Notices by shiri (shiri@foggyminds.com), page 2

It's because that's not the bridge, that's a Friendica group about working on such bridges. Friendica supports group accounts that you post to by tagging the group.

Group accounts work by boosting every post that tags them.

The initial post was made to the Fediverse News, Fediverse Developer Discussion, and AP-AT-Bridge Group groups, which is why you'll see them boosting almost every comment throughout this entire thread. Anyone who didn't explicitly removed them from the references is posting to that group as well.

The bridge will not appear as a single account. The bridge will translate accounts through it, so if I made an account named Shiri on the official bluesky server, then followed you through the bridge you would see a follow request from shiri:bsky.social@bsky.brid.gy (name formatting probably will differ slightly), likewise that would be the name that would appear for everything I do through the bridge with your account.

If you wanted to block my specific bluesky account from accessing your account, you could block it as normal and it'll work just the same as it always has.

With # NoBridge in your bio, when I go to look up your account through the bridge I either won't get anything at all as if you don't exist or it'll tell me that you've opted out of the bridge.

@HistoPol @jamie @oliphant @snarfed.org @luca @PCOWandre @chronohart @snarfed

@HistoPol @jamie @oliphant @snarfed.org @luca @PCOWandre @chronohart @snarfed The gist is that if you want to prevent your posts from being shared outside of screenshots and quote-posts (where the contents of the post are just copied) the only option is to join a whitelist-only server.

These are servers that federate only with explicitly approved servers, ie. if someone tries to connect from any instance not on that list they're blocked by default.

That's kinda the root of the argument here where a great many people have a false assumption that the fediverse is about control of your data when it is quite the opposite. It's like trying to protect your art from being used by others... by marking it Creative Commons.

The entire design of all federated systems is around open sharing, you can only get control over how your posts spread in a closed system with little or no federation.

As far as whether or not you use those platforms, my example was regardless of whether you're a user.

My server federates across multiple different protocols, if I boost your post then your post is probably being made available to multiple different networks automatically.

The protections and control involved in federated networks is not in how your data is shared, but in how your access is controlled.

In the fediverse you don't have to worry about a bad admin blocking your access to everyone you know, you can freely move accounts between instances. If you piss of Elon for instance, you're cut off from Twitter and everyone on it... full stop... but if you piss off your instance admin, you just move instances and can still connect with everyone.

It's also control over your experience in that you're not relying purely on what their algorithms think you should see. If the instance your on has an algorithm set up that you don't like, then you can move instances to one that has the algorithm you like.

You also have protections against enshittification (the process by which those other networks will draw you in with great features, and then once you're locked in slowly shut down or degrade those features). If features that are important to you start getting shut down on your server... you can move to one that keeps them. If a platform developer does it, another developer can fork the project to keep those features alive.

You also have choice in terms of clients and experiences. You're using Mastodon and I'm on Friendica (I know your instance type because Friendica shows me a little icon beside posts). I vastly prefer the Friendica experience, and I have the choice to use that. And I can use that without forcing you to use the same interface.

@soc @snarfed.org I recommend then either blocking the bridge or selecting one of the options they provide to opt-out. Their # nobridge tag is thorough because it'll also opt you out of other bridges running their software, but if you don't like that you can just block their bridge's instance.

Be aware though that if you're on the fediverse and not on a whitelist instance, you will be bridged to all reasonably compatible federated networks.

@f4grx @snarfed.org congratulations, you don't have to have anything to do with Bluesky. But bridges are a normal part of federation, if this feels threatening I strongly recommend you read up on how ActivityPub (the protocol used by Mastodon) works, how bridges work, and the history of bridges in the fediverse.

Odds are you'll never see any personal impact from this whatsoever unless you make friends with someone who's on Bluesky or share something that goes super viral (in which case you'll probably be thankful for this because you have zero control over screenshots, but through the bridge you'll still have access to blocking, deleting, and editing of posts)

@jamie @snarfed.org @oliphant @HistoPol @luca @PCOWandre @chronohart @snarfed a boost in this case will operate the same as with normal ActivityPub, in which case the block should remain honored. It'll be the exact same as someone boosting your post and whether someone you blocked on AP can see that post.

I'll note however that the bridge should not be a concern if you're worried about that, instead you should be concerned of the thousands of instances like mine (Friendica and Hubzilla) that will natively support Bluesky. If we boost your post, then it'll be copied over to Bluesky with no actual connection to you in the network, so your blocks will not apply and you will have no control over the post afterwards.

Watching people freak out over someone making a bridge to another fedi platform...

Do people even know how the fediverse worse? Interoperability?

Boggles my mind how much impact people think a shittily moderated instance will impact the broader system.

People flip over the idea of connecting to Bluesky or Threads... how many of you know about the trainwreck of Nostr and it's AP bridge? That's the worst network of them all and you still don't hear about it, which tells you everything you need to know.

@chronohart @snarfed.org they're not being ignored, they're just living in an imaginary world.

Here's a simpler way to put it: if this makes anyone feel less safe, then the safety they felt was an ILLUSION, that safety was a lie. Shutting down this one developer doesn't bring back that safety, it just preserves the illusion.

The fediverse is and never was the place to avoid being "on" the other networks. The entire model of it is to be on everything.

