A few weeks ago I wrote about an interview that Substack CEO Chris Best did about his company’s new offering, Substack Notes, and his unwillingness to answer questions about specific content modera…
What I think this article is overlooking and in general what the idea behind content filtering in Blue Sky seems to ignore is that while there is certainly a subjective gradient in objectionable social media messages, its not something you randomly happen to come across.
Much rather it is either pushed into your face by some engagement optimizing algorithm, or intentionally spread by persons with certain agendas.
If it was just communities talking among themselves and having different opinions on stuff you would never even get to see them unless you intentionally join into a conversation of a community with diverging opinions.
Or to put it differently: it is perfectly feasible to run a fediverse instance with no block-list at all, as what you follow determines what your instance sees. A block-list only becomes necessary because people purposefully invade other communities to spread their hate and harass people.
And this problem is not really addressed by the Blue Sky content filtering at all. Much rather it seems to be just a way for the user to express some preference on how much random abuse the algorithm is going to shovel into their face on any given day.
From what I heard they did remove some especially bad accounts, so I don’t think this is quite true. But yes their plan is to not moderate much, but rather filter what people can see.
This is a companion to Fediverse Futures on Social Coding to elaborate the Fediverse from high-level, non-technical perspectives, brainstorming our visions and dreams.
We need a more holistic approach to fedi development and evolution. We need product designers, graphics artists, UX / UI / Interaction designers, futurists and visionaries to join the dev folks. Everyone is encouraged to join here and enrich our views on what Fediverse can be with diverse and different viewpoints, and to stimulate brainstorming, creativity, thinking out-of-the-box and crazy, wild ideas.
Some guidelines
Choose a descriptive title that speaks for itself.
Be substantive in your comments and stay on-topic.
Treat others as you want to be treated, respectful.
Don’t be overly critical, we are just brainstorming.
Reads a bit like a Blue Sky ad 😅
What I think this article is overlooking and in general what the idea behind content filtering in Blue Sky seems to ignore is that while there is certainly a subjective gradient in objectionable social media messages, its not something you randomly happen to come across.
Much rather it is either pushed into your face by some engagement optimizing algorithm, or intentionally spread by persons with certain agendas.
If it was just communities talking among themselves and having different opinions on stuff you would never even get to see them unless you intentionally join into a conversation of a community with diverging opinions.
Or to put it differently: it is perfectly feasible to run a fediverse instance with no block-list at all, as what you follow determines what your instance sees. A block-list only becomes necessary because people purposefully invade other communities to spread their hate and harass people.
And this problem is not really addressed by the Blue Sky content filtering at all. Much rather it seems to be just a way for the user to express some preference on how much random abuse the algorithm is going to shovel into their face on any given day.
bluesky has zero content moderation.
the speculation in the article is stupid.
From what I heard they did remove some especially bad accounts, so I don’t think this is quite true. But yes their plan is to not moderate much, but rather filter what people can see.