My comments are littered with folks asking "why is it a problem if your blocklist is public on Bluesky?"
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I'm referring to "who you block."
> If I simply block someone, that information is NOT trivially available, much the same as fedi; you CAN find it but you have to know how.
This isn't exactly true. The protocol publishes this stuff and scrapers make it easily available, see ClearSky for an example.
This differs from Fedi where "who you block" is obfuscated by decentralization and defederation (plus literal network hiccups like firewalls, etc).
@vkc @crazyeddie @niko OK, thank you for the clarification!
And yes, the fact that people are easily able to make tools is a potential issue
Now, whether it would be possible to do the same thing with fedi instances, that’s way above my coding grade.
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I'm not going to talk about Bluesky anymore for a bit, but I know folks are coming back here after hanging out there for a while, and I want to encourage Fedi users not to gloat, not to be jerks about it.
And if you're just (re)joining us on Fedi, like all affinity groups, you're going to run into enthusiasts who are gloating, but I promise most of us are just happy you're here and want to help make this place awesome for you.
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@vkc @crazyeddie @niko OK, thank you for the clarification!
And yes, the fact that people are easily able to make tools is a potential issue
Now, whether it would be possible to do the same thing with fedi instances, that’s way above my coding grade.
Based on what I'm reading basically there is no block list sent to anyone. The user you blocked receives a notification in their inbox.
They could still log peoples' preferences by setting up honeypot accounts and servers to get blocked. They'd not be able to just scrape or watch a public database for the info though.
Bluesky should remove the block feature. It can't be implemented in that architecture. The public processing pipeline discludes the possibility.
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I'm not going to talk about Bluesky anymore for a bit, but I know folks are coming back here after hanging out there for a while, and I want to encourage Fedi users not to gloat, not to be jerks about it.
And if you're just (re)joining us on Fedi, like all affinity groups, you're going to run into enthusiasts who are gloating, but I promise most of us are just happy you're here and want to help make this place awesome for you.
@vkc bluesky is no different than twitter. even if its leadership might be a bit better, it's still a proprietary site, and i don't care what anyone says about that. better to use fedi. you're still handing all your data and opsec over to an entity that you can't trust with either.
who do you trust more with your data? an american corporation called bluesky, or the cat-eared furry running your local friendly mastodon instance? i know which one i trust.
edit: and to be clear, i trust the furry.
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My comments are littered with folks asking "why is it a problem if your blocklist is public on Bluesky?"
I'm glad you asked.
"Who you block" is a reasonable indicator of your personal alignments. If you block TERFs, you're likely trans-friendly, if not trans yourself. If you block white supremacists, you're likely in support of multiculturalism.
If you block government entities, well, you know how this goes.
Do I trust Bluesky to handle that information with care? Hell no.
@vkc I remember this being an issue with Twitter lists, too. I might be misremembering, but I seem to recall it being public info the names of the lists others had added you to, so even if your account was private, someone could figure out a lot of information about you just based on how others “categorized” or “labeled” you.
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@vkc @mkj @draeand ClearSky https://clearsky.app collects the blocked accounts on from AT Protocol (Bluesky) data feeds, and it will show that data for publicly visible accounts.
Data is only hidden for those accounts that have been set to be visible for only the logged-in Bluesky users (even though the data itself is still publicly accessible via other AT Protocol tools, even from those "hidden" accounts).
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I'm not going to talk about Bluesky anymore for a bit, but I know folks are coming back here after hanging out there for a while, and I want to encourage Fedi users not to gloat, not to be jerks about it.
And if you're just (re)joining us on Fedi, like all affinity groups, you're going to run into enthusiasts who are gloating, but I promise most of us are just happy you're here and want to help make this place awesome for you.
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My comments are littered with folks asking "why is it a problem if your blocklist is public on Bluesky?"
I'm glad you asked.
"Who you block" is a reasonable indicator of your personal alignments. If you block TERFs, you're likely trans-friendly, if not trans yourself. If you block white supremacists, you're likely in support of multiculturalism.
If you block government entities, well, you know how this goes.
Do I trust Bluesky to handle that information with care? Hell no.
@vkc they do not handle it well and the result is that this information is often weaponized or at the very least, used in malicious block lists intentionally mislabeled, with the purpose of getting well intentioned users to block people who they actually align with.
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My comments are littered with folks asking "why is it a problem if your blocklist is public on Bluesky?"
I'm glad you asked.
"Who you block" is a reasonable indicator of your personal alignments. If you block TERFs, you're likely trans-friendly, if not trans yourself. If you block white supremacists, you're likely in support of multiculturalism.
