Olives @olives@qoto.org

Also, what if we need a third relay in the future? Or a fourth relay? Would that be feasible?

The fact that no one has been able to build a second relay so far though, and that it is taking this big highly funded effort, is kind of telling.

https://freeourfeeds.com/
"Build independent infrastructure, such as a second “relay,” guaranteeing Bluesky users and developers have uninterrupted access to data streams, regardless of corporate decisions.

Fund developers to create a vibrant ecosystem of social applications built on open protocols, fostering healthier and more equitable online spaces.

The developers’ fund will re-grant to the community of innovators who can build the solutions we need to improve our social web (from content moderation services for under resourced languages to recommender systems that are optimized for what people actually want to see, and new apps and experiences that we can’t yet imagine)."
While the foundation is raising $30 million, it's unclear how much of that is going towards the second relay.

https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/13/24342799/free-our-feeds-social-media-ecosystem-at-protocol-bluesky
"Technology advocates and celebrities are backing the launch of Free Our Feeds, a campaign designed to “save social media from billionaire capture.” The project aims to raise $30 million over three years to support the development of a social media ecosystem powered by the AT Protocol, or the decentralized network powering Bluesky."

"They also go beyond that. In defining human beings to include all embryos, from the moment of conception, they would have implications for in vitro fertilization, which often involves the creation of embryos that are frozen for later use and sometimes, eventually, destroyed."

https://reason.com/2025/01/29/4-states-consider-bills-to-treat-women-who-get-abortions-as-murderers/ This is a thing now.

https://www.techdirt.com/2025/01/24/brendan-carr-trumps-free-speech-warrior-wastes-no-time-violating-trumps-new-free-speech-executive-order/ This is concerning from a free speech perspective.

Someone who uncritically promotes the fediverse and the "run your own server" thing also ignore the emotional burden.

Someone might have to negotiate with hundreds, if not, thousands of other servers, and engage in otherwise avoidable admin / fedi drama.

When someone proposed a small scale governance initiative, one which went nowhere, someone might fling accusations of trying to rule the fediverse and fire off instance blocks. Someone might also lift quotes out of context.

Inter-instance censorship is promoted as a silver bullet for personal pet issues and is used liberally generally.

Inter-instance censorship has even been applied in a case where someone didn't want to moderate content in a particular language on their own server as they did not have the moderative capacity to. Others blocked them citing "colonialism". And simultaneously, they are held to unrealistic expectations for moderation.

Like "colonialism", there are various unspoken rules which crop up at seemingly random times to blow up into bubbles of drama.

Looks like there will be more Black Butler this year. That's cool.

Diabolik Lovers is an interesting anime (although, it might not be for you).

Female protagonist. Reverse harem of sorts. Vampires. Vampire manor.

#anime

When you read an article about "AI" and it starts out talking about the risk of "superhuman intelligence"...

There is plenty of art on the fediverse (and if I really wanted to jump into that, I could) but not much anime discourse (i.e. what exciting new series someone is watching).

The infamous German NetzDG is being retired with the introduction of the DSA.

When someone on Mastodon comes up with liability for "Big Tech".

"Wh-What's happened?"

"I-It's Gargron. He's been arrested."

It raises a question. If Mastodon were to become big enough, could a media firm sue Mastodon GmbH for taking down their content?

https://www.dw.com/en/eu-approves-new-media-freedom-law/a-68514714
"The law will also force social media giants like Meta and X to notify media outlets when they intend to delete or restrict their content, and give them 24 hours to respond. Media outlets can also bring the case to an out-or-court arbitration body."

Wait until Americans discover that "keep up" laws are a thing.

Bluesky should seriously consider increasing their character limit (default Mastodon could also do so but Bluesky's character limit is particularly small).

Just because Twitter had a tiny character limit doesn't mean Bluesky also has to adopt that design decision.

The same might be the same for Veilid, although the statistics there are inferred.

Looking at Nostr briefly (since I've been saying for a while that I'd like to look into it), it looks like there are quite a few relays.