If they really, really want to fix 99.8% of the problems with hate speech (and many other issues), each user needs to agree to have their real name, home address, email address, and phone number available to the public, in their profile. While what I’ve just said is completely absurd, for almost everyone, it’s the anonymity that empowers people to say the absolute worst things.
Why don’t most people in the checkout line (queue) at the grocery store act the same way they do in a traffic jam on a roadway? Because they’re much more likely to be held personally accountable for their conduct. I wonder how much traffic would change, if our name, address and telephone numbers were required to be posted on all sides of our vehicles?
I didn’t read what you said but I like it, everyone gets a license plate on bluesky.
I can’t believe the guy who originally administered the creation of Twitter would do all the exact same things that originally made him billions of dollars selling the company to Elon Musk.
There’s no way he’s just speed-running what he did last time in hopes of another $44B buyout.
Figured they would go down this route. Don’t use it anyway
you don’t kill a cow for a scratch on her leg (I hope the saying is understandable for everybody since it doesn’t come from English).
I’m on mastodon and bluesky: the first is even less populated than here and a big part of the interesting content comes from bot reposting popular accounts from x or reddit, while the second is far from being THE solution but it’s nowadays a -not wildly populated- compromise. I don’t condone (while I understand) the Turkish bans and I’m not interested in a verification system: if I’d like one, I’d use https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EIDAS.
I hope bluesky will correct its approach for what they can (the “good old” twitterin the golden era was banned in Turkey)I believe the equivalent saying would be “don’t let perfect be the enemy of good”.
I couldn’t give a single shit about these twitter alternatives, because the whole concept is stupid.
the whole concept is stupid.
+1
Being that algorithmic just makes any Twitter-like design too easy to abuse.
Again, Lemmy (and Reddit) is far from perfect, but fundamentally, grouping posts and feeds by niche is way better. It incentivizes little communities that are concerned about their own health, while users have zero control over that shouting into the Twitter maw.
yea lemmy/reddit definitely seems like more of a sweet spot. with twitter/mastodon or anything that has a “say something” text box right in your face on every page, you are going to end up with a lot of noise, because most people just dont have interesting things to say most of the time
I don’t understand - do you think mastodon (or the fediverse in general) is sparsely populated? That’s not my impression at all!
That’s exactly what I meant: very few people, only on main niches, and some political and lifestyle ideas are common to 90% of the userbase (ie: anti-Trump, pro-Palestine, pro-Foss, etc).
I’m not complaining, just reporting what I seeIt seems that you don’t curate your followers much and/or don’t follow many people. The timeline is what you make it to be by following a variety of people as there isn’t an algoritm to curate it for you. There’s plenty of interesting content circling around and it’s wholly up to you wether it makes it to your timeline or not.
I get it, but I don’t want to curate my followers, I’m not a news media, I just follow users I totally like, I usually look for content I don’t see in my timeline, do a lot of surfing, but in the end it’s not that big as today
The checkmark is the wrong approach. You should never trust accounts, because accounts get hacked. We should instead use cryptographic signatures on individual posts, and clients can warn when that signature doesn’t match the account’s public key, or if that key changed recently. The private key would never live on the server, and ideally live outside the app.
This doesn’t verify identity, it just proves the key didn’t change. To establish identity, the person needs to use the same key in multiple places, such as posting it on a personal website or something. If a service wants to add their own stamp of approval, they can sign these public keys and embed them into the apl for clients to use (e.g. show a blue checkmark if Bluesky can verify the public key outside its system).
If the private key is compromised, repeat the process, potentially signing the new key with both the old and new key to prove control of both (or start from scratch if needed). Repeat whenever they get hacked.
Average user:
“Wait how do I get cryptocurrency with my key?”
This is a great idea.
It’s also not new. GPG has been around for decades, and is pretty much this.
ARE WE LEARNING HOW “SOCIAL MEDIA” WORKS YET HUMANITY?
Seriously. How many more fucking times do we need to go around this goddamn merry go round until we just start calling each other on the phone and meeting face to face again. You know, where the only enshittification is the one you bring with you. It’s fucking boring me now, how many of these stupid ass things I didn’t join because I’ve already, apparently, gotten the memo and how, inevitably, something like this happens, and everyone acts surprised and disappointed , as though inevitability was a concept they felt they’d been given a sabbatical from or something.
This. Shit. Ain’t. Free. There is an inherent cost, an “effort” required to communicate with others. You pay it with money, time or privacy. The overwhelming choice lately has been “privacy”, but it’s obviously something that not everyone is comfortable with, because we didn’t have the term “enshittification” before we started this flavor of our collective idiocy.
Can I subscribe to your social media accounts? I would like to follow your opinions.
Nah, for real though, I’m so glad my best friend is still fairly analog and we use the phone for what it is (we just call each other when we want to meet up).
