#socialnetworks — Public Fediverse posts

Looks cool. Makes me remind me of the good old days of What.cd :-D

“ Telling us in a few words about their friends or comrades on our server or how their work relates to the community we are aiming for. “Signups” became actual human connections again, we understood who was joining and because there was a direct line of communication we could add a few remarks about maybe following the account used to send around status messages about the server itself and other onboarding info. For us the workflow is marginally harder than just clicking “yes” or “no” in the admin interface, but generating an invitation link and responding to the email also is not that much work. And at least for me it totally changed my emotional response to this moderation task: It is cool to see interesting people sign up, look at their websites and work. It feels like welcoming a new person to a party and less like fighting away spam bots.

So for us this new process works well. And I understand that this manual process does not scale up to these massive servers with tens of thousands of users. But maybe that’s a good thing? Maybe that is an indicator that these huge servers are just a bad idea? That we should structure the internet and our platforms around smaller, more connected groups that then connect to others.”

https://tante.cc/2026/09/10/making-social-media-social/

#SocialMedia #SocialNetworks #Fediverse #Mastodon #Spam #Bots #Decentralization

Looks cool. Makes me remind me of the good old days of What.cd :-D

“ Telling us in a few words about their friends or comrades on our server or how their work relates to the community we are aiming for. “Signups” became actual human connections again, we understood who was joining and because there was a direct line of communication we could add a few remarks about maybe following the account used to send around status messages about the server itself and other onboarding info. For us the workflow is marginally harder than just clicking “yes” or “no” in the admin interface, but generating an invitation link and responding to the email also is not that much work. And at least for me it totally changed my emotional response to this moderation task: It is cool to see interesting people sign up, look at their websites and work. It feels like welcoming a new person to a party and less like fighting away spam bots.

So for us this new process works well. And I understand that this manual process does not scale up to these massive servers with tens of thousands of users. But maybe that’s a good thing? Maybe that is an indicator that these huge servers are just a bad idea? That we should structure the internet and our platforms around smaller, more connected groups that then connect to others.”

https://tante.cc/2026/09/10/making-social-media-social/

#SocialMedia #SocialNetworks #Fediverse #Mastodon #Spam #Bots #Decentralization

Looks cool. Makes me remind me of the good old days of What.cd :-D

“ Telling us in a few words about their friends or comrades on our server or how their work relates to the community we are aiming for. “Signups” became actual human connections again, we understood who was joining and because there was a direct line of communication we could add a few remarks about maybe following the account used to send around status messages about the server itself and other onboarding info. For us the workflow is marginally harder than just clicking “yes” or “no” in the admin interface, but generating an invitation link and responding to the email also is not that much work. And at least for me it totally changed my emotional response to this moderation task: It is cool to see interesting people sign up, look at their websites and work. It feels like welcoming a new person to a party and less like fighting away spam bots.

So for us this new process works well. And I understand that this manual process does not scale up to these massive servers with tens of thousands of users. But maybe that’s a good thing? Maybe that is an indicator that these huge servers are just a bad idea? That we should structure the internet and our platforms around smaller, more connected groups that then connect to others.”

https://tante.cc/2026/09/10/making-social-media-social/

#SocialMedia #SocialNetworks #Fediverse #Mastodon #Spam #Bots #Decentralization

Looks cool. Makes me remind me of the good old days of What.cd :-D

“ Telling us in a few words about their friends or comrades on our server or how their work relates to the community we are aiming for. “Signups” became actual human connections again, we understood who was joining and because there was a direct line of communication we could add a few remarks about maybe following the account used to send around status messages about the server itself and other onboarding info. For us the workflow is marginally harder than just clicking “yes” or “no” in the admin interface, but generating an invitation link and responding to the email also is not that much work. And at least for me it totally changed my emotional response to this moderation task: It is cool to see interesting people sign up, look at their websites and work. It feels like welcoming a new person to a party and less like fighting away spam bots.

So for us this new process works well. And I understand that this manual process does not scale up to these massive servers with tens of thousands of users. But maybe that’s a good thing? Maybe that is an indicator that these huge servers are just a bad idea? That we should structure the internet and our platforms around smaller, more connected groups that then connect to others.”

https://tante.cc/2026/09/10/making-social-media-social/

#SocialMedia #SocialNetworks #Fediverse #Mastodon #Spam #Bots #Decentralization

Looks cool. Makes me remind me of the good old days of What.cd :-D

“ Telling us in a few words about their friends or comrades on our server or how their work relates to the community we are aiming for. “Signups” became actual human connections again, we understood who was joining and because there was a direct line of communication we could add a few remarks about maybe following the account used to send around status messages about the server itself and other onboarding info. For us the workflow is marginally harder than just clicking “yes” or “no” in the admin interface, but generating an invitation link and responding to the email also is not that much work. And at least for me it totally changed my emotional response to this moderation task: It is cool to see interesting people sign up, look at their websites and work. It feels like welcoming a new person to a party and less like fighting away spam bots.