If you block government entities, well, you know how this goes.
Do I trust Bluesky to handle that information with care? Hell no.
I searched for and blocked ICE on Bluesky BECAUSE I'd seen posts here saying the blocklist is public. (I have a BS account, but only use it to follow, not to post).
Yes, this involves some (probably remote) risk to myself. But a. I wanted to stand up and be counted and b. the more people on that blocklist, the harder it is to analyse and use the data.
So yes, be aware the blocklist is public. But this doesn't necessarily mean don't block. Especially if you're outside the US
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My comments are littered with folks asking "why is it a problem if your blocklist is public on Bluesky?"
I'm glad you asked.
"Who you block" is a reasonable indicator of your personal alignments. If you block TERFs, you're likely trans-friendly, if not trans yourself. If you block white supremacists, you're likely in support of multiculturalism.
If you block government entities, well, you know how this goes.
Do I trust Bluesky to handle that information with care? Hell no.
-
My comments are littered with folks asking "why is it a problem if your blocklist is public on Bluesky?"
I'm glad you asked.
"Who you block" is a reasonable indicator of your personal alignments. If you block TERFs, you're likely trans-friendly, if not trans yourself. If you block white supremacists, you're likely in support of multiculturalism.
If you block government entities, well, you know how this goes.
Do I trust Bluesky to handle that information with care? Hell no.
-
My comments are littered with folks asking "why is it a problem if your blocklist is public on Bluesky?"
I'm glad you asked.
"Who you block" is a reasonable indicator of your personal alignments. If you block TERFs, you're likely trans-friendly, if not trans yourself. If you block white supremacists, you're likely in support of multiculturalism.
If you block government entities, well, you know how this goes.
Do I trust Bluesky to handle that information with care? Hell no.
-
My comments are littered with folks asking "why is it a problem if your blocklist is public on Bluesky?"
I'm glad you asked.
"Who you block" is a reasonable indicator of your personal alignments. If you block TERFs, you're likely trans-friendly, if not trans yourself. If you block white supremacists, you're likely in support of multiculturalism.
If you block government entities, well, you know how this goes.
Do I trust Bluesky to handle that information with care? Hell no.
-
My comments are littered with folks asking "why is it a problem if your blocklist is public on Bluesky?"
I'm glad you asked.
"Who you block" is a reasonable indicator of your personal alignments. If you block TERFs, you're likely trans-friendly, if not trans yourself. If you block white supremacists, you're likely in support of multiculturalism.
If you block government entities, well, you know how this goes.
Do I trust Bluesky to handle that information with care? Hell no.
-
I'm not going to talk about Bluesky anymore for a bit, but I know folks are coming back here after hanging out there for a while, and I want to encourage Fedi users not to gloat, not to be jerks about it.
And if you're just (re)joining us on Fedi, like all affinity groups, you're going to run into enthusiasts who are gloating, but I promise most of us are just happy you're here and want to help make this place awesome for you.
Also, newbies or returnees: it's gotten better since you left! Cool new features!
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I'm not going to talk about Bluesky anymore for a bit, but I know folks are coming back here after hanging out there for a while, and I want to encourage Fedi users not to gloat, not to be jerks about it.
And if you're just (re)joining us on Fedi, like all affinity groups, you're going to run into enthusiasts who are gloating, but I promise most of us are just happy you're here and want to help make this place awesome for you.
@vkc I want to second this & maybe raise the volume on it, as I definitely am glad to see more people here, including from any platform, so if I spot you as a full newbie or returner, feel free to ask me anything on things here& if I can't help you direct, odds are I can & will refer you to someone who can!
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My comments are littered with folks asking "why is it a problem if your blocklist is public on Bluesky?"
I'm glad you asked.
"Who you block" is a reasonable indicator of your personal alignments. If you block TERFs, you're likely trans-friendly, if not trans yourself. If you block white supremacists, you're likely in support of multiculturalism.
If you block government entities, well, you know how this goes.
Do I trust Bluesky to handle that information with care? Hell no.
@vkc It's a metric, public or not, captured by the server. Not looked at, sold to others, doesn't matter, they can be bent in any number of directions and magnified with AI. Everyone will have to stand by their own metrics.
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@crazyeddie @Wraithe @vkc @niko It's not blocklists, it's the ability for someone with a basic plugin/extension/whathaveyou to look at any given account and see at least some of the block data. I know people over there with plugins that show block counts of people interacting with them, stuff like that. Nothing to do with published blocklists.
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