After seeing all those social media CEOs suck up to #Trump, something has become obvious. This medium matters to democracy, and only #ActivityPub lets journalists set up their own servers and give the people total say over what stories go viral. Nobody can shut down hashtags or links, remove an account, shadowban or modify what shows up as trending. Even #bluesky retains these powers with their relay.
@mmasnick.bsky.social said we need to find our killer app. We have. #SocialWeb
@wjmaggos except #ActivityPub DOESN'T give the people total say over what stories go viral.
We see so much consternation over instance owners censoring what people can see, and that's one of the huge criticisms of this platform that needs to be emphasized.
YES, people can shut down hashtags and links here, and I think that's problematic.
We can't address it by denying that it exists, though.
#Bluesky doesn't just retain that resistance to being shut down. With its relays it does a better job of having the features you're promoting here.
BlueSky comes much closer to giving the people total control over what stories go viral. #Fediverse falls short, empowering instances over people.
you can choose a different server or run your own here. you can't avoid the decisions of the people running the relay there. that's fundamental.
there should be less moderation for claimed misinfo and opinions not directed at people on mainstream fedi. but in no way does AT empower democracy of reach or ensure that in the future like AP does.
@wjmaggos If you want to make that parallel, then you could equally make your own relay if you wanted to.
The difference is that in the BlueSky model you're not limited to a single relay subject to the censorship decisions of the relay owner. You can absolutely subscribe to multiple relays to make sure you're not under their thumb.
Under the ActivityPub model you are subject to the decisions of the instance owner.
