Notices by Mike Masnick ✅ (mmasnick@mastodon.social)

@lonk that's exactly what the team has said they're implementing.

As noted by Matt McDermott (https://x.com/mattmfm/status/1858321528061829365) Elon's pretend department DOGE account is labeled as a verified government agency, despite you know, not being officially created by any government yet

@emory @stoicybele it's cool. I totally get it. No one wants to deal with those fuckers.

@CassandraVert @chrishudsonjr no one here is falling for it, but mainstream media folks are absolutely falling for it, which is why it needs to be calling it out.

@emory @stoicybele i'm not going to argue back on any of this. it sucks., assholes are trying to invade, but the site has set up tools that deal with them. (1) trust & safety team is taking that shit seriously and reports are acted upon quickly. (2) there are numerous subscribable blocklists that have been adding these accounts as quickly as they show up, so people subbed to them are auto-protected against them.

@stoicybele @emory yes, there is a report. and yes, it's effective. What Emory doesn't mention is that account was banned almost immediately.

@darwinwoodka @emory @briankrebs yes, everyone blocks them and they get removed. the account mentioned above is already gone.

If you're going to complain at least be honest. Bluesky does have a trust & safety team and deals with those kinds of accounts.

That account got basically no followers, was blocked by a ton of users quickly and then was banned just as quickly.

@womble I think it's to block someone for trying to be snide without knowing what they're talking about?

@yuletide thanks!

@smallsees @matthew thanks to both of you!

@ted if you want in between that you can buy one and then add more as add-ons...

But you can also buy 5. :)

This is a real crowdfunding project in that we won't produce it if we don't reach our goal, and we'll probably only do a single production run. So this might be your only chance to get it...

(And yes, if you're wondering there are nods to Mastodon in the game if you know what to look for...).

Backing this also supports Techdirt and our reporting AND you get a super fun game out of it.

The game is (loosely) based on a public domain 1906 card game called Touring, though more people are probably familiar with Milles Bornes, which was a super popular copy of Touring. We took some of the idea from Touring and modernized and updated a lot of the mechanics to make it even more fun and tied to the social media theme.

Hey folks, we just launched our Kickstarter, for our (amazingly fun) card game about running a social media network: One Billion Users!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mmasnick/one-billion-users-the-social-media-card-game?ref=4abd69

In One Billion Users, players compete to build the most successful social network. Gain users and attract influencers to build your site while playing cards to slow down your rivals and overcome obstacles. But be careful about which communities you attract — the toxicity they bring with them could hurt your platform!

@evan there are ways to disagree without being disagreeable. You know that I've supported your work and your mission.

I'm not asking you to support mine.

But it is a choice to be antagonistic. But, fair enough, you have made it clear I am not welcome here. I am out.

@tomw and the company has explained how it intends to build a sustainable, non-enshittifying business model. If we can't do that, the project will fail.

@markdarb @evan bridges are great. Bluesky folks are happy with bridges. To date, the only community that seemed to get upset by bridges was... this one?

@troed you make three assumptions in that statement and I disagree with all three.

If Bluesky goes down the enshittification path, it will die.

@evan I understand your hostility here and, but honestly, find it a bit off-putting.

Figure I should post this here as well. How I view the wider decentralized social media ecosystem. A variety of necessary experiments to figure out what will actually bring value.

https://www.techdirt.com/2024/10/29/some-slightly-biased-thoughts-on-the-state-of-decentralized-social-media/