I don't know if you're April. All I know is that someone claiming to be April sent a message intended for an alleged Barbara at 11:34:23 PDT this morning. That's all anybody trusts me to do, and that's all I claim to do.
We could divorce identity from these chat services in a similar way, but we keep making the mistake of trying to positively ID people like you would for a court case, and that's not what's needed most of the time. All we need for the happy path is a way to verify that you are the same person who claimed to be this identity a month ago, instead of someone impersonating you.
The problem is that if it's free to create identities, then people can use it to do astroturfing or false flag situations. Vetting is a big place where things fall down because vetting and adoption fight each other in an arena called Instant Gratification. Also we haven't instilled the same sort of Stranger Danger on the internet that GenX and GenY got spoonfed about public spaces since they were old enough to talk.
One that sticks out in particular is a time service. I don't know who April is, and I don't know if you're April. All I know is that someone claiming to be April sent a message intended for an alleged Barbara at 11:34:23 PDT this morning. That's all anybody trusts me to do, and that's all I claim to do.
We could divorce identity from these chat services in a similar way, but we keep making the mistake of trying to positively ID people like you would for a court case, and that's not what's needed most of the time. All we need for the happy path is a way to verify that you are the same person who claimed to be this identity a month ago, instead of someone impersonating you.
The problem is that if it's free to create identities, then people can use it to do astroturfing or false flag situations. Vetting is a big place where things fall down because vetting and adoption fight each other in an arena called Instant Gratification. Also we haven't instilled the same sort of Stranger Danger on the internet that GenX and GenY got spoonfed about public spaces since they were old enough to talk.
Huh? Your universal handle is [email protected], you
can follow anyone on any instance (moderation polices of your chosen
instance notwithstanding).
Search I get, decentralized search is hard without centralizing because you can’t even know all the Mastadon instances that exist. Just like email Mastadon is open federation.
Search I get, decentralized search is hard without centralizing because you can’t even know all the Mastadon instances that exist. Just like email Mastadon is open federation.
Yes. I think you're probably saying better what I meant to say -- though again, even the "one username" thing makes things much easier.
I suppose what Mastodon unfortunately misses is that "microblogging" ain't like email: it's supposed to be done publicly -- so, unlike email where you're likely to have a small group of people who mostly know each other -- immediate identification of "who's talking" is far more important?
I suppose what Mastodon unfortunately misses is that "microblogging" ain't like email: it's supposed to be done publicly -- so, unlike email where you're likely to have a small group of people who mostly know each other -- immediate identification of "who's talking" is far more important?
Search can always be provided like it is for the web. Third party indexing servers that crawl the network. That's ok, even good maybe.
For anything to be a universal handle, you need everything to support it. Will every single project start using this protocol? Probably not. So it won't be a universal handle, just another account.
web3 reinventing the wheel once again
Mastodon is great. The only problem is hardly anyone uses it.
In case you want to skip to the meat like I did:
Technical details: https://blueskyweb.xyz/blog/10-18-2022-the-at-protocol
Developer documentation: https://atproto.com/guides/overview
Technical details: https://blueskyweb.xyz/blog/10-18-2022-the-at-protocol
Developer documentation: https://atproto.com/guides/overview
And if people bothered to read some of the other BlueSky posts before commenting for the answer to see whether if it is a blockchain / crypto / web3 project in another post:
> Bluesky is not a blockchain, and we believe the adoption of social web protocols should be independent of any blockchain. [0]
> We’re not describing what we’re building as a federated or p2p network, or as a blockchain network, because it doesn’t fall neatly in any of these categories. It could be described as a hybrid federated network with p2p characteristics, but it’s more descriptive to focus on the capabilities – self-authenticating identities and data – than on network topology. [1]
In short, it is NOT a "blockchain social network" and doesn't even use one to begin with.
[0] https://blueskyweb.xyz/blog/2-7-2022-overview
[1] https://blueskyweb.xyz/blog/3-6-2022-a-self-authenticating-s...
> Bluesky is not a blockchain, and we believe the adoption of social web protocols should be independent of any blockchain. [0]
> We’re not describing what we’re building as a federated or p2p network, or as a blockchain network, because it doesn’t fall neatly in any of these categories. It could be described as a hybrid federated network with p2p characteristics, but it’s more descriptive to focus on the capabilities – self-authenticating identities and data – than on network topology. [1]
In short, it is NOT a "blockchain social network" and doesn't even use one to begin with.