So for us this new process works well. And I understand that this manual process does not scale up to these massive servers with tens of thousands of users. But maybe that’s a good thing? Maybe that is an indicator that these huge servers are just a bad idea? That we should structure the internet and our platforms around smaller, more connected groups that then connect to others.”

https://tante.cc/2026/09/10/making-social-media-social/

#SocialMedia #SocialNetworks #Fediverse #Mastodon #Spam #Bots #Decentralization

“ Portugal is leading the movement against ‘addictive design’ on digital platforms.

D3 is the Portuguese association for the defence of digital rights, and a member of EDRI – European Digital Rights, the European network of NGOs dedicated to digital rights and freedoms, which brings together more than 50 other organisations and dozens of observers, and which is celebrating its 23rd anniversary this year.

Leading the European movement against addictive design on social media, D3 has brought four cases before the Portuguese civil courts against the platforms Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, acting as a collective representative of the rights of the Portuguese people.

The class actions were brought in April and May this year by the law firm Andersen Tax & Legal Iberia, by a team of lawyers led by Dr Miguel Miranda and Dr Efigénia Marabuto Tavares, with the support of academic experts Professor Dr Fabrizio Esposito and Dr Cecília Isola, from the NOVA School of Law.”

https://direitosdigitais.pt/comunicados-imprensa/178-d3-files-the-first-class-action-lawsuits-in-europe-over-addictive-design-against-facebook-instagram-tiktok-and-youtube

#SocialMedia #SocialNetworks #AddictiveDesign #Facebook #Instagram #TikTok #YouTube

Engadget: New Twitter rebrands to Tweet.app after court’s double-edged ruling . “The Tweet.app website is currently live, but is still only accepting waitlist applicants for its upcoming social media platform. According to TechCrunch, more than 172,000 have already signed up and requested a handle, which costs $20 to reserve.”

Chi è chi?
https://pensieri-eretici.blogspot.com/2026/09/chi-e-chi.html
#io
#voi
#socialnetworks
#rete
#oggettività

Ars Technica: New Twitter launches, says Musk’s X gave up the name. “Operation Bluebird, the Virginia-based startup trying to revive the allegedly abandoned ‘Twitter’ name and logo, announced Monday that it has launched its new social media network: Twitter.now.”

Anatomy of Deception II: The Factory of Truth

https://web.brid.gy/r/https://www.pressenza.com/2026/08/anatomy-of-deception-ii-the-factory-of-truth/

Today on NovaLandia: "My Experimentation with Bluesky is Over"

The extremely cool and awesome villain in Farcry 3 once said, "Do you know the definition of insanity?" Doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results. And I feel like I've ...

https://mkultra.monster/socialmedia/2026/07/20/bluesky-done/

#bluesky #twitter #onlinecommunities #socialnetworks #toxicity

Running out of content to post is worse than having too much content to post (at least for me) 🙂‍↕️

#sofiaflorina #ソフィアフロリナ #content #contents #internet #theinternet #socialmedia #sns #socialnetworkingsite #socialnetworkingsites #socialnetworkingservice #socialnetworkingservices #socialnetwork #socialnetworks #socialneyworking #post #posts #idea #ideas #contentidea

YouTubers revolt as YouTube launches AI tool that “remixes” other peoples’ Shorts

https://www.dexerto.com/youtube/youtubers-revolt-as-youtube-launches-ai-tool-that-remixes-other-peoples-shorts-3366725/

#youtube #youtubenews #youtubestudio #youtuberevolt #youtubeanger #shorts #ytshorts #socialmedia #socialnetworks #aitools #ainews #ai #youtubeai #technews #tech #youtuberemixes #youtubecreators #creators #streamers #gamers #google #googlenews #googleomni #aislop #youtubeslop #videosslop

If you thought that it couldn't get any worse than #SocialMedia #addiction,... I come bearing bad news. Check out this #horror:

#AI #Psychosis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxmIIYj5FQE

You didn't expect the #oligarchs to leave a revolutionary new #technology uncorrupted, did you?

Just get off the #internet and create real-world #SocialNetworks. We can retrofit #technology into it according to OUR needs. Oh, BTW! Keep the KIDS OFF OF IT! This isn't #BrainRot. This is literal #BrainDamage!

#LLM #ChatGPT

Clix gets special Twitch deal, allowing him to charge $10 per subscription

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us-streamers/twitch-streamer-clix-raises-subscription-price-to-10-after-exclusive-deal/articleshow/129762173.cms

#clixstreamer #streamers #gaming #twitch #twitchnews #twitchdeal #twitchsub #streaming #raisedprice #socialmedia #socialnetworks #tech #technews

Clix gets special Twitch deal, allowing him to charge $10 per subscription

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us-streamers/twitch-streamer-clix-raises-subscription-price-to-10-after-exclusive-deal/articleshow/129762173.cms

#clixstreamer #streamers #gaming #twitch #twitchnews #twitchdeal #twitchsub #streaming #raisedprice #socialmedia #socialnetworks #tech #technews

Clix gets special Twitch deal, allowing him to charge $10 per subscription

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us-streamers/twitch-streamer-clix-raises-subscription-price-to-10-after-exclusive-deal/articleshow/129762173.cms