If you want the features you claim are being violated you need to be on a whitelist server (a server configured to only federate with pre-approved other servers).

If you joined the fediverse to "not be on Bluesky" then you didn't remotely understand what you were joining. That's not a fault on this bridge, that's a fault on you and whomever might have told you otherwise.

The fediverse is not some enclave, it's not some isolated space, it never will be.

And the fediverse is not safe, never was meant to be a safe place and again never will be.

And why? Because the first and central premise of the entire fediverse is being open. It's safety is about always having an escape hatch... you're safer from horrible admins because you can always jump to another instance and more-or-less stay in touch with everyone... unlike the isolated networks of Twitter or Facebook where you can't move without losing connection to everyone.

And anyone who knows more anything about the history and point of federation knows that bridges are unavoidable and accepted either enthusiastically or reluctantly.

The whole situation here is that you're joining a space and getting upset at the people in that space for doing entirely normal things because you had ideas in your head about what that space was and those entirely normal things violated your imagined ideas.

@gregsie @snarfed.org they're already doing the right thing from the start and exceeding expectations, offering any such feature is totally abnormal for a bridge.

Maybe you should consider whether you're doing the right thing by coming into the fediverse with assumptions that bridges should be opt-in when in the community they've always been automatic, opting out purely by blocking.

And in regards to the GDPR (A) nobody outside of a GDPR country cares (B) GDPR applies as much to bridges as it does to other instances, if it's illegal for the bridge to operate then it's also going to be illegal for multiple core AP functions to operate as well.

@hazelnoot @snarfed.org @snarfed Bluesky and Nostr are the fediverse (or rather, Bluesky will be once they choose to federate, which this bridge is just preparing for), it's not my fault you didn't know the difference.

One of the key elements of the fediverse is you don't get to control what platform others use to view and access your account. There's no "block firefish" or "block hubzilla" or "block mastodon". A bridge is just another extension of that and long before ActivityPub even existed bridges were already established as a major feature of federated networks (hell, I reference an XMMP-Matrix bridge in my bio, all of which predate Activity-Pub and that bridge can only be opted out of by blocking the server... like most bridges).

Basically, this is the way the system was always supposed to work, I'm sorry that you were mislead to think otherwise.

And I guarantee you W3C (the actual stewards of ActivityPub) were absolutely expecting bridges like this to show up immediately (bridges to diaspora* and OStatus would have been some of the first bridges on ActivityPub, again operating silently with no opt-in or opt-out mechanism).

@chronohart @snarfed.org the only reason I can't imagine it being a problem is because it's so completely manageable... if I get too much trouble over the bridge? I block the bridge.

Starts coming through over a different bridge? Another quick and easy block. And mind you that they have to find a bridge to harass me over and they get what... one harassing post before they have to go find another bridge? That's alot of extra work on their part as bridges aren't that plentiful.

That's before getting to the array of other moderation tools available, well before talking the tools available as a server admin.

On top of that, their opt out system is fantastic, just by a simple tag dropped in my profile block all bridges using this software? Hell yeah, that's a great measure and I hope it catches on elsewhere.

Altogether... I'm more worried about people already here than people accessing through a bridge. I think there are more self-righteous people here than any other platform.

@unlofl @snarfed.org That's literally a whitelist server, you join a server that only federates with pre-approved servers.

That's the only functional way if you want to pro-actively avoid being accessible from all bridges. Though to be honest you can also just pay attention to the usernames of whomever follows you to see if it's a bridge account, not like it's hard to spot randomuser:bluesky@instance

@FinchHaven @snarfed.org ... "opt-in or I opt-out"?

How's that a threat? It's literally how these things work...

@SuperMoosie @snarfed.org @snarfed @blake to be clear, where have you signed up for my server's TOS? And I don't mean that just to be silly, it's very explicitly how the legal take works here.

You can not apply your TOS to outside users and they can't apply their TOS to you. If you take issue with it you can block the instance.

And as far as "Bridges should be opt in" that ship passed decades ago, bridges aren't remotely new, this is just probably the first you've noticed.

@chris @the_roamer @snarfed.org @zatnosk I don't think "Too Big To Block" is really an argument... If people don't want to talk to Bluesky users, they can block Bluesky. If Bluesky is so uncontrollably toxic as to create a critical problem, then why would you not block those posts?

The only time "Too Big To Block" really applies is the same time the people who aren't bothered by this... the people who prioritize getting as many people on the fediverse as possible to have as much reach as possible.

@KayOhtie @SuperMoosie @byjp @zatnosk legal space is simple, TOS only applies to the service you're using. You're not using Bluesky, you're not using my instance.

For a TOS to apply you have to accept it in some fashion, most of these sites do this by either a passive "if you continue to use this site you implicitly accept the TOS" (and that can only reasonably apply while you're actively browsing the site, not for relayed fediverse messages) or a "to create an account you have to accept the TOS".

It's the same legal grounds as whether or not Yahoo's terms of service apply when I email someone who has a Yahoo account.

It's also a woefully flawed argument to assume that the loudest voices represent the majority. The majority don't care and the backlash just goes more to show the toxicity of Mastodon culture (and I mean Mastodon here, not ActivityPub)