[0] https://blueskyweb.xyz/blog/2-7-2022-overview
[1] https://blueskyweb.xyz/blog/3-6-2022-a-self-authenticating-s...
Billionaire hangout ain't quite punk. Having a claim to counterculture is essential if you want to drum up a social network.
I wonder if average users would actually care about the selling points he is touting or even understand. How compelling is it for people to use? What’s going to make them migrate away ?
If people were interested in account portability, Mastodon would be a lot more popular than it is. I’m not sure what bundling that with crypto really adds, for me at least it’s a turn-off as so much of that space feels scammy these days.
Just create a server for Republicans, marketed as "freedom-of-speech space", and an identical server for Democrats, marketed as "safe self-expression space". This way you lock in two of the largest audiences, and then you can focus on the long tail of libertarians, anarchists, etc.
This is a step in the right direction. Federated protocols that aren't moderated or controlled by private organizations is critical for free speech -- but I wonder how moderation will be handled on systems like this... It seems inevitable that it will still centralize around hubs which are efficient at keeping spam off, and that inevitably leads to other types of censorship.
I think they're spot on with needing control over your identity, and them being transferable. Being locked into <username>@host.com is a big pitfall of email.
I've been working on a similar federated protocol awhile which integrates Hal Finney's RPoW concept. Moderation isn't federated which is where it diverges from things like mastodon and bluesky.
Instead, you're paid in messaging tokens by the sender to keep spam off the platform. Tokens are free, assuming you don't need mass amounts of them to spam.
I'm hoping to find some other engineers that might be interested to help work on it. Can contact me Stamp at lotus_16PSJPAVocAM5behRWxqwQnpEVRPJrV4XxbthBhJR. (Human readable handles using DIDs are something we need to get working.)
https://web.stampchat.io
I think they're spot on with needing control over your identity, and them being transferable. Being locked into <username>@host.com is a big pitfall of email.
I've been working on a similar federated protocol awhile which integrates Hal Finney's RPoW concept. Moderation isn't federated which is where it diverges from things like mastodon and bluesky.
Instead, you're paid in messaging tokens by the sender to keep spam off the platform. Tokens are free, assuming you don't need mass amounts of them to spam.
I'm hoping to find some other engineers that might be interested to help work on it. Can contact me Stamp at lotus_16PSJPAVocAM5behRWxqwQnpEVRPJrV4XxbthBhJR. (Human readable handles using DIDs are something we need to get working.)
https://web.stampchat.io
> I think they're spot on with needing control over your identity, and them being transferable.
I guess this means you need to store some sort of key that can be used to create a persistent id across servers. Which is great. But we need an explicit mechanism to avoid people having to trust a centralized authority to store that key. Storing on their own devices is going to inevitably result in people losing that key.
I don't know if secret sharing can ever be dumbed down and simplified that the average non-tech person can use without getting confused.
I guess this means you need to store some sort of key that can be used to create a persistent id across servers. Which is great. But we need an explicit mechanism to avoid people having to trust a centralized authority to store that key. Storing on their own devices is going to inevitably result in people losing that key.
I don't know if secret sharing can ever be dumbed down and simplified that the average non-tech person can use without getting confused.
Yup. The UX is going to be tricky. In the system I'm building there's a shared-everything KV store that your client publishes to similar to their system. I've got a system worked out for recovering your account in a decentralized way if a trojan exposes your key. However, I think there will be a need for services that help with this.
No offense, but I think all of these federation protocols are a massive waste of time. Everything is building on top of the existing. At the end of the day, nation states still control the links.
Also lack of free speech isn't the problem with Twitter, nor do federated services solve it (control over your identity is meaningless if noone will let you distribute your content). The problem with Twitter/social media is that it amplifies all of the negative aspects of social power.
Moving that to a federated protocol won't make the environment less toxic. There won't suddenly be less misinformation (on one side) or less censorship (on the other). Social media is rotten at its core and just shouldn't have a place in polite society.
The fact that Twitter is so popular/necessary among journalists is a feature -- the profession moved from working class to being a tool/playground of billionaires decades ago and the combination of publications and social media is how they enforce their worldview on masses. The most social-media savvy journalists (e.g. Carlos Maza, Taylor Lorenz, etc) come from ultra-wealthy families.
