Decentralization and erasure: Blacksky, Bluesky, and the ATmosphere

Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦

@nyquildotorg my point is that words have meaning. "Decentralized" has meaning. And Bluesky-the-social-network simply does not meet the criteria to be called that.

If my Mastodon instance goes down, I can set up an account on another one, and reconnect with folks. A bit frustrating, but doable.

If Bluesky's Relay goes down, it doesn't matter which PDS I am on, that social network is dead.

ATproto might be decentralized on the PDS level, but it is not on the relay level.

@thenexusofprivacy

Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦

@nyquildotorg the problem with making analogies between fedi instances and ATproto instances is that these do not map one to another. I don't know what you mean when you say "ATproto instance."

Do you mean "a PDS"? Then there are many of them already.

Do you mean "an actually functional, usable service" the way a single Mastodon instance is? Then you have to include the Relay in that, but additional relays will not make Bluesky any more decentralized than it is. ‍️

@thenexusofprivacy

Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦

@nyquildotorg my "skin in the game" is that we cannot communicate effectively, if we allow terms to be diluted to a point of meaninglessness.

If we want to call Bluesky-the-social-network "decentralized" because some layer of ATproto features it to some extent (namely, PDSes), then we'd have to call Google Search decentralized because we can still self-host websites.

Problem is, a PDS is less directly useful to a person without a Relay than a website is without Google.

@thenexusofprivacy

Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦

@thenexusofprivacy of course there is no "Black-led network of people and servers in the ActivityPub Fediverse that has as much current and potential power as Blacksky does within the ATmosphere" because Bluesky is growing at a rate fedi has never grown, and because fedi sadly pushed a lot of Black folks away a while back.

The Nexus of Privacy

@rysiek there are still Black-led networks of people and servers here -- and Bluesky has also pushed away a lot of Black people. And rapid growth here has in the past diluted the power of marginalized groups (trans and queer people most noticeably), so to the extent the growth on Bluesky is increasing Blacksky's relative power, that highlights a difference in how power is diffused there than here.

If you look at the specific dynanics of the decentralization here, it's always revolved around white dominance. Check out the pic of the invitation-only 2010 Fedierated Web Summit at the start of Before Mastodon: GNU Social and other early fediverses. For the last 6-7 years, ever since Mastodon's embrace-and-extend of ActivityPub, Mastodon gGmbH and SWICG have the instititional power -- organizations which have in practice been unsupportive of Black-led projects and Black people as individuals (which in turn reinforces the dynamics that keep chasing Black people away).

My guess is that most if not all of the people I've seen commenting on the decentralization question would agree would this characterization. But it doesn't show up in their power analyses of decentralization -- like I say In the article, the power analyses of Bluesky's and ActivityPub's different approaches to decentralization I've seen from white people are deracialized.

Khleedril

@thenexusofprivacy I've never heard of it.

The1goit

@nyquildotorg @rysiek @thenexusofprivacy I said it once and I might as well say it again.
Bsky is decentralised like blockchain: it actually relies on a centralised entity to be decentralised. While fedi is decentralised like email: it can't properly be centralised, despite some (gmail or threads as examples for both) trying.

Jer Warren

@rysiek @thenexusofprivacy I think in a way we're saying the same thing, kind of.

I've really struggled the last couple years with the descriptive nature of language, how words evolve the way people use them, making the popular usage of them "correct" despite it absolutely being incorrect.

I guess I'm saying that "decentralized" has already become meaningless, and did well before Bluesky showed up, and that it having done so is actively contributing to debates like this one. But, like with "crypto," me shaking my fist at the sky just makes me feel bad, and — for me at least — it's probably healthier to just stop using it rather than getting mad at it repeatedly.

I'm sorry I chose your thread to finally join in on in order to work out this point. I wasn't trying to argue with you, and agree with your sentiment about diluting meaning. But, because I was having "wait a minute, this isn't really decentralized," discussions about the fediverse, on the fediverse, in 2017, seeing happen again with Bluesky has been interesting to see.

Again, sorry I sounded argumentative rather than trying to contribute to your argument. I'm trying to work on that lol.

Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦

@nyquildotorg all good, debate is what we're here for.