#clixstreamer #streamers #gaming #twitch #twitchnews #twitchdeal #twitchsub #streaming #raisedprice #socialmedia #socialnetworks #tech #technews

Clix gets special Twitch deal, allowing him to charge $10 per subscription

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us-streamers/twitch-streamer-clix-raises-subscription-price-to-10-after-exclusive-deal/articleshow/129762173.cms

#clixstreamer #streamers #gaming #twitch #twitchnews #twitchdeal #twitchsub #streaming #raisedprice #socialmedia #socialnetworks #tech #technews

Clix gets special Twitch deal, allowing him to charge $10 per subscription

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us-streamers/twitch-streamer-clix-raises-subscription-price-to-10-after-exclusive-deal/articleshow/129762173.cms

#clixstreamer #streamers #gaming #twitch #twitchnews #twitchdeal #twitchsub #streaming #raisedprice #socialmedia #socialnetworks #tech #technews

Users Are Too Dependent on Centralized Techno-Fascist Corporate Structure to Ever Leave Discord

I’m watching people scatter into countless real-time chat alternatives to Discord after Discord started pulling the age-verification and age-gating card.

https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/09/discord-to-roll-out-age-verification-next-month-for-full-access-to-its-platform/

It’s very frustrating because people are entirely missing the point of a community and how social networks work. Real-time platforms and social media networks only work well when a large number of people share the same space at the same time. If everyone creates separate servers or competing apps, the result is fragmentation that makes it unviable.

One reason why Bluesky became so successful is the invitation and starter-pack move. It essentially allowed people to move collectively as cliques. Bluesky used invitations and starter packs to move groups of friends together. This kept communities intact. Moving as cliques preserves network structure, whereas random scattering does not. People aren’t do not seem to intend to move as cliques or subgraphs of networks off of Discord. And the whole reason people were on Discord was to host their communities, so an alternative becomes pointless if your community doesn’t remain intact.

Instead of an active, strongly connected, possibly distributed network, you get dozens of small pockets. I am referring to a potential distributed network rather than a single centralized platform, because Matrix is an example of a decentralized chat protocol. Not all alternatives have to be centralized like Discord. Technically, many older chat protocols, such as XMPP and IRC, are examples of federated real-time synchronous messaging. They allowed communication between users on different, independently operated servers. Federation means that multiple servers can interconnect so that users from separate networks can exchange messages with one another seamlessly.

Decentralized alternatives would not be a problem if people moved to the same distributed network as cohesive groups. However, what I am seeing is that people move in disconnected and stochastic ways to entirely separate distributed networks, so communities are not kept intact. For example, when people move to XMPP servers or Matrix servers, it bifurcates and disconnects social networks. Notice I said XMPP or Matrix, which logically means people are on Matrix but not XMPP, or they are on XMPP but not Matrix. That implies a person would need to be on both Matrix and XMPP to speak to their original community from Discord if it split down the middle. To synchronize conversations in chats, there would need to be a bridge. It’s a pretty complicated solution.

The likely outcome is that people will remain on the dominant platform because of its scale and structure. The deeper irony is that while people may want independence from corporate platforms, they often struggle to organize effectively without the centralized structure those platforms provide. They’ve become so dependent on corporate structures to support their communities that they have no clue how to organize their own social networks in a sustainable way.

I’ve always been an internet nerd, but most of my social life has been offline. I view my interactions with the social app layer of the internet as a game, so losing that domain of the Internet is not devastating to me.

I’ll give you an example. This is a WordPress site. You hear this insincere nostalgia from Millennials and Gen X for a simulacrum that never was, especially concerning forums. Check this out: when you go into the plugin installation section of WordPress, this is on the second row you see:

https://bbpress.org/

That means any WordPress site has the capability to host a forum. They’re nostalgic for a setup where you can use a simple install script on any hosting service to install WordPress. After that, you can then just add a plugin to turn it into a forum. Hell, they can do this on WordPress.com if they don’t want to self-host.

You can make a forum, but no one will use it because they’d rather use a centralized platform like Reddit. Users have become so dependent on corporations to structure and organize communities that they can’t do it themselves. It’s sort of like the cognitive debt that accrues when people outsource their thinking to AI.

The issue is not that forums are hard to host or create; rather, the issue is that people have become so dependent on centralized corporate structures that they can’t maintain or organize their own communities, which is why everyone ends up on Reddit or Discord. A reason I keep hearing for why people don’t want to leave Discord is that it’s hard to recreate the community structure that Discord’s features provide. They claim that they want independence from corporate platforms, but rely on the centralized structure those platforms provide to function socially.

People say they want decentralized freedom, but in practice they depend on centralized platforms to maintain social cohesion. Stochastically scattering to the digital winds of the noosphere destroys the very communities they’re trying to preserve.

@cloudskater wrote:

Some instances are run by bad people. Hell, a few projects like Lemmy and Matrix are DEVELOPED by assholes, but the FLOSS and federated nature of these platforms allows us to bypass/fork them and create healthy spaces outside their reach.