Jack Dorsey either fundamentally misunderstands that or is complicit and doesn't care.
If people really want "internet freedom", then we're going to have to fully embrace balkanization and be prepared to run completely parallel networks with separate root DNS and compelling content to make people use it. It's a pipe dream.
Also lack of free speech isn't the problem with Twitter, nor do federated services solve it (control over your identity is meaningless if noone will let you distribute your content). The problem with Twitter/social media is that it amplifies all of the negative aspects of social power.
Moving that to a federated protocol won't make the environment less toxic. There won't suddenly be less misinformation (on one side) or less censorship (on the other). Social media is rotten at its core and just shouldn't have a place in polite society.
The fact that Twitter is so popular/necessary among journalists is a feature -- the profession moved from working class to being a tool/playground of billionaires decades ago and the combination of publications and social media is how they enforce their worldview on masses. The most social-media savvy journalists (e.g. Carlos Maza, Taylor Lorenz, etc) come from ultra-wealthy families.
Jack Dorsey either fundamentally misunderstands that or is complicit and doesn't care.
If people really want "internet freedom", then we're going to have to fully embrace balkanization and be prepared to run completely parallel networks with separate root DNS and compelling content to make people use it. It's a pipe dream.
Agree with you. However, Stamp is federated only for encrypted direct messages. The twitter-ish feeds are shared everything, and anyone can spin up a node. Anyone can post anything. Good luck taking it down from all the nodes.
That's the reason for the RPoW tokens, otherwise the platform would collapse from spam/DDoS.
Also, where you accept your DMs can move relatively quickly with the way the system is designed.
That's the reason for the RPoW tokens, otherwise the platform would collapse from spam/DDoS.
Also, where you accept your DMs can move relatively quickly with the way the system is designed.
a lot more info about what this is can be found here https://blueskyweb.org
although there is nothing about moderation, which would seem to be near the top of the list of what people would want to know about this system ...
https://matrix.org/blog/category/this-week-in-matrix#matrix-...
> our friends at Bluesky announced their application protocol for building decentralised social media called AT. While not based on Matrix, there are some parallels, and some stuff we may be able to get inspiration from around portable identity :) https://blueskyweb.xyz/blog/10-18-2022-the-at-protocol
Sounds like some there are some parallels, and the protocol might inspire portable account identities in Matrix!
The only account migration tool I know of at the moment is proprietary [1], I'd love to see portable identity in Matrix come to life.
[1]: https://ems.element.io/tools/matrix-migration
> our friends at Bluesky announced their application protocol for building decentralised social media called AT. While not based on Matrix, there are some parallels, and some stuff we may be able to get inspiration from around portable identity :) https://blueskyweb.xyz/blog/10-18-2022-the-at-protocol
Sounds like some there are some parallels, and the protocol might inspire portable account identities in Matrix!
The only account migration tool I know of at the moment is proprietary [1], I'd love to see portable identity in Matrix come to life.
[1]: https://ems.element.io/tools/matrix-migration
> I'd love to see portable identity in Matrix come to life.
Well, fortunately Matrix is working on adding OpenID Connect support[0], so I guess the answer will soon be "Matrix identities are as portable as OIDC identities".
Unfortunately, however, that means "not very portable" in practice, but the OIDC people at least recognise that fact and are apparently working to fix it with an extension called SIOP (Self-Issued OpenID Provider).[1]
[0] https://areweoidcyet.com/
[1] https://openid.net/specs/openid-connect-self-issued-v2-1_0.h...
Well, fortunately Matrix is working on adding OpenID Connect support[0], so I guess the answer will soon be "Matrix identities are as portable as OIDC identities".
Unfortunately, however, that means "not very portable" in practice, but the OIDC people at least recognise that fact and are apparently working to fix it with an extension called SIOP (Self-Issued OpenID Provider).[1]
[0] https://areweoidcyet.com/
[1] https://openid.net/specs/openid-connect-self-issued-v2-1_0.h...
> For example, the possibility for its users to directly manage the algorithms to which their account will be subjected.
This does not make any sense. The problem with social media isn't just "algorithms", it's their entire designs. TikTok's swipe-based UI and powerful editor incentivizes short-form video content that builds off each other. That creates certain social behaviors unique to TikTok. Another example: Twitter's decision not to have a "dislike" buton has a huge effect on how tweets are boosted. You can't "manage" that no matter what decentralized protocol you come up with, because that's baked into the UI.
