Post · bonfire.cafe

https://logicmag.io/policy/blackness-in-the-fediverse-a-conversation-with-marcia-x/

blacksky should build on activitypub

if they build on atproto, ok

good luck to them

but they seem to be choosing a sinking ship

Stefan Bohacek

@stefan@stefanbohacek.online · yesterday

@benroyce It's our own fault that they didn't, though. Black people have been actively pushed out of this community.

You've probably read this by now, but here it is again.

And of course: https://privacy.thenexus.today/start-making-the-fediverse-less-toxic/

Anti-Blackness is a long-term problem in the fediverse. Now's a good time to start changing that.

The Nexus Of Privacy

5 things white people can do to start making the fediverse less toxic for Black people

Logic(s) Magazine

Blackness in the Fediverse: A Conversation with Marcia X

A conversation about the #PlayVicious Mastodon instance.

Ben Royce 🇺🇦 🇸🇩

@benroyce@mastodon.social · yesterday

@stefan @adamtewodros @dansup @quillmatiq

zero argument

i remember reading mekka's posts about the sordid harassment, that us while folks just don't see

that's a struggle we have a duty to help with

i can see jumping to atproto as a valid response

i just fear that whole ecosystem is doomed, because of bluesky

maybe bluesky crashes, and blacksky picks up from the ashes

regardless, it's fruitful to fight the fucking reply guy bigots on mastodon, as an ethos, and with technical improvements

Stefan Bohacek

@stefan@stefanbohacek.online · yesterday

@benroyce Absolutely!

But I'm just not seeing this as being important enough to the development of Mastodon in particular.

When people called out the strong opposition to quote posts as racist, given that the sort of call-and-response style of conversation has been so popular on Black Twitter, I thought this was reaching a bit.

But now we're looking at the most requested feature, the ability to disable replies, which many agree would help with the harassment particularly marginalized voices receive on here, and again, there is so much pushback, as well from the overall community here.

Starting to see a pattern.

Stefan Bohacek

@stefan@stefanbohacek.online · yesterday

@benroyce And yes, we all know there are technical challenges making that happen, but given this was requested back in 2018, it tells you all you need to know about priorities.

1+ more replies (not shown)

Ivan Tomić ⁂

@ivan@tomic.studio · yesterday

@dansup Nostr is a good idea, unfortunately nobody is talking to each other and everyone wants funding from the same wallet.

https://mastodon.social/@quillmatiq/116086475406267968

@quillmatiq@mastodon.social · yesterday

@dansup We're stronger together, Dan. It's not worth throwing stones.

Sunny

@sunnythesheep@mastodon.social · yesterday

@quillmatiq hard to see Bluesky as part of a "together", yet Bluesky is still better off without Jack Dorsey, than with.

@quillmatiq@mastodon.social · yesterday

@sunnythesheep I'm not talking about Bluesky, I'm talking about atproto, which now includes a variety of services, many of which have no connection to Bluesky with their tech stack.

Sunny

@sunnythesheep@mastodon.social · yesterday

@quillmatiq I see your point. Still love services who stick to ActivityPub, for interoperability, more.

dansup

@dansup@mastodon.social · yesterday

@quillmatiq not throwing stones, just spittin facts. To much glazing over AtProto when many seem to forget its history, so I feel a duty to remind people of this.

ATProto never cared about openness or the social web, or they would have adopted ActivityPub and helped improve it.

They had to control everything. Jack even said he regrets that himself.

Boris Mann

@boris@cosocial.ca · 24 hours ago

@dansup @quillmatiq heya Dan! Going to do the mastodon/activitypub thing - I think you mean Bluesky

ATProto has a thriving community that I and others are part of.

I care about openness and the social web, which is why I spend time with the ATProto community

Feel free to yell at Bluesky-the-company

@evan@cosocial.ca · yesterday

@dansup @quillmatiq Anuj, this is unfair.

There is a significant difference in intent and governance between ActivityPub and ATProto.

It's perfectly reasonable to point out those differences, just like the atproto.com site points out technical differences.

David Fleetwood - RG Admin

@reflex@retrogaming.social · yesterday

@evan @dansup @quillmatiq True, ATProto's intent is to cash in and make it's backers rich, ActivityPub's intent is to provide a protocol for an open web.

Thanks for calling that out!

