Olives @olives@qoto.org

https://reclaimthenet.org/cruz-klobuchar-privacy-amendment What do you think? Recipe for over-reach?

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/07/21/apple-says-it-will-exit-the-uk-market-if-government-passes-update-to-investigatory-powers-act/ Of course they would, that sounds completely unworkable.

To be fair to Mastodon, even though the "main" instance might be more restrictive than Bluesky, it's not as if they pretend it's the end all and be all, and it isn't the only instance.

I suppose I'm the first to point out Bluesky's Q dog-whistles? Or one of the first?

I took a closer look at Bluesky. The good, the bad, the ugly.

I'll get the good out of the way first, because the rest is not going to be so pleasant.

It doesn't appear to be purely puritanical. I shouldn't be having to pat a techbro on the back for being scared of sex. Unfortunately, I do.

Some of these terms appear inspired by... QAnon, and are very vague... And suspicious.

This is a big red flag. Rather unsurprising, given that Jack Dorsey interacts with and promotes very right wing figures.

As for hate speech, Bluesky also seems not to like that, and while you might not like hate speech, it's another case where some techbro has decided what to and what not to allow based on his personal whims.

Hate speech is also very vague. Is a joke "hate speech"? Or language lacking hateful intent? What about minor cases against more major cases? Is it proportionate? How much time will they spend chasing these?

How do they moderate these at scale? Also, are some topics off limits because they might result in more hate?

While Bluesky tries to point to federation to side-step these tricky questions a centralized platform might have to answer, they fundamentally can't.

It is not federated. No number of promises about how federation will be added in the future will change the fact it is not federated.

It is questionable whether it will be. If the possibility of someone picking an offensive username is a "scandal", how would they react, if there was federation?

Bluesky tries to bury you in technobabble, crypto jargon, and vague promises. Since the founder is a cryptobro, this is not so surprising.

This doesn't change the fundamentally weak value proposition it currently offers. If this was 2021 or 2022, the value proposition would be even weaker.

The problem with Bluesky isn't this random irrelevant design decision which might allow someone to pick a username which is offensive.

It is essentially another Threads. Another closed platform. This time with an air of exclusivity like the failed social network, Clubhouse.

We pretend it is something novel, because it was founded by a drug toting techbro who goes on meditative retreats, and because we have vague promises of "federation" and "crypto magic".

This whole project is a distraction.

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/07/20/trust-safety-and-communication/
This is a whole lot of words about a whole lot of nothing where someone got upset about a minor design decision on another platform built by techbros which you probably shouldn't be using.

Everyone's favorite cute anime girl bullet hell game.

Not really a fan of harassing someone who might have done bad things in the past.

Google's new browser DRM idea is terrible.

Apparently, Reddit is taking over sub-reddits now.

Copyright comes to mind.

There are anime where they write computer programs, and magic spells are cast by running the program.

You too can be a wizard.

Time to detox from social media for a bit, except maybe this science place.

I'm tired of looking at bad news all the time.

The "29 million images" statistic was thoroughly debunked back in 2021 (it was already known as far back as 2019 / 2020 that these numbers were iffy).

The majority are the same 10 images slightly modified. We don't even know if it was a human who posted these.

Ah, I'm not going to go into the caveats of this number this time. I did that already.

What is "confronting"? Trying hard to get someone to answer a particular way on a survey isn't really impressive.

This reminds me of those surveys where someone would use language like "What if it was your child? You wouldn't like that, would you?" to try to emotionally blackmail someone.

I seriously doubt that if the Commission said, "okay, let's keep this current "voluntary scanning" arrangement going for another couple of years (or longer)", that the other parts of the E.U. would put their feet down and refuse to do it.

So, that is a lie.

It's kind of interesting, because one of the "won't anyone please think of the children?" lobbyists were upset (they're never going to be happy, even if you create 1984, they always want more) the survey the EDRi commissioned someone to carry out wasn't of the highest quality, however, Ylva now turns around and carries out whatever this is supposed to be.

A "survey".

How fascinating. The E.U. Commission's Home Office has a new survey which alleges the majority of Europeans want a Chat Stasi.

Since they've done a survey, I'm sure it must be true, even though it runs contrary to previous surveys, which had large majorities against it.

1) Selection bias? Well, gotta throw that one in.

2) Lying about not being able to extend the timeline.

3) Lying about the amount of abuse by conflating more minor things with more major things and potential with actual.

4) We "confronted" people taking the survey.

Language like this doesn't inspire confidence that this is an impartial assessment of public opinion.

By the way, an ultra-conservative lobbyist from... Formerly Florida, now Texas, for a company which sells scanning software thinks you're an "extremist" for not wanting to be spied on all the time.