Not to mention, what does it even mean to "choose your algorithm"? Once you give me your data, you have no control over what I do with it. The only thing you can really choose is what piece of data you give away, but the article as it stands doesn't really make sense.
This does not make any sense. The problem with social media isn't just "algorithms", it's their entire designs. TikTok's swipe-based UI and powerful editor incentivizes short-form video content that builds off each other. That creates certain social behaviors unique to TikTok. Another example: Twitter's decision not to have a "dislike" buton has a huge effect on how tweets are boosted. You can't "manage" that no matter what decentralized protocol you come up with, because that's baked into the UI.
Not to mention, what does it even mean to "choose your algorithm"? Once you give me your data, you have no control over what I do with it. The only thing you can really choose is what piece of data you give away, but the article as it stands doesn't really make sense.
Isn't this 'choose your algorithm' mean the client app chooses, and the federated system is more of just a database / data feed? Maybe my really quick overview of the AT stuff missed the point however.
This would mean your comment about the UI is more up to the user/client app, so this stuff is up for conversation. Unlike tiktok.
This would mean your comment about the UI is more up to the user/client app, so this stuff is up for conversation. Unlike tiktok.
That would make a lot more sense, and is a really interesting idea. One massive content feed from all of humanity. There's definitely going to be all sorts of issues to solve (like the fact that The Blockchain Does Not Forget).
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What are the technical details of this?
How does it use blockchains and cryptocurrency? Is this an integral part of the distributed protocol, or is it more like Mastodon?
How does it use blockchains and cryptocurrency? Is this an integral part of the distributed protocol, or is it more like Mastodon?
Decentralization isn't a feature that most users care about. One can argue that we should care about it, but the reality is that spending all our collective focus fighting web3 windmills actually INCREASES the dangers of centralization.
The app that currently owns the attention of the world's youth is controlled by the CCP, and that's not going to change if we keep building apps no one wants.
The app that currently owns the attention of the world's youth is controlled by the CCP, and that's not going to change if we keep building apps no one wants.
Go ahead, build an app to dethrone the latest king of social media.
If you don't someone else surely will. In the meantime, these guys are actually trying. I for one remain open-minded about their chances of success.
> The implementation of the next version of the Internet will seek its fundamentals in the Blockchain and the cryptocurrency world.
Bad opening line. Hard pass.
Bad opening line. Hard pass.
If you haven’t watched the episodes of the Joe Rogan podcast with Jack Dorsey, I’d recommend them. It’s amazing how he carries himself when discussing charged topics and where his headspace is at for social media. He spends a bit ranting about the potential of a permanent public ledger backing a social network and how for-profit moderation could play a role in that world.
Perhaps Dorsey and Elon aren't BFFs (forever buddy friends) after all, this is potential competition.
There is a big opportunity coming for whoever is prepared to catch the foreseeable wave of twitter account mass-exodus which will take place as soon as Musk takes control and begins asserting themself.
Which tw inspired platforms are baked and ready deal with the influx?
There is a big opportunity coming for whoever is prepared to catch the foreseeable wave of twitter account mass-exodus which will take place as soon as Musk takes control and begins asserting themself.
Which tw inspired platforms are baked and ready deal with the influx?
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> The implementation of the next version of the Internet will seek its fundamentals in the Blockchain and the cryptocurrency world.
Bold claim. Given how fast it's all falling apart I fail to see why and how.
Bold claim. Given how fast it's all falling apart I fail to see why and how.
I doubt that Bluesky (which I guess has the unfortunate position of being shortened to "BS") is going to capture the "cool" factor to get wide adoption.
Why does a new protocol need to exist when Mastodon and Matrix already exist? This smells of centralization masked as "decentralization".
I'll stick with Pleroma, I'm not thrilled with the idea of a "Twitter-Killer" associated with the same man who made Twitter.
This place will be overran with nazis in 3, 2, 1...
Moderation is a first class citizen in this protocol and I imagine the official blue sky instance will be moderated just like any other big social media site. I'm still getting a feel for it but my first impression is that atproto is kinda like secure scuttlebutt with a federation layer and dns for memorable usernames.
Can you explain more about how moderation is first class? The protocol overview [0] mentions moderation only once, in a section titled "Speech, reach, and moderation," and it seems like moderation is punted off to third-party aggregators: "The Indexing services then enable reach by aggregating content from the network, analogous to a search engine."
