Honest question.
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@mastodonmigration In what way are they 'our' social media platforms?
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@mastodonmigration I have been looking for an alternative to Facebook because of Zuckerberg’s support for Trump. Tired of the dread of stupidity that is selling out the American exceptionalism and Democratic values in the name of patriotism and religion.
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Welcome. Hope you like Mastodon. Mastodon is something very different from Facebook. There is no algorithm, so the posts you see will only be from folks you follow. It takes some getting used to, but being in control of your feeds is actually one of the biggest benefits from open social media. No one is trying to manipulate you or sell you anything. And, no corporation is watching you and sucking up all your data to profile you.
For some ideas on who to follow @FediFollows
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Mastodon Migrationreplied to Howard Lane last edited by [email protected]
In the sense that you invest your time and effort on them and build a social network of friends and followers.
But you make a good point. When you do so on a corporate network all your interactions and data become their property. That is not the case for open publicly funded social platforms like Mastodon, which truly are 'our platforms'.
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Joanna Czechowskareplied to Mastodon Migration last edited by
@mastodonmigration Jay Graber. She says she wants it to be billionaire proof.
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@bob @mastodonmigration I’m a full believer in the Fediverse. I’m still trying to find ways to convince other friends that this is the way. Like truly free and democratic Internet.
I also wish that creating servers (instances) and connections to independent blogs (like WordPress, and so on) would become more accessible or user friendly. -
Mastodon Migrationreplied to David Zappelli last edited by
Agree that it could be easier, but if you want to create a WordPress blog and attach it to the Fediverse here is a very detailed step by step tutorial:
If you already have a WordPress blog you can skip the steps for creating it, and go straight to connecting it to the Fediverse.
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Mastodon Migrationreplied to Joanna Czechowska last edited by
And she may mean it. That's one reason why it is necessary to know who actually owns the company.
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Nonya Bidniss :CIAverified:replied to Mastodon Migration last edited by
@mastodonmigration You googled it. Anyway, just another corporate platform with strings pulled by techbros, cryptobros, general ne'er-do-wells. The Fediverse is the only place people can get a break from these fundamentally corruptible corporate capitalist entities. Eventually they all eat their users.
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Mastodon Migrationreplied to Nonya Bidniss :CIAverified: last edited by
"Googled it" is really interesting, because the Google answer is wrong. It can not be accurate due to publicly available information on investment in Bluesky, but reflects what the company puts out in their statements. So the question arises, why is the company misrepresenting their ownership picture?
Not disagreeing with anything you wrote. Just trying to get people to be exercise more critical thinking about the platforms they join.
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Nonya Bidniss :CIAverified:replied to Mastodon Migration last edited by
@mastodonmigration It's just a verb these days. I use DDG and Wikipedia primarily.
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Mastodon Migrationreplied to Nonya Bidniss :CIAverified: last edited by
Yup, and they both capture the same statement. That Bluesky is owned by Jay Graber and the employees.
This is apparently not a true statement, and we have learned that it matters what the ownership is of social media platforms.
It's pretty interesting that the company has chosen to deliberately misrepresent the full picture here.
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Bluesky is a Public Benefit Corporation and OpenAI is working hard to become one. Perhaps that’s significant.
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It may, or it may just be window dressing. The lack of transparency about their equity picture and the deliberate misrepresentation concerning being a 'distributed' network might lead one to think the PBC is primarily for show.
Also, changing from a PBC to C-corp is easy and just involves amending the articles and a shareholders vote. So again, it matters who the shareholders are.
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@mastodonmigration Still, this word salad does not work too much at this task.
I guess that difference between "investors" and "venture capital firms" is added for accounting & taxation purposes, may be there is some reduced taxation either for "investors" that are not VC, or for latter.I tend to read "Funding for operations" literally - someone gives Bluesky money to cover their expenses, without taking some stock or other BS as reward.
One day they will say: do X or we will stop funding. -
"literally - someone gives Bluesky money to cover their expenses, without taking some stock or other BS as reward."
Doesn't work that way. No one just provides money for nothing and stock and/or options or convertible debt are the mechanisms.
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@mastodonmigration May be I was not correct with usage of legal terms, I just was trying to say that they gave investments without getting formal ownership (stocks). Basically, I don't care what it is - options, or "convertible debt".
Being able to demand "Do X or we will stop funding" is NOT "nothing" for me. -
Have you read this @davetroy piece?
Without Sky: Social Media and the End of Reality
People are flocking to Bluesky in droves, but creators and users should think critically about the risk of capture by potentially hostile investors.
America 2.0 (america2.news)
He concludes with this:
“In summer 2023, Bluesky converted from a public benefit LLC to a public benefit C corporation, a for-profit entity with a standard corporate shareholder structure, and a stipulation that shareholders cannot sue the company for choosing to pursue its public benefit mission over profit.”
And two more points…
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…which are:
“Delaware Public Benefit Corporations are required to distribute a report to shareholders about their progress towards its public benefit every two years, but are not required to make those reports public.”
“But there are really only two reasons for firms to invest in Bluesky: because they think they will profit, or to effect a set of geopolitical outcomes. Both of these paths are fraught with hazards.”
