I'm not 100% sold on ATProto, but the fact that my identity and content can live separately from an instance is an insanely huge advantage over ActivityPub. I do not want to run my own Mastodon server (though I do) but I also don't want to use someone else's server and put my account at the mercy of the operator. It's maddening to think about how I could build a following or amass a ton of quality posts, only for the server to shut down or pull a Twitter. I simply can't stand the thought of it.<p>If ActivityPub wants to keep riding the wave it has now they should start investigating ways to support this. I think more and more people are getting fed up with centralized platforms / not owning their data.
Launching federatable(?) protocol and platform as non-federated, centralized one doesn't spawn confidence in me. The limited registration policy appears to be fueling the desire and excitement by creating a sense of exclusivity that amplifies the demand and anticipation. Reminds me of South Park's "Cartmanland" episode[1].<p>There's also the fact that Bluesky is run by Jack, who founded and managed pre-Musk Twitter "1.0" and funded Musk's Twitter "2.0". I don't have high expectations nor hopes.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEJWL49D30A">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEJWL49D30A</a>
I'm not sure what to make of this actual submission;<p>> A problem with the system of having a domain as a username is that people can claim it who don’t have access to that username.<p>That was a bug, and is not generally speaking, the case. You must have the ability to alter the DNS records for the domain you wish to claim.<p>> However, that means interactions, such as user likes, blocks, follows, etc are all public. With no means to make them private. Which could lead to harassment!<p>It could also lead to the enlightenment of man, if we're just making random claims without explaining ourselves...<p>> But runs into the problem of algorithms being hijacked to show inappropriate/offensive/bigoted content.<p>Posts on the AT Proto can be labeled by whatever labeling service you prefer, including Bluesky itself. You can then use your preferred labeling to filter out labels you don't want, or subscribe to a feed that does that for you.<p>> But also it’s a group of overly complicated specifications that could’ve just been extensions to the ActivityPub protocol rather than a whole new protocol!<p>I don't think, "AT Proto is too complex, use ActivityPub instead" is a reasonable claim at all. The problem is a complex one, and AT Proto in particular is not even out yet.<p>Honestly, I can barely understand this "article". It's just a bunch of oversimplified (and sometimes outright wrong) statements about what AT Proto is, coupled with painfully misunderstood declarations that border on the illegible.
> A benefit of atproto users is that they are transferable without needing an active server<p>This is not exactly true, it just means the server that holds ur data (traditionally instance or home server) doesn't need to be involved in the transfer process. However, this has centralized identity resolution, which is not a good long term solution.<p>> For example, someone was able to get the AWS S3 domain as their handle!<p>This is easily hotfixable by requiring more stringent proof of ownership of the domain (like DNS records), rather than a problem with the protocol itself. But it's a valid concern<p>> But runs into the problem of algorithms being hijacked to show inappropriate/offensive/bigoted content.<p>I thought the whole point was that if you didn't like the algorithm you could swap it out for something simpler. This point puzzles me greatly<p>> that could’ve just been extensions to the ActivityPub protocol rather than a whole new protocol!<p>Not really. If you peel back the interface they're very different, since the transferability of accounts across servers is something baked deeply into how ActivityPub works and cannot be easily changed without rewriting the protocol. That being said, I personally hope there is some network that can solve the problem of untying resources from domains, since it is one of the big problems with any federated protocol
One thing I don't understand is how can Bluesky pretend to be more open than Twitter when it's been months and it's still an invite-only closed garden?
With the current Twitter debacle, I think self-hosting my "notes about interesting things" (aka tweets) in a way it is accessible via the web, activitypub, bluesky and RSS might be the best way.<p>Is anybody already doing this? It shouldn't too be hard. Just throw all the notes into a directory and add some code which replies to the different types of requests.<p>I guess the best way to get ones tweets out of Twitter is the "Download an archive of your data" thingy in the settings?