Nope, that is actually what is killing the fediverse. I just explained here:

The issue is the divergence in semantic interpretation that emerges at the interpretation layer. ActivityPub standardizes message delivery and defines common activity types. However, it leaves extension semantics and application-layer policy decisions to individual implementations. Servers may introduce custom JSON-LD namespaces and enforce local behaviors, such as reply restrictions, while remaining protocol-compliant. But, the noise created by divergences are problematic, because it creates unexpected, unintended, and unpredictable behavior.

Divergence appears when implementations rely on non-normative metadata and assume reciprocal handling to preserve a consistent user experience. Behavioral alignment then varies. Syntactic exchange succeeds, but behavioral consistency is not guaranteed. Though instances continue to federate at the transport level, policy semantics and processing logic differ across deployments. Those differences produce inconsistent experiences and results between implementations.

That leads to fragmentation, specifically semantic or behavioral fragmentation and an inconsistent user experiences. ActivityPub ensures syntactic interoperability, but semantic interoperability (everyone interprets and enforces rules the same way) varies. This creates a system that is federated at the transport level yet fragmented in behavior and expectations across implementations. It is funny how the thing that the fediverse touted has made the entire thing very brittle. ActivityPub technically federates correctly, but semantically falls apart once servers start adding their own behavioral rules.

https://neon-blue-demon-wyrm.x10.network/archives/16932

FYI, I’m not doing culture wars or political debates. I’m just saying this idea of “forking away” from them is literally breaking the fediverse’s distributed network and creating all kinds of issues with semantic interoperability. Yes, federation is still happening at the delivery level, but the semantic issues are out of fucking control. You are a federation by the very sheer skin of your teeth.

The reason why developers are leaving the fediverse is because you folks don’t take criticism. You respond to criticism with — I’m being so serious right now — political manifestos and harassing developers. ActivityPub developers and authors oversold you folks on the capabilities of ActivityStreams. They flat-out lied to y’all.

↬bark.lgbt/@cloudskater/116080965694723006

ActivityPub Server’s Custom Reply‑Control Extensions Undermine Federation

It seems like Activitbypub developers are extending ActivityPub with optional metadata to fix a lot of its issues, but that is still problematic. Trying to add moderation tools and user control to threads seems to be the ongoing battle. I am fascinated by dumpster fires, so I’ve started looking at the ActivityPub protocol in detail. I tend to become fascinated with things that are going down in flames.

As a brief recap of the problem:

So, one of the very popular features on Bluesky—also popular on Twitter—is the ability to select who can reply to a post. A major issue in the Fediverse is the inability to decide who can reply, and once you block someone, their harassing reply is still there. I honestly thought it was simply a case of them choosing not to add or address it for cultural reasons. What is clear from that thread is that they were always aware that the ActivityPub protocol and most Fediverse implementations don’t provide a universal way to control reply visibility or enforce blocks across instances.

An ActivityPub server that has reply control is GoToSocial. ActivityPub, as defined by the W3C specification, standardizes how servers federate activities. It defines actors, inboxes, outboxes, and activity types (Create, Follow, Like, Announce, etc.) expressed using ActivityStreams 2.0. It also specifies delivery mechanics (including how a Create activity reaches another server’s inbox) and how collections behave.

The specification does not include interaction policy semantics such as “only followers may reply” or “replies require manual approval.” There is no field in the normative vocabulary requiring conforming servers to enforce reply permissions. That category of rule is outside the protocol’s defined contract.

GoToSocial implements reply controls through what it calls interaction policies. These appear as additional properties on ActivityStreams objects using a custom JSON-LD namespace controlled by the GoToSocial project.

JSON-LD permits additional namespaced terms. This means the document remains structurally valid ActivityStreams and federates normally. The meaning of those custom fields, however, comes from GoToSocial’s own documentation and implementation. Other servers can ignore them without violating ActivityPub because they are not part of the interoperable core vocabulary.

Enforcement occurs locally. When a remote server sends a reply—a Create activity whose object references another via inReplyTo—ActivityPub governs delivery, not acceptance criteria. Whether the receiving server checks a reply policy, rejects the activity, queues it, or displays it is determined in the server’s inbox-processing code. The decision to accept, display, or require approval happens after successful protocol-level delivery. This behavior belongs to the application layer.

These are server-side features layered on top of ActivityPub’s transport and data model that are not actually part of ActivityPub. The protocol ensures standardized delivery of activities; however, the server implementation defines additional constraints and user-facing behavior. Two GoToSocial instances may both recognize and act on the same extension fields. However, a different implementation, such as Mastodon, has no obligation under the specification to interpret or enforce GoToSocial’s interactionPolicy properties. These fields function as extension metadata rather than protocol requirements.

The semantics of GoToSocial are not part of the specification’s defined vocabulary and processing rules for ActivityPub. They no longer operate purely at the protocol layer; it has become an application-layer contract implemented by specific servers.

Let’s use the AT Protocol as an example. Bluesky’s direct messages (DMs) are not currently part of the AT Protocol (ATProto). The AT Protocol has nothing that specifies anything for DMs, so DMs are not part of the AT Protocol. The AT Protocol was designed to handle public social interactions, but it does not define private or encrypted messaging. Bluesky implemented DMs at the application level, outside of the core protocol. DMs are centralized and stored on Bluesky’s servers. What is happening with servers like GoToSocial is sort of like that. The difference is that the AT Protocol was designed for different app views; ActivityPub was not.

