Unfortunately, Bluesky is unavailable in Mississippi right now, due to a new state law that requires age verification for all users.
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@Gargron @quillmatiq @jack @laurenshof @jsit @bsky.app You seem to, from what I'm seeing, have a basic understanding of how the AT protocol works but not how it is decentralized in practice, and I think you might be confusing it with ActivityPub's model of distribution, but I could be wrong. A lot of us in this thread have been trying to explain this but you seem to be dismissive about it instead of understanding. I totally understand as someone who was also like this but it helps to read up about the subject from those who currently work with the protocol itself.
I also feel that you believe that Mastodon is above the law because it doesn't have any official presence in areas where age-verification laws exist, however the Mississippi law that Bluesky is protesting, for example, applies nondiscriminately to all platforms, regardless of where they are based.
I really don't want to come off as saying that Bluesky is a better platform, rather that I want to hold you accountable for any "not invented here" biases that you might have.
@eblu @quillmatiq @jack @laurenshof @jsit @bsky.app Two separate discussions here. I'll start with the second one. This isn't about Mastodon the organization. Mastodon gGmbH is certainly not above the law. But even if Mastodon gGmbH was legally forced to block users from Mississippi, the only thing we could do is block them from mastodon.social. The fediverse does not have an owner that can make this call. Every operator decides this individually.
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@eblu @quillmatiq @jack @laurenshof @jsit @bsky.app Two separate discussions here. I'll start with the second one. This isn't about Mastodon the organization. Mastodon gGmbH is certainly not above the law. But even if Mastodon gGmbH was legally forced to block users from Mississippi, the only thing we could do is block them from mastodon.social. The fediverse does not have an owner that can make this call. Every operator decides this individually.
@Gargron @quillmatiq @jack @laurenshof @jsit @bsky.app Yep, there's nothing really incorrect here (outside of that Mastodon is also responsible for mastodon.online). I should mention that this is also what Bluesky is essentially doing; they've blocked off access to the frontend that they control, while leaving the user data and relays that they host accessible. Anything built on their protocol can still communicate with it, and they do not have to implement geo-blocking because Bluesky does not control them.
I do understand your concern, however; there's nothing stopping them from outright blocking anything independently operated from pulling from their relays or directly from their PDSes themselves. But the same could be said about Mastodon instances through the practice of defederation.
Bluesky technically has the upper hand here because they architected their protocol in a way where each user is identified by a decentralized ID instead of a URI tied to a specific hostname, and full data portability is strictly specified, something that Mastodon only partially has an analog to, however it still remains a social issue because most people don't really want to move off of Bluesky servers at this time, or are even aware that it's an option.
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@Gargron @quillmatiq @jack @laurenshof @jsit @bsky.app Yep, there's nothing really incorrect here (outside of that Mastodon is also responsible for mastodon.online). I should mention that this is also what Bluesky is essentially doing; they've blocked off access to the frontend that they control, while leaving the user data and relays that they host accessible. Anything built on their protocol can still communicate with it, and they do not have to implement geo-blocking because Bluesky does not control them.
I do understand your concern, however; there's nothing stopping them from outright blocking anything independently operated from pulling from their relays or directly from their PDSes themselves. But the same could be said about Mastodon instances through the practice of defederation.
Bluesky technically has the upper hand here because they architected their protocol in a way where each user is identified by a decentralized ID instead of a URI tied to a specific hostname, and full data portability is strictly specified, something that Mastodon only partially has an analog to, however it still remains a social issue because most people don't really want to move off of Bluesky servers at this time, or are even aware that it's an option.
@eblu @quillmatiq @jack @laurenshof @jsit @bsky.app The major difference between AT Proto and ActivityPub is that in ActivityPub, nodes communicate directly with each other, without relying on a third party. Mastodon (as an organization) could disappear along with mastodon.social overnight, and the fediverse would continue to function flawlessly (although you'd stop getting cool new software updates from us, until someone else stepped in).
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