> I guess I'm saying that "decentralized" has already become meaningless

I don't believe this is the case. And even if it were, I don't believe we should agree to that. In fact, I strongly believe we need to fight for words to have meaning, to not be diluted and made meaningless. Otherwise we cannot have meaningful conversations.

@thenexusofprivacy

The Nexus of Privacy

I don't think decentralized is meaningless, I think it has different meanings and interpretations.

Does decentralized refer to network topology, power dynamics, or both?
If we're talking about network topology, does it matter if different nodes in the network are owned by different entities?
If an architecture is in principle decentralized, but the current implementation has one or ore single points of failure, is it in fact decentralized?
If one layer of the system is decentralized (web, PDSs) but power is heavily concentrated in another layer (search engines, relays) is it a decentralized network?
If we're talking about equitable distribution of power, what kinds of power are we talking about, and how equitable does it have to be to be considered decentralized?

etc etc etc

@rysiek @nyquildotorg

Jer Warren

@thenexusofprivacy @rysiek where I keep getting hung up is "who controls my identity and content?"

On the fediverse, my identity and content are absolutely controlled by my instance, which makes that a huge obvious centralization point.

Sure I can "migrate" my identity, but that just causes (many of) my followers to automatically follow the new account, which comes with its own new identity. Now there are two identities out there. Unless my instance goes down, in which case I cannot "migrate" my identity.

But then, topologically speaking, even if I host my own instance on my own domain, I can't ever point that domain to a different instance without causing federation problems that require all the other instances on the fediverse to take action to get federation going again.

Those two things make my experience on the fediverse incredibly centralized.

Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦

@nyquildotorg is e-mail a centralized or decentralized service, in your opinion?

What about XMPP?

Can you provide an example of a communication system that is, in your opinion, decentralized?

@thenexusofprivacy

Jer Warren

@rysiek @thenexusofprivacy email and xmpp are federated.

"Decentralized" doesn't apply, because in order to get and send your mail, you have to connect to a central point.

(Email is also now a bad example because so much of it really is centralized. Almost every email you send or receive talks to GMail servers.)

Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦

@nyquildotorg you don't have to connect to a "central" point.

You have to connect to *a* point. There are *many* points that could be your entrances into the network.

The network will survive if one or several of such points disappear. Such network is a meaningfully more decentralized network than a network with a single global point of failure.

@thenexusofprivacy

Jer Warren

@rysiek @thenexusofprivacy with email, you do have to connect to the email server that (federated, not decentralized) DNS records point to. If your mail server goes down, email sent to you does not get to you set up an account on a new mail server and then configure DNS records and hope an eventual retry delivers that mail to the new central point that manages your mail.

XMPP works essentially the same. The servers federate, but are not decentralized. And even if you are ok with calling the server topology itself "decentralized," you still have to lean on DNS, which is absolutely not decentralized.

Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦

@nyquildotorg

> And even if you are ok with calling the server topology itself "decentralized," you still have to lean on DNS, which is absolutely not decentralized.

Incidentally, this is 100% the case with all Bluesky identifiers currently.

@thenexusofprivacy

Jer Warren

@rysiek @thenexusofprivacy just to be clear, I've never claimed that Bluesky is decentralized. My claim is "neither is the fediverse," and all these discussions going around and around about it get us nowhere."

But also, the fediverse leans on DNS, too, so I guess this is a good time to pack in the discussion about "decentralized" lol.

Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦

@nyquildotorg sure.

Basically to me this boils down to some version of: could Musk buy out a given social network today and screw it all up if he throws enough money at it.

With Bluesky, that's a "yes". With fedi, that's a "no". That, to me, is a pretty important difference in the context of *why* people are migrating off of Xitter.

@thenexusofprivacy

Jer Warren

@rysiek @thenexusofprivacy I absolutely agree. But Musk buying Bluesky is actually the primary thing ATProto was designed to prevent, and part of the reason I think they've joined in on using (erroneously , I believe) "decentralized."

(Whether their VC funding will allow that to remain true is something I am absolutely not holding my breath for.)

damon

@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] I ask how is it practically different than Musk buying the two instances by Mastodon nonprofit which make up 30% of the MAU. People notoriously don’t like change, there’s no easy way for them to keep their content, their social graphs would be severely impacted. No it wouldn’t shut down the fedi but it would be catastrophic