The issue is the divergence in semantic interpretation that emerges at the interpretation layer. ActivityPub standardizes message delivery and defines common activity types. However, it leaves extension semantics and application-layer policy decisions to individual implementations. Servers may introduce custom JSON-LD namespaces and enforce local behaviors, such as reply restrictions, while remaining protocol-compliant. But, the noise created by divergences are problematic, because it creates unexpected, unintended, and unpredictable behavior.

Divergence appears when implementations rely on non-normative metadata and assume reciprocal handling to preserve a consistent user experience. Behavioral alignment then varies. Syntactic exchange succeeds, but behavioral consistency is not guaranteed. Though instances continue to federate at the transport level, policy semantics and processing logic differ across deployments. Those differences produce inconsistent experiences and results between implementations.

That leads to fragmentation, specifically semantic or behavioral fragmentation and an inconsistent user experiences. ActivityPub ensures syntactic interoperability, but semantic interoperability (everyone interprets and enforces rules the same way) varies. This creates a system that is federated at the transport level yet fragmented in behavior and expectations across implementations. It is funny how the thing that the fediverse touted has made the entire thing very brittle. ActivityPub technically federates correctly, but semantically falls apart once servers start adding their own behavioral rules.

Stepping Back From Social Media To Read a Book

I’m taking a break. After spending like two years in the worst parts of the Internet modeling the memetic spread of conspiracy-driven behavioral patterns and developing social media software as a side hustle, I think I’m going to take a step back and… I don’t know… maybe read a book? lol.

I’m a Computational Biologist who pretty much studies the memetics of conspiracy theories and how they act as another vector/epidemiological layer. I’ve also been working on various contracts for social media development stuff. Working on the shit I’ve been working on for years forces you to see the worst parts of people that they split off. It makes you hate everyone — and I mean everyone.

Your BlueSky Feed Is Porn You Didn’t Ask For Because Your Friends Are Gooners With a Severe Porn Addiction

A common complaint I see people make on Bluesky is: why am I being served so much porn or things I am not interested in? They will incorrectly believe that the algorithm is broken. It’s not broken. You didn’t know the people you knew as well as you thought you did. Porn addiction is a thing, and porn addiction is especially common with weebs. You’re seeing deranged shit because people you follow have porn addictions and are into deranged shit. So, though you may not be consuming porn, people in your network are. That activity kicks into your feeds.

The issue I have with that is that it essentially normalizes being sex pests in a space on the Internet. That sets the expectation that it is good—attractive, even—to act like that elsewhere. That expectation alienates relationships. Bluesky creates a cultural space that offers an unrealistic, bizarre representation of social relationships, which isolates and alienates the users who stay on there consuming erotica and porn like they do.

So, user repos in Bluesky have a property for likes. Bluesky’s underlying AT Protocol stores likes as first-class structured records in each user’s AT Protocol repository. In the AT Protocol lexicon, a like is an app.bsky.feed.like record type. Unlike a simple boolean flag on a post, it is its own record with a creation timestamp and a subject field that holds a strong reference to the liked record.

That strong reference is composed of an AT-URI and a CID. The AT-URI identifies the exact record in the network by DID, collection, and record key. The CID is a cryptographic content identifier that uniquely identifies the exact content of that liked record.

These like records exist under the app.bsky.feed.like namespace in the user’s repo. Bluesky’s repo model is built so that these repos are hosted on a user’s Personal Data Server and are publicly readable through the AT Protocol APIs. Because of that, the like record and its fields can be fetched, indexed, and used by any client or service that can query the protocol.

The protocol exposes operations like getLikes. This returns all of the like records tied to a particular subject’s AT-URI and CID. It also exposes getActorLikes. This returns all of the subject references a given actor has liked. Those API calls return structured like objects with timestamps and subject references directly from the public repository data.

Various feeds hosted by different PDSs use the likes property to construct the feeds that you see. Since the likes of people you follow are included in your social graph, along with your own likes, you’re going to get served the porn they are consuming. Because likes are public and anyone can write an algorithm to see everyone’s likes, you can clearly see just how much porn people are consuming.

Honestly, what started to turn my stomach about the people on Bluesky is how they behave across different contexts. If you look through the records of the posts they interact with, you’ll see them engaging with political posts in the replies like a normal person. Then, when you look through their AT Protocol records, you see hours and hours of them interacting with every kind of porn imaginable. I am not exaggerating. Hours of likes for porn posts within 1–10 minutes of each other. Am I sex-negative? A prude? No, this site is filled with furry, gay bara porn, lol. You can have a drink without being an alcoholic. The problem with these people is like people who can’t have one drink without drinking the whole fucking day; they can’t consume porn in healthy ways.

I think people assume that their feed is customized for them and based on their likes. No—feeds are generalized based on what everyone likes and then served to your subgraph. It’s not just about who you follow; it’s about who they follow. So if you follow someone who follows a lot of people with porn addictions, you will see porn. Bluesky isn’t weighting the algorithm to do this. Basically, it’s the people in your social network with furry, hentai, or trans porn addictions who are driving it.

