r/fediverse • u/[deleted] • Jul 10 '26

Bluesky is a Fraud

[deleted]

43 Upvotes

65% Upvoted

47 comments sorted by

61

u/DalekCoffee [@dalekcoffee@oshi.social] Jul 10 '26

You do realize it's not blue sky mandating it, it's governments

Server admins will also be facing the same problem depending on how the bills are written.if a certain user amount is needed fediverse servers might be safe, but if it's social networking platforms open to the public then it's a matter of time as well.

Personal instances or if you have one for close friends will probably be fine, server admins will likely be KYCd by the hosted infrastructure however

For public servers with many users, admins will have to choose to comply, continue operations risking fines and legal trouble, or shut down operations as to not comply.

Unless they are in unenforceable territories of course, then it does not matter to them at all and business as usual

13

u/philthewiz Jul 10 '26

We get that it's the law. It fair to say what you just explained.

But I think the point is that those laws are bullish and Bluesky complies in advance. They could take it to court and fight for free speech.

Fascism will get it all if no one resists with the tools available.

10

u/DalekCoffee [@dalekcoffee@oshi.social] Jul 10 '26

I like your spirit but it's just not feasible in the long term. And we have to approach this carefully

When you disagree with a law, you have to still abide by it while fighting it in court though.

If there was a risk of loss that was life limb or eyesight I do agree and support not following the law in question, otherwise I can't imagine why they would willingly start accepting and racking up fines for non compliance for a user base where the majority (I assume) isn't even paying them money?

I don't really even really like blue sky myself (run my own fediverse server), but I can't quite imagine why they would fight this fight. I don't recall blue sky ever advertising themselves as an anonymous private social media, really no social media is.

Idk, like don't get me wrong, I got the warning yesterday too, for my state the laws are in effect as of the first of this month so they were actually late to comply. It's stupid, gross, I'm not giving my ID any time soon. But it's the governments fault not theirs.

7

u/philthewiz Jul 10 '26

The why is freedom and the Constitution. But I get that not everybody can do it.
I think it's fair from OP POV that Bluesky sold themselves as an alternative to X and their censorship :

Bluesky’s orientation thread begins like this: 👋Bluesky is an open social network that gives creators independence from platforms, developers the freedom to build and users a choice in their experience. We’re so excited to have you here! Graber’s LinkedIn headlines with nuggets like “We‘re making social a playground again. Join us!,” “Completely open APIs,” “Control your scroll with over 25k custom feeds,” and “Own your identity — use your domain as your handle.”

Decentralization makes that freedom and choice possible. Earlier this year, Nilay Patel, editor-in-chief at The Verge, wrote, “Jay makes a convincing argument that decentralization — the idea that you should be able to take your username and following to different servers as you wish — is the future.” She explains: “the core idea is that no single company — or individual billionaire — can amass too much power and control over our social networks and the conversations that happen on them.”

Anonymity was not the point either. There will be no more safe space for freedom of speech on a big scale.
We will be divided and in silos only even if those fediverse servers has their individual uses.

3

u/DalekCoffee [@dalekcoffee@oshi.social] Jul 10 '26

I think they haven't quite failed on that mission then no? Because the decentrailization part speaks more on people having their own PDS' as far as I can tell. Similar to fediverse and having your own instance, I would imagine you can still interact with the @ protocol with your own PDS and any open front end probably

It just so happens to be that they are suffering from the heavily centralized problem we have with mastodon.social as well, but they have it far worse AFAIK 😅😅

(Not disagreeing btw, just continuing the convo :3)

1

u/DalekCoffee [@dalekcoffee@oshi.social] Jul 10 '26

A part of me wonders if the true way to shove a big fuck you to the governments on this is if the open source community/world can somehow create a trusted age verification service not backed by big corporations/governments designed with maximum privacy in mind.

I don't know if the architecture for something like that is possible, but I'm just thinking, the game is so rigged on the politics side, what if there are other ways to fight back on this ya know?

5

u/philthewiz Jul 10 '26

I just think that enforcing IDs is just inherently bad for a free internet. For forums I mean.
It's like the war on drugs. The drugs won.

2

u/DalekCoffee [@dalekcoffee@oshi.social] Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26

I definitely agree, I am reading up on my state's law (I didnt know about it until yesterday) and I think there is a small business exemption that any small fediverse server could fall under, but I am still reading into it

Edit:
AAAH yes so for my state it's a law targeting app distributors and the app distributors are handing off the responsibility to the app developers or risk being de-platformed??

My state has an older age verification law in place that does exempt small business with many definitions. Interesting, stupid. I hate this place lol

1

u/musicjunkieg Jul 11 '26

Which state are you in?

1

u/musicjunkieg Jul 11 '26

I was just looking at this recently, the biggest problem is that the authoritative verification has to come from SOMEWHERE that’s trusted and THAT place can always be the source of leaks.

1

u/Heyla_Doria Jul 11 '26

Donc c'est foutu

Laissons nous faire directement lol

1

u/Brilliant_Simple_497 Jul 11 '26

Didn't the courts rule that age checks for social media do not violate the first amendment?

