amidst giants writing out their thoughts on Bluesky, I'm humbly sharing a piece I was asked to write about power concentrations on Bluesky for a more layman policy audience. The piece was originally in Dutch https://www.sampol.be/2024/11/iedereen-naar-bluesky , but I translated it for those interested ! https://www.brussels-school.be/research/publications/power-consolidation-bluesky-and-fragmentation-public-discourse-sky-more-blue
In it I detangled the “is the network decentralized” question and added reflections how the governance structure also consolidates power with certain users within the platform.
grateful for Tech Policy Press publishing this piece so the English version can reach a wider audience as well 🥳 https://www.techpolicy.press/where-does-power-consolidate-on-bluesky/
one element that I didn't highlight enough but my wonderful colleague @pop_stefanija wrote a great piece about (that I forgot to cite!!) is how much burden is being placed on users to "make the right choices" when it comes to decentralized networks. Give it a read! https://policyreview.info/articles/news/solid-mastodon-risk-of-overburdening-the-user/1688
@eilah_tan but "offloading" implies that it was appropriate in the first place.
Id go the other way.