[0] https://atproto.com/guides/overview
[0] https://atproto.com/guides/overview
After looking at it some more 'first-class' is overselling it. I'm still working my way through the code but I believe pretty much all interaction with bluesky/atproto by a user would be via federated instances like mastodon that can moderate as they see fit. The instances have final say in what you are allowed to do. The difference being you have a public key identity that is decoupled from a single instance. @moojd.blsky.app and @moojd.example.com can both be aliases to the same pubkey identity and if blsky.app is down my content will still sync with example.com.
Now imagine if all the third-party aggregators block Nazis. They can post as much as they want but virtually no one will see it.
Nazis are already spoiled for choice.
How is it better than let's say Diaspora which exists for a while already but didn't get a lot of traction?
Remember TBD? Remember Web5? Dorsey announces a launch the moment he has an idea sitting on the john.
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If you have to pay any amount to post it's not a twitter killer
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is did spec from bluesky community? anyway, looks like nothing tangible yet.
I am excited about what Nostr[0] is doing is instead. Looks much simpler way to approach the problem.
[0]: https://github.com/aljazceru/awesome-nostr
I am excited about what Nostr[0] is doing is instead. Looks much simpler way to approach the problem.
[0]: https://github.com/aljazceru/awesome-nostr
Can someone ELI5 how this works and why it's useful?
How does he not have a no-compete or something?
Non-compete agreements aren't legal in California.
That's not entirely true for people at Dorsey's level.
However, it's been almost a year since Dorsey was CEO even though he didn't step down from the board until May. That is pretty close to the limit of what California would really allow in a non-compete.
However, it's been almost a year since Dorsey was CEO even though he didn't step down from the board until May. That is pretty close to the limit of what California would really allow in a non-compete.
That's not entirely true. California allows non-competes for someone selling a business. We don't know if Dorsey actually did sign a non-compete, but Musk is buying Twitter so this might be one of the rare instances where it'd be legal in California if he had.
Source: California law: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.x...
> [...] any owner of a business entity selling or otherwise disposing of all of his or her ownership interest in the business entity [...] may agree with the buyer to refrain from carrying on a similar business within a specified geographic area in which the business so sold, or that of the business entity, division, or subsidiary has been carried on, so long as the buyer, or any person deriving title to the goodwill or ownership interest from the buyer, carries on a like business therein
Source: California law: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.x...
> [...] any owner of a business entity selling or otherwise disposing of all of his or her ownership interest in the business entity [...] may agree with the buyer to refrain from carrying on a similar business within a specified geographic area in which the business so sold, or that of the business entity, division, or subsidiary has been carried on, so long as the buyer, or any person deriving title to the goodwill or ownership interest from the buyer, carries on a like business therein
In terms of personal employment, yes California is very leery of non-competes. In terms of business contracts, absolutely not. If you build a product for a customer, you can agree not to build a similar product for said customer's competitors. This is not unusual.
Practical example: one customer was a cruise line, and the company had to tactfully ask if building a similar product for a hotel didn't violate the contract. As opposed to, say, a school which would not reasonably compete with cruise lines - Semester at Sea notwithstanding. If you don't want to agree to this, you don't need to sign a contract not to work with competitors. But of course, the customer is probably not going to want to pay as much if they know that they can very quickly lose whatever edge they're getting.
Practical example: one customer was a cruise line, and the company had to tactfully ask if building a similar product for a hotel didn't violate the contract. As opposed to, say, a school which would not reasonably compete with cruise lines - Semester at Sea notwithstanding. If you don't want to agree to this, you don't need to sign a contract not to work with competitors. But of course, the customer is probably not going to want to pay as much if they know that they can very quickly lose whatever edge they're getting.
I think it's easy to argue that it doesn't compete with Twitter. It's another crypto grift, not a social network.
Bluesky is funded by Twitter. It's not considered competition.
non-competes are usually only enforceable while you still work for the company
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The irony of this announcement being paywalled...
Sorry for the critique on form instead of content but man, this is hard to read. Putting periods where commas belong or where a sentence should be rewritten for clarity is an obstacle to easy comprehension.
It's the confluence of sales and religion. With these rhetorical tools, everything is a sales pitch. And when everything is a pitch, all conversation is commerce. A new world. A world where hype becomes real and reality is your plaything. We call it Xchange. Xchange your reality.