@evan@cosocial.ca · yesterday

@reflex @dansup @quillmatiq I think Anuj's point is that there is a growing ecosystem around ATProto that is not owned or controlled by Bluesky LLC. There are a lot of people in that ecosystem that are just as concerned about decentralization and distribution of control as we are. Many people in the LLC even support that decentralization. It is a serious bummer that it's splitting the social web, but at least we have bridges and multistack services to connect us.

sheislaurence

@sheislaurence@mastodon.social · yesterday

@evan @reflex @dansup @quillmatiq thanks for summarising Evan. Is there an accessible (non-dev) article available to explain the makeup of the ATProto ecosystem and the chances of it not being a target/surviving without Bluesky? As a tech-aware/non-dev person, I am not interested in the respective merits of the actual protocols, more about each's ability to thrive away from VC (dev community size, culture, capitalist power dynamics... what else?)

1+ more replies (not shown)

@evan@cosocial.ca · yesterday

@dansup @quillmatiq

Pushing a separate protocol has undoubtedly hurt the entire distributed social networking movement. It was done intentionally.

It shouldn't have worked. ActivityPub should have been more widespread by the time that ATProto launched, so that a competing protocol would have no chance to split the network.

But we weren't, and it did. It's at least partially our fault that a house-brand protocol has been such a serious threat.

Emelia 👸🏻

@thisismissem@hachyderm.io · yesterday

@evan @dansup @quillmatiq Evan, perhaps spend some time introspecting why ActivityPub didn't get more adoption and why developers love AT Protocol.

ikuturso

@ikuturso@mastodon.social · 10 hours ago

@thisismissem @evan @dansup @quillmatiq What developers love is not a great metric as becomes apparent if you follow the tech industry for a while.

1 more replies (not shown)

@thisismissem @evan @dansup @quillmatiq

@evan@cosocial.ca · yesterday

@thisismissem @dansup @quillmatiq This is my number one area of interest!

1+ more replies (not shown)

Mastodon Migration

@mastodonmigration@mastodon.online · yesterday

Why do you think this is Emelia?

Mastodon Migration

@mastodonmigration@mastodon.online · yesterday

@thisismissem @evan @dansup @quillmatiq

Why do you think this is Emelia?

dansup

@dansup@mastodon.social · yesterday

@thisismissem @evan @quillmatiq more adoption, like Metas Threads? There are dozens of projects on the fediverse, more than atproto, so that’s not really coming across as you think it is lol

2+ more replies (not shown)

@quillmatiq@mastodon.social · yesterday

@evan @dansup What's hurt it more is not working together on a unified strategy and putting up walls every time there's a chance to do so.

There are folks on the atproto side who have shown an intent to bridge with services like Pixelfed and Loops, *including* adding the logo on the posts to help promote services. We can either move together, or we can continue to push each other away and fall to trillion-dollar companies building their own ecosystems, some of whom the Fedi bet the farm on.

Till Kleisli

@kleisli@mastodon.social · yesterday

@quillmatiq I like your vision of peace and collaboration. But when there is a working protocol and a team builds a completely new one that is not compatible with the existing. Who is building a wall? When I want to build a new "open social web" service or client, how many protocols should I need to implement? This is not about if mastodon or pixelfed could be Atproto compatible, it's not about services it's about the protocol. @evan @dansup

Alex Chapman

@alexchapman@tweesecake.social · yesterday

@quillmatiq @evan @dansup I have been thinking about trying to do some sort of protocol bridging with my project Fedi+ but then that runs the risk of people like FediTips getting on the wrong side of things being like oh Fedi+ interacts with fashists or whatever all because of the protocol being associated with Bluesky, which verified ICE and other US government accounts, and so on. My goal with Fedi+ is to not only create that vibe people loved when Google+ was around, but also to make it super easy for people who don't care about Mastodon or ActivityPub or whatever to join on and not even need to think about the protocols behind the scenes.

dansup

@dansup@mastodon.social · yesterday

@quillmatiq @evan what walls? The fediverse literally worked with Meta for Threads federation, we’ve been here and open to collaboration, they went off and made a worse implementation that is even more difficult to full self host.

I appreciate the ability for interop, but I’m not wrong about this.

1+ more replies (not shown)

@evan@cosocial.ca · yesterday

@dansup @quillmatiq

I think there is a lot to applaud in the ATProto community in terms of the growing openness, the standardization of part of the stack, and the great work engaging third-party developers.

@evan@cosocial.ca · yesterday

@dansup @quillmatiq

If ATProto can overcome its origins and single point of failure, great.

But it's gross to gaslight ActivityPub developers that those origins don't exist and it never happened, and don't talk about them when strangers are watching.

1+ more replies (not shown)