BlueSky’s Solution To Moderating Is Moderating Without Moderating via Social Proximity

I have noticed a lot of people are confused about why some posts don’t show up on threads, though they are not labeled by the moderation layer. Bluesky has begun using what it calls social neighborhoods (or network proximity) as a ranking signal for replies in threads. Replies from people who are closer to you in the social graph, accounts you follow, interact with, or share mutual connections with, are prioritized and shown more prominently. Replies from accounts that are farther away in that network are down-ranked. They are pushed far down the thread or placed behind “hidden replies.”

Each person gets their own unique view of a thread based on their social graph. It creates the impression that replies from distant users simply don’t exist. This is true even though they’re still technically public and viewable if you expand the thread or adjust filters. Bluesky is explicitly using features of subgraphs to moderate without moderating. Their reasoning is that if you can’t see each other, you can’t harass each other. Ergo, there is nothing to moderate.

Bluesky mentions that here:

https://bsky.social/about/blog/10-31-2025-building-healthier-social-media-update

As a digression, I’m not going to lie: I really enjoyed working on software built on the AT protocol, but their fucking users are so goddamn weird. It’s sort of like enjoying building houses, but hating every single person who moves into them. But, you don’t have to deal with them because you’re just the contractor. That is how I feel about Bluesky. I hate the people. I really like the protocol and infrastructure.

I sort of am a sadist who does enjoy drama, so I do get schadenfreude from people with social media addictions and parasocial fixations who reply to random people on Bluesky, because they don’t realize their replies are disconnected from the author’s thread unless that person is within their network. They aren’t part of the conversation they think they are. They’re algorithmically isolated from everyone else. Their replies aren’t viewable from the author’s thread because of how Bluesky handles social neighborhoods.

Bluesky’s idea of social neighborhoods is about grouping users into overlapping clusters based on real interaction patterns rather than just the follow graph. Unlike Twitter, it does not treat the network as one big public square. Instead, it models networks of “social neighborhoods” made up of people you follow, people who follow you, people you frequently interact with, and people who are closely connected to those groups. They’re soft, probabilistic groupings rather than strict labels.

Everyone does not see the same replies. Bluesky is being a bit vague with “hidden.” Hidden means your reply is still anchored to the thread and can be expanded. There is another way Bluesky can handle this. Bluesky uses social neighborhoods to judge contextual relevance. Replies from people inside or near your social neighborhood are more likely to be shown inline with a thread, expanded by default, or served in feeds. Replies from outside your neighborhood are still public and still indexed, but they’re treated as lower-context contributions.

Basically, if you reply to a thread, you will see it anchored to the conversation, and everyone will see it in search results, as a hashtag, or from your profile, but it will not be accessible via the thread of the person you were replying to. It is like shadow-banning people from threads unless they are strongly networked.

Because people have not been working with the AT Protocol like I have, they assume they are shadow-banned across the entire Bluesky app view. No—everyone is automatically shadow-banned from everyone else unless they are within the same social neighborhood. In other words, you are not part of the conversation you think you are joining because you are not part of their social group.

Your replies will appear in profiles, hashtag feeds, or search results without being visually anchored to the full thread. Discovery impressions are neighborhood-agnostic: they serve content because it matches a query, tag, or activity stream. Once the reply is shown, the app then decides whether it’s worth pulling in the rest of the conversation for you. If the original author and most participants fall outside your neighborhood, Bluesky often chooses not to expand that context automatically.

Bluesky really is trying to avoid having to moderate, so this is their solution. Instead of banning or issuing takedown labels to DIDs, the system lets replies exist everywhere, but not in that particular instance of the thread.

I find this ironic because a large reason why many people are staying on Bluesky and not moving to the fediverse—thank God, because I do not want them there—is discoverability, virality, and engagement.

In case anyone is asking how I know so much about how these algorithms work: I was a consultant on a lot of these types of algorithms, so I certainly hope I’d know how they work, lol. No, you get no more details about the work I’ve done. I have no hand in the algorithm Bluesky is using, but I have proposed and implemented that type of algorithm before.

I have an interest in noetics and the noosphere. A large amount of my ontological work is an extension of my attempts to model domains that have no spatial or temporal coordinates. The question is how do you generalize a metric space that has no physically, spatial properties. I went to school to try to formalize those ideas. Turns out they’re rather useful for digital social networks, too. The ontological analog to spatial distance, when you have no space, is a graph of similarities.

[RAMBLE] offers privacy-respecting user forums similar to Reddit

You may have seen many Reddit alternatives popping up on the Fediverse over the last few years, and some of them are pretty busy. I’ve done posts over the years on BeeHaw and similar sites there.