[applause.flac loop=1000]
[applause.flac loop=1000]
Wow. I was wondering why I had such a hard time reading this. Now that you say it, you’re spot on – it’s the text equivalent of stop and go traffic.
Indeed - starting every sentence with a conjunction is very jarring.
Was this written by AI? I stopped after the second paragraph. Too much cognitive load.
Not to mention the sentence fragments.
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If you think the answer is a blockchain, you are asking the wrong question.
From what I can see, it's not entirely clear it actually uses a blockchain. Their PR name-drops blockchains and "Web3", but the technical details they offer consistently fail to explain how a blockchain might be involved.
It kind of feels like Dorsey wanted a blockchain, but their engineers found that blockchain-based social media did not work well and just built a federated network, so now they're going for some "inspired by the blockchain" angle.
It kind of feels like Dorsey wanted a blockchain, but their engineers found that blockchain-based social media did not work well and just built a federated network, so now they're going for some "inspired by the blockchain" angle.
I scanned the documentation and I didn't see anything about blockchain (I assumed at first it would be some web3 BS). Are they just using different language? It looks like it's just an open protocol
Edit: I looked at the github, not the medium page, I see I'm wrong. It is some web3 BS
Edit: I looked at the github, not the medium page, I see I'm wrong. It is some web3 BS
> Edit: I looked at the github, not the medium page, I see I'm wrong. It is some web3 BS
Where exactly does it say that BlueSky is yet another web3 / blockchain project?
The Medium post isn't from the BlueSky team, its from a random crypto blogger and even he doesn't reference where BlueSky is a blockchain or crypto token platform.
Where exactly does it say that BlueSky is yet another web3 / blockchain project?
The Medium post isn't from the BlueSky team, its from a random crypto blogger and even he doesn't reference where BlueSky is a blockchain or crypto token platform.
Fair enough. They have not really made it clear on the BlueSky site. I found this:
> We’re not describing what we’re building as a federated or p2p network, or as a blockchain network, because it doesn’t fall neatly in any of these categories. It could be described as a hybrid federated network with p2p characteristics, but it’s more descriptive to focus on the capabilities – self-authenticating identities and data – than on network topology.
From: https://blueskyweb.xyz/blog/3-6-2022-a-self-authenticating-s...
Not that it clarifies anything for me. It feels (I'm speculating) like they are very careful not to mention web3, but maybe that's because it really has nothing to do with tokens and whatnot and is actually just a protocol that lets people run their own social network servers. But it doesn't say it's that either. Some plain language would help make it clear if it's legit or just some new take on blockchain scamming
> We’re not describing what we’re building as a federated or p2p network, or as a blockchain network, because it doesn’t fall neatly in any of these categories. It could be described as a hybrid federated network with p2p characteristics, but it’s more descriptive to focus on the capabilities – self-authenticating identities and data – than on network topology.
From: https://blueskyweb.xyz/blog/3-6-2022-a-self-authenticating-s...
Not that it clarifies anything for me. It feels (I'm speculating) like they are very careful not to mention web3, but maybe that's because it really has nothing to do with tokens and whatnot and is actually just a protocol that lets people run their own social network servers. But it doesn't say it's that either. Some plain language would help make it clear if it's legit or just some new take on blockchain scamming
My read of the protocol docs from when they came out a few days ago is that they're using Blockchain in the distributed merkel-tree ledger sense and not (explicitly?) in the sense of a cryptocurrency.
It seems like it models your data as a Merkel tree log, signed by an identity key that can be obtained through DNS. Unless they plan to add a namecoinish thing for identities you shouldn't really need Po* to "secure" that.
It seems like it models your data as a Merkel tree log, signed by an identity key that can be obtained through DNS. Unless they plan to add a namecoinish thing for identities you shouldn't really need Po* to "secure" that.
If my question is: Where should I publish key revocation certificates? what should my question be instead?
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Its probably called Bluesky because they plan to violate Bluesky laws by being intrinsically tied to issuing blockchain securities
djbusby(2)
tmpz22(1)
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"Imminent"? sounds like this is an announcement of announcement. For those, we can wait until the actual announcement is available and then apply beta reduction.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
In the meantime, the post about the information that came out a few days ago was discussed here:
The AT Protocol - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33252108 - Oct 2022 (99 comments)