I’ve got a Bluesky invite yet can’t use it because “account creation is temporarily limited”. Seems they’ve totally missed the opportunity of Twitter getting worse over the weekend.
> A problem with the system of having a domain as a username is that people can claim it who don’t have access to that username. For example, someone was able to get the AWS S3 domain as their handle!<p>That isn't necessarily an issue with using a domain as a username, it was only possible because you could verify ownership by putting something in a subdirectory they defined which was available as an S3 bucket name (see <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35820815">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35820815</a>). If you allow verification only from the root directory or via DNS records this shouldn't be a problem AFAICT.
> However, that means interactions, such as user likes, blocks, follows, etc are all public.<p>Au contraire, if network users control their clients, they can "block"¹ and "follow" content at-the client level without stating it publicly.<p>¹. Not a full block, as the blockee can still read and interact with the blocker's posts.
> But also it’s a group of overly complicated specifications that could’ve just been extensions to the ActivityPub protocol rather than a whole new protocol!<p>So do those extensions exist (even in the form of plans), especially the ones that free you up from a server or is it just wishful thinking?
I’d push back a bit on the claim that atproto features, particularly decoupling identity from the topology of federation, could have been done as extensions to ActivityPub. It’s a fundamental part of the way information flows in ActivityPub vs atproto.<p>I tried Mastodon for a bit and like the community there, but I found they were very deliberately trying to build a place that wasn’t like twitter: building federated search is frowned-upon; no quote-tweets; extremely low threshold for content warnings.<p>They’re building something different and that’s great, but it’s no surprise that people fleeing twitter want to go to the more twitter-like app.
ActivityPub suffers from many of the same issues around public likes and such, no?<p>There should be a decentralized social communication protocol that is more fit to reflect how people communicate: more ephemeral and less of a permanent record. I remember LitePub/Pleroma did some work in that direction, and it's mostly compatible with ActivityPub too I think
Isn't RSS better than all other federation protocols?<p>You have four properties of feeds: category, tree-comment, real-time and persistent.<p>Reddit was the winner on all those except real-time.<p>Decentralization is now the most important feature, and taking responsibility of your own data is the best version of that.<p>The only missing part is decentralized RSS servers and clients. Think backup for your posts and RSS reader services that also backup your favorite feeds.<p>All you need for that is a distributed db underlying it all like this: <a href="http://root.rupy.se" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://root.rupy.se</a> and a reader web tool.<p>The only feature we lack is a category (think hashtag) for RSS.<p>So a combination of all services below:<p><a href="http://fuse.rupy.se" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://fuse.rupy.se</a><p><a href="http://sprout.rupy.se" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://sprout.rupy.se</a><p><a href="http://tentacle.rupy.se" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://tentacle.rupy.se</a><p><a href="http://talk.binarytask.com" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://talk.binarytask.com</a><p>Add mail and video hosting/streaming and you got the complete deal.
Right now everyone on Bluesky is on centralized instances run by the devs, and are subject to widespread censorship by same.<p>I know of no way at this time
to run one's own instance or federate.
I’d say the protocol’s complexity tries to solve a lot of real problems that infest social media today, only time will tell if those solutions are the right ones.
I still don't understand the point of ActivityPub. Everyone one wants every social media, blog, news site to implement it. Why? RSS already exists to aggregate all of those into a single place. And having interacted with infosec.exchange, I came to the conclusion that long-form content doesn't mix well with microblogging and that Mastodon is a shit interface for it. I have a completely different software for my RSS feeds with a completely different way of browsing through content that works well for it.
Meanwhile, Meta Threads is on track to launch shortly [1].<p>Which is based on an open-standard, interoperates with Mastodon and is from a company that has the battle scars to prove that they can operate a global service in a mature and a reasonable way.<p>Given Jack Dorsey's support of the crazier positions of Elon Musk and RFK e.g. WiFi causes leaky brain it really does look like the best of a bad bunch.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/1/23781271/instagram-threads-twitter-leak-android-google-play" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/1/23781271/instagram-threads...</a>