And although they are decentralised servers, they ...continues

See https://gadgeteer.co.za/ramble-offers-privacy-respecting-user-forums-similar-to-reddit/

#alternativesto #privacy #socialnetworks #technology

[RAMBLE] offers privacy-respecting user forums similar to Reddit

https://squeet.me/display/962c3e10-34695b3e-3b99617e43ad81cc

Saturday, November 29, 2025

https://activitypub.writeworks.uk/2025/11/saturday-november-29-2025/

The AI Fix #65: Excel Copilot will wreck your data, and can AI fix social media? – Source: grahamcluley.com https://ciso2ciso.com/the-ai-fix-65-excel-copilot-will-wreck-your-data-and-can-ai-fix-social-media-source-grahamcluley-com/ #rssfeedpostgeneratorecho #ArtificialIntelligence #CyberSecurityNews #grahamcluleycom #microsoftexcel #Socialnetworks #Grahamcluley #SocialMedia #Microsoft #TheAIFix #Podcast #AI

Cobalt Strike Beacon delivered via GitHub and social media – Source: securelist.com https://ciso2ciso.com/cobalt-strike-beacon-delivered-via-github-and-social-media-source-securelist-com/ #rssfeedpostgeneratorecho #MalwareDescriptions #MalwareTechnologies #CyberSecurityNews #Targetedattacks #cyberespionage #DLLsideloading #Socialnetworks #Windowsmalware #securelistcom #CobaltStrike #DLLhijacking #shellcode #research #Malware #GitHub #Trojan

The Conversation: Using TikTok could be making you more politically polarized, new study finds. “Some people are more outspoken about politics than others. We found that users with stronger political leanings and those who get more likes and comments on their videos are more motivated to keep posting. This shows the power of partisanship, but also the power of TikTok’s social rewards […]

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/06/30/the-conversation-using-tiktok-could-be-making-you-more-politically-polarized-new-study-finds/

"#Socialnetworks were built on short posts designed for #speed & #scale. But what if the next era of the web was built for something deeper?
Two of the #socialweb’s “#longformers”…John O’Nolan, CEO of #Ghost, and Matthias Pfefferle, developer of the #ActivityPubplugin for #WordPress, are integrating social features with blogs, newsletters, essays…
We talk about rediscovering the magic of the #blogosphere… and where writing belongs in the next chapter of the internet."
https://pca.st/episode/39d99baa-2047-4192-8353-16858684b1de

Concordia University: New Concordia research shows social networks are vulnerable to relatively simple AI manipulation and polarization. “It seems that no matter the topic of conversation, online opinion around it will be split into two seemingly irreconcilable camps. That’s largely a result of these platforms’ design, as the algorithms driving them direct users to like-minded peers. This […]

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/04/17/concordia-university-new-concordia-research-shows-social-networks-are-vulnerable-to-relatively-simple-ai-manipulation-and-polarization/

Spotted on Mastodon: a spreadsheet of 900 media outlets with a Fediverse presence. “I did it! Although it’s still very rough & really not pretty, I got my spreadsheet with (> 900) verified accounts of media organizations in the #Fediverse away from #Google. The solution was #DataTables all along.”

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/04/09/spotted-on-mastodon-a-spreadsheet-of-over-900-media-outlets-with-a-fediverse-presence/

How The #US Became So #Dysfunctional, #Oligarchic, And #Corrupt – #OpEd

#DomesticPolitics in the #US is, superficially, dominated by incessant #public #fights between different #factions of the two ostensibly rival #PoliticalParties, thanks to the #collaboration of #establishment #media and many #socialnetworks.

https://www.eurasiareview.com/27012025-how-the-us-became-so-dysfunctional-oligarchic-and-corrupt-oped/

Molt bon article d' @Albertlloreta amb el títol “Per què deixaràs X (i sí, també Instagram i la resta de plataformes privades)."

https://mastodon.social/@sralane/113868438240622048

#SocialNetworks #XarxesSocials #twitterexit #quitx #eXit #Xitter #XitterMigration

The last few days have put me into a prolonged, slow burning state of freak out. Fun.

My friend’s father passed away on Monday. My father went into the hospital on Tuesday. No details on either situation will be forthcoming. We just got clobbered by a thunderstorm which, it turns out, was rough enough to knock out the power in the hospital. The backup generators kicked in a second later, but woah.

I am planning to go to the hospital after work tonight. I need to make dinner first but then I’ll go for a quick visit before visiting hours end. Tomorrow morning is the funeral. I’ll go to the hospital afterwards. How’s that for a tough day? The last few days have been bad, but tomorrow… woah.

On less important (re: not important at all) topics, I have one more episode of The Umbrella Academy’s final season to watch. I strongly suspect that once I finish that final episode I will immediately start a rewatch of the entire series from season one episode one. I think that is going to happen.

Earlier today I was looking at Threads (the twitter alternative social network made by the same assholes who make instagram and bookfayce which begs the question why the fuck am I giving this new social network site the time of day) and I posted that musically speaking, today is a Porcupine Tree kinda day (from a mental health standpoint, of course… meaning heavy and complicated and confusing if you’re not paying close attention). TWELVE MINUTES LATER I got a notification that the Porcupine Tree instagram account had been ported to Threads. They haven’t posted anything yet but I guess I should say you’re welcome?