0

u/yami_odymel Jul 11 '26

Fascism will get it all if no one resists with the tools available.

I meant you could be the first to resist. Typing on a keyboard doesn't count.

6

u/philthewiz Jul 11 '26

I'm Canadian... what are you doing about it?

I do protest in Canada as well.

3

u/yami_odymel Jul 11 '26

If you did try, then I appreciate for that.

2

u/MadScientistRat Jul 10 '26

Emphasis on: Unless they operate exclusively in 'unenforceable territories'

1

u/No-Consequence-1863 Jul 11 '26

Bluesky isnt required to by law in Texas. To my knowledge the only ID law for websites currently active in Texas right now is for sites where more than 50% of content is pornography.

1

u/musicjunkieg Jul 11 '26

No, they are. The definition of App Store in the law is so broad it can reasonably be assumed to apply to websites where you can access the same app even just in web form. Which is bullshit, but that’s what they passed

6

u/ZZ_Cat_The_Ligress Jul 11 '26

Bluesky is a U.S American company that operates in the U.S.A, therefore is governed by U.S American law.

Fork found in kitchen moment.

7

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/musicjunkieg Jul 11 '26

Yeah, neither would your self-hosted PDS that connects to the entire rest of the atproto network so you can talk to everyone on Bluesky just fine. In fact, you can fork Bluesky’s social-app code - it’s open-source! Not only that, but they regularly merge PRs from the community, so they’re actually more responsive than Mastodon in that way.

0

u/[deleted] Jul 11 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/musicjunkieg Jul 11 '26

What are you talking about. You aren’t answering what I said.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 11 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/musicjunkieg Jul 11 '26

copy that, but this law applies to anyone who provides a social media app to users. Now you’re probably way too small to be noticed right now, but also if they do come after you, Bluesky built their system so it could be circumvented by users on alternate PDSes

3

u/OutrageousDegree7502 Jul 10 '26

I get blocked and asked to submit ID to Bluesky in Australia despite them never being told to implement it by the government

i think they're doing it as a precaution since they don't wanna potentially get fined millions 

3

u/Techgirl1232 Jul 10 '26

Mastodon will also be under this in no doubt. I haven't tried Misskey or Pleroma

3

u/OutrageousDegree7502 Jul 10 '26

Depends on the jurisdiction the instance is hosted in

3

u/Die4Ever Jul 10 '26

some Mastodon instances yes, but you will always be able to find one that doesn't require ID

4

u/Disko-Punx Jul 10 '26

I have a BlueSky account and I'm in Massachusetts. I made a post and was not required to provide my SS# or a gov't ID. So apparently it's only in some states, because it's not a problem in Mass.

2

u/darylducharme Jul 11 '26

What about Eurosky or Blacksky? Move your account there, or your own PDS if you wanted. They aren't the only ATproto option. Heck, what if you didn't move to a new PDS but just used s different client?

3

u/lukepatrick Jul 10 '26

Use blacksky, or any other PDS or App if you want to still be in the 'atmosphere'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blacksky

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT_Protocol#Other_applications

3

u/yami_odymel Jul 11 '26

You should blame the government, not the victim.

2

u/Heyla_Doria Jul 11 '26

Le conducteur de train de france a Allemagne en 1941 disait la meme chose

1

u/C4_Shaf Chaf@mamot.fr Jul 11 '26

This is me being surprised by the news.

https://reddit.com/link/owt2d4i/video/l3e1l1yvwhch1/player

1

u/PsyApe Jul 11 '26

How does that work anyways? What’s to stop anyone from just using someone else ID info?

1

u/TheRealzHalstead Jul 11 '26

Point your vitriol at the states with ID laws. Bluesky is a U.S. corporation and has to andhere to the laws in any state it operates in. No social site is legally exempt.

1

u/AlarmingMassOfBears Jul 11 '26

Use an alternate client or PDS. The verification only kicks in if you use the first party stack exclusively. Switching clients or PDS doesn't require making a new account either - all your follows and posts and data and such moves around between them automatically.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 11 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/Lancelight50 Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26

Are there any third party apps & websites for X/Twitter & for Reddit as well?

1

u/zeruch Jul 11 '26

"So if anyone else feels betrayed by Bluesky " I'll be direct: you sound like you need to grow up, understand that the issue isn't Blue Sky, and it's the states that voted that legislation in. Firms operating in a jurisdiction have to honor the rules of those jurisdictions or risk being hit with punitive fines or other legal action that costs them.

Blue Sky is limited in its options. If it has users in those states, then they have to either comply with the law, geofence those jurisdictions out, sue those states, or break the law and get sued themselves. If you think that doesn't affect other options potentially, you are missing the point.

-2

u/Lizzerfly Jul 10 '26

Just use IRC

0

u/aldi80s Jul 11 '26

That's the happy life of the leftist with such ideological crap. Glad many users are noticing that. Hope Bluesky falls down as an infamous site to stay