BeAware :fediverse: @ BeAware @social.beaware.live

Social Media fool on multiple platforms. I tend to talk about [#Fediverse](

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2 yr. ago

@xnx I certainly cannot. I'm on my own instance and there's like 20,000 instances. Someone can attempt to yeet me. They'll have a hell of a time getting admin privileges to all instances though.

@fediverse

@mark thank you for the compliment and assurance friend.

I am always self conscious about my long winded replies because sometimes even I wouldn't wanna read a post that long.

Though, with topics like this that I'm very passionate about, I feel it's very important to lay out all the information and knowledge I have so that others can make informed decisions themselves based on the most important details.

I discuss Fediverse and networks like it, literally constantly and there's LOTS of nuances with these systems that need lots of explanations.

@fediverse

@Blaze no problem, friend.

I always worry if my long winded answers make sense to neurotypical people as I'm ADHD and slightly autistic.😅

So I hope it does make sense, at least even partially.

Overall, they're mostly centralized because there's very few relays and they're required infrastructure, but decentralized in other ways, which may or may not matter in the bigger picture because of this previous information.

@fediverse

@Blaze

Long winded, nuanced answer, ready your eyeballs:

It's a bit complicated, but since we're on Fediverse and at least somewhat familiar with how things work here, I'll try to explain with that comparison in mind.

On Fediverse, instances are in control of the user data directly. To "migrate" your account, you'd be switching instances and admins entirely.

BlueSky splits things up quite a bit more.

There, you can host your own "PDS" or Personal Data Server. That hosts your account and post info only.

Then, there's the "AppView". In comparison to Fediverse, these are like Lemmy, Mastodon, Mbin, etc. Right now, there's VERY few Appviews to choose from.

Then, there's the "relay". Which to Fediverse, the only thing similar is also relays, but they work differently. On BlueSky, they relay every post and interactions of all the PDS data that connect to AppViews. I do not think there's a choice on what is relayed, just a huge firehose. That being said, they're not optional like Fediverse. To complete the network, relays are required on ATProto and apparently could be expensive to host, so right now, it appears the only relay is hosted by BlueSky the company. Which makes things slightly centralized.

Now, that we have those definitions out of the way, this is where things get a bit muddy and a bit of purposeful corporate created confusion for purpose of selfishness is quite apparent.

Right now, there's very few AppViews. The ones I'm aware of are, BlueSky itself, Whitewind, and Frontpage.xyz.

The confusion happens because BlueSky, the company, doesn't separate the fact that accounts hosted on self-hosted PDS, aren't technically Bluesky accounts, they're ATproto accounts. Everywhere you look to login, it says "login using your BlueSky account". I can only assume they're doing this on purpose so that anyone who tries to make an Appview, host a PDS, AND a relay, can't have their own "identity" like different instances and platforms have here on Fedi.

That will confuse people and make them think everything is just hosted by BlueSky the company. However, as we've now established, there's definitely a separation of "Bluesky" the company, "BlueSky" the AppView that you can login to using your "BlueSky" account, which doesnt technically have to be hosted by anything related to BlueSky.

I hope this all makes sense and you can tell that technically things are decentralized for the most part. It's just that BlueSky is purposefully muddying their own definitions of things so that anyone that tries to build on ATproto, has a hard time making themselves known as not bluesky due to the way they conflate all these definitions.

Sorry for the huge post and hope it makes sense in some way.

Thanks for reading.😁👍

@fediverse

@Fitik I'm talking moderation on a level that a user cannot do themselves.

Blocking and muting are not moderation, they're user tools to limit your feed, nothing more.