<
https://www.techdirt.com/2023/04/20/bluesky-plans-decentralized-composable-moderation/>
"We just wrote about Substack’s issue with content moderation and the Nazi bar
problem. As I highlighted in that piece, any centralized service is going to be
defined by their moderation choices. If you cater to terrible, abusive people,
you become “the site that caters to terrible abusive people.” That’s not a
comment on “free speech” because it has nothing to do with free speech. It has
to do with how you keep your own corner of the internet and what people will
associate with you and your brand.
This is why I’ve argued for years that any one particular private service
cannot be “the town square.” The internet itself is the town square built on
decentralized protocols that allow everyone to communicate. Each centralized
service is a private plot of land on that wider open vista, and if you want it
to be unkempt and full of terrible people, you are free to do so, but don’t be
surprised, or act offended, when lots of people decide they don’t want to
associate with you.
This is also why I’ve spent so many years talking up the importance of a
protocols not platforms approach to free speech. With decentralized protocols,
the questions are different, and the ability to speak freely is retained, but
the central issue of abusers, harassers, nonsense peddlers and more can be
dealt with in different ways, rather than looking to a centralized nexus of
control to handle it.
This is why I remain encouraged about Bluesky, the decentralized social media
protocol which was ever so slightly influenced by my paper. It’s been in beta
testing over the past few months, and has plenty of promise, including in
overcoming some of the limitations of the ActivityPub-driven fediverse."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