Lemmy is the last of social media that I use and I regularly take breaks from it because the echo chamber is very apparent and not something I wish to be consumed by.
ARE WE LEARNING HOW “SOCIAL MEDIA” WORKS YET HUMANITY?
Apparently not, because people keep feeling surprised and offended when the Networking Effect happens.
Seriously. How many more fucking times do we need to go around this goddamn merry go round until we just start calling each other on the phone and meeting face to face again
Idk, when are we going to get low-cost public transit and VoIP that’s not like talking over two tin cans connected with string?
What is this networking effect you mentioned? I tried searching online but I think I’m missing the context needed to find the right info.
Yeah I deleted my Bluesky. All public companies eventually turn to shit because of the shareholders unending greed.
this is unnecessary with custom domains
Their position is that custom domains are “too hard.”
Any system built on anonymous accounts is going to have the exact same problems. Lemmy is not “less bad” than Reddit because it’s decentralized. Blue checks isn’t the problem with twitter, and neither is Elong
Not sure where you’re going with that, but it’s a perverse incentive, just like the engagement algorithm.
Elon is a problem because he can literally force himself into everyone’s feeds, but also because he always posts polarizing/enraging things these days.
Healthy social media design/UI is all about incentivizing good, healthy communities and posts. Lemmy is not perfect, but simply not designing for engagement/profit because Lemmy is “self hosted” instead of commercial is massive.
Lots of “how dare they solve a real problem with the only method yet invented” in these replies. Gtfo losers, clutch your pearls harder. If you don’t like Bluesky don’t use it. Don’t be a whiny little bitch about it.
Only method yet invented?
Then come over to Mastodon…
No one disliked the check mark before “Genghis Kunt” started selling it
It was selectively given to institutions and “major” celebrities before that.
Selling them dilutes any meaning of “verified” because any joe can just pay for extra engagement. It’s a perverse incentive, as the people most interest in grabbing attention buy it and get amplified.
It really has little to do with Musk.
Bluesky is the new X. After canceling the accounts of Turkish protesters this is the next step for the big money behind Bluesky. That’s why I deleted my account a few days ago.
Exactly, Bluesky has been shitty for a while for lots of reasons. I’m not understanding why this is the line in the sand.
What’s the story with the Turkish protesters?
The way the article describes Turkey and the press is the same thing that’s been happening in the US with the legacy (state funded) media. Hopefully, that’s changing now though.
Bluesky has basically bowed to the Turkish regime: https://www.turkishminute.com/2025/04/17/bluesky-restrict-access-72-account-turk-amid-government-pressure/
Same. Deleted my account when they started to censor the Turkish protestors. Not that I used the account really but still.
Preaching to the choir
But anyway anyone who thinks bluesky is actually decentralised will learn sooner rather than later that that’s not the case
Something like this unavoidable.
Example, ted cruz the car mechanic in marfa Texas has just has much right to use blusky as
professional shit bagsenator ted cruz. But hiw do tell the real one from the racid sack of weasels.It’s easy: cryptographic signatures. If you want to prove your identify, post a public key on something that you need to prove identity for (personal website or something) and sign your posts with the same key. That way everyone can tell the that the same key listed on the website is used for SM posts. Clients can check this automatically and flag anything on your “official” account that’s signed with a different key.
This is much better than a checkmark system, because accounts get hacked and whatnot. It’s really easy to check a cryptographic signature, and it’s really hard to fake. If the website gets hacked, the signature won’t match previous posts.
The main concern here is losing the key. If someone steals your key, generate a new one, and sign it with the old key and the new one. Boom, now everyone can tell you control both keys, while the attacker only controls the old one.
But how would a user see that this poat was made with the right crypto key. Maybe some check mark on the Post or some sign.
Ideally, they wouldn’t see anything if everything is good. If there’s an anomaly, flag it with a warning.
But yeah, you could put a checkmark on it, but then it actually means something more than “this person spent money.” Ideally, the checkmark would only show if it’s a publicly verifiable key outside the platform.
That’s only easy for nerds, and it doesn’t help if the private key is on a device that gets compromised.
Regular people wouldn’t need identity verification, and the keys can be something the user never sees, just like with Signal. The UX can be pretty good here.
People use usernames like they always have, and rely on reputation to distinguish themselves from the fakes? Senator ted ceuz makes an account called ‘senatortedcruz’ or if thats taken ‘therealsenatortedcruz’, and the mechanic makes one called ‘tedcruzcars’ or whatever. I dont see how your example is even relevant, because under a checkmark verification system both the mechanic ted cruz, and the senator ted cruz would be valid and deserving of a check mark, so there has to be some other way of distinguishing them anyway.
Its whay the original lawsuit that created checkmarks was about.
What is? How does a checkmark help distinguish between two people that have the same name? The checkmark just shows that the person is who they say they are.
Well the original point was to verify famous people and groups.