I don’t know what the dad situation is going to be like this weekend but I do know that Bellana, my step daughter, is coming over for a visit. All the bad, scary stuff going on feels a little more bearable when the kids come by. I am really looking forward to seeing how she did at her conference this week. I want all the sciency details.

Speaking of science, from a nutritional standpoint I screwed up yesterday. I spent the whole day at the hospital with Dad and when I left the house I forgot to take my pill case with me. I took my breakfast vitamin pills before I left, and took my lunch vitamin pills when I got home for dinner. I was going to take my dinner vitamin pills before I went to sleep, but I fell asleep earlier than expected and missed that dose. Dummy. Note to self: bring the friggin’ pill case tomorrow. Dumb ass.

What else? Word from the hospital this afternoon is that Dad is starting to show early signs of coming out of whatever was wrong. My fingers and toes and eyes are all firmly crossed. Again, I am not sharing details beyond a small hint of optimism. Enjoy it while you can.

Okay, Robert. Stop stressing and get back to work. You have stuff to do. Do it.

https://robertjames1971.blog/2024/08/15/random-thoughts-9/

#dad #diet #facebook #Family #father #freakingOut #health #hospital #Instagram #MentalHealth #mentalWellBeing #nutrition #parent #science #scienceCamp #scienceConference #socialNetwork #socialNetworks #StepDaughter #StepKids #storm

You know what would be effective...

Asking #MajorBrands while at #PR events why they would #advertise on a #CSAMhosting website as a campaign with their #legal person and #CEO at major media events, #journalists.

This is a #bipartisan question btw so keep THAT in mind. 🧠🦉

#RTDNA #news #CSAMhosting #SocialNetworks #FreeWebHostingCulture

JOB POSTING: Gerry Carter is hiring a 5-year+ Research Senior Associate to supervise experiments in his lab on sociality and cooperation in a captive colony of vampire bats.

Gerry is absolutely phenomenal to work with and this position looks amazing! Please share far and wide!!

More info here: https://socialbat.org/research-scientist/

@jobsecoevo #bat #VampireBat #cooperation #BehavioralEcology #SocialNetworks #postdoc #ResearchScientist #Macademia

Why I think my posts on Mastodon consistently get more favourites and reshares than on Twitter

https://gadgeteer.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/social-media-400x293.jpg Once again we see a flood of new accounts being created on Mastodon and PixelFed, and similar ‘alternatives’ to Twitter and Instagram. And once again admins need to remind new users not to flock to […]

https://gadgeteer.co.za/why-i-think-my-posts-on-mastodon-get-more-favourites-and-reshares-than-on-twitter/

https://gadgeteer.co.za/why-i-think-my-posts-on-mastodon-get-more-favourites-and-reshares-than-on-twitter/

8 of the ‘best’ social apps on Android in 2022, which are not Facebook – Sometimes alternative apps are also better

https://gadgeteer.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/best-social-apps-featured-networks-400x249.jpg Like it or not, social media is essential in today’s society. While it can have its cons, the pros certainly outweigh them. Along with staying connected with family and friends, social media is a great […]

https://gadgeteer.co.za/8-of-the-best-social-apps-on-android-in-2022-which-are-not-facebook-sometimes-alternative-apps-are-also-better/

https://gadgeteer.co.za/8-of-the-best-social-apps-on-android-in-2022-which-are-not-facebook-sometimes-alternative-apps-are-also-better/

New PerthChat (Australian) Lemmy decentralised social network is an example of where social networks should be

https://gadgeteer.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/perthchat-400x273.jpg Lemmy is an open source alternative to Reddit, which has similar voting up and down of posts, threaded discussions about posts, and thriving communities. But there are some key differences from Reddit, Facebook, and such […]

https://gadgeteer.co.za/new-perthchat-australian-lemmy-decentralised-social-network-is-an-example-of-where-social-networks-should-be/

https://gadgeteer.co.za/new-perthchat-australian-lemmy-decentralised-social-network-is-an-example-of-where-social-networks-should-be/

Spotify’s Clubhouse clone adds six new weekly shows, some that tie to Spotify playlists - This summer, Spotify launched its live audio app and Clubhouse rival, Spotify Gree... - http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/QMIauCz0jf0/ #mobileapplications #spotifygreenroom #internetculture #socialnetworks #socialaudio #clubhouse #software #spotify #mobile #media #apps

Spotify’s Clubhouse rival, Greenroom, tops 140K installs on iOS, 100K on Android - Spotify’s recently launched live audio app and Clubhouse rival, Spotify Greenroom,... - http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/ssDssiQQjR4/ #mobileapplications #socialaudioapps #socialnetworks #sensortower #socialaudio #socialmedia #app-store #clubhouse #liveaudio #spotify #mobile #social #media #audio #apps #tc

MediaLab acquires messaging app Kik, expanding its app portfolio - Popular messaging app Kik is, indeed, “here to stay” following an acquisition by the Los Angeles-ba... more: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/2FQ4jFAP198/ #u.s.securitiesandexchangecommission #lightspeedventurepartners #programmaticadvertising #instantmessaging #operatingsystems #michaelheyward #shastaventures #socialnetworks #socialnetwork #kikmessenger #socialmedia #california #losangeles #sequoia