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The thing is that I kinda dont like the idea of stopping people from freely expressing themselves, but I do agree to the fact that allowing them to be verified might be another small piece of legitimizaiton. We shoudl all be defending democracy, but when does tollerating intollerants become harmfui? A tolerant society shouldn’t tolerate intolerant people
People can freely express themselves. Giving a domestic terror organization run by the government extra legitimacy by “verifying” them has nothing to do with free speech. It amplifies their message over the speech of actual people.
Yeah, so? Verification just means they are who they say they are. It doesn’t mean Bluesky endorses their posts.
The White House has a verified Bluesky account, too. They haven’t posted anything in months, though, presumably because of all the ratio-ing.
I get why this would bug people.
It’s a small act of legitimizing the domestic Gestapo, but we’ve already seen that the corporate social media is a-okay with platforming terrorists, Nazis, and the worst.
That’s why we’re on Lemmy instead.
I mean they are a legitimate government office. Trump didn’t found them, they’ve existed for over two decades. It’s only their outrageous gestaponess that’s recent.
Pretty sure American tax dollars are what legitimized ice, unfortunately.
So?
Any place Nazis are allowed is not a place I want to be. At least on any Lemmy server I’d not block, Nazis get banned
Are they banned in Mastodon? Lmao
There is no Mastodon for them to be blocked on in the sense you’re talking about.
Mastodon is similar in setup to Lemmy in that nobody owns it and anyone can run it. I am absolutely positive they are banned on tons of Mastodon servers and not banned on tons of others. If the server you are on is federated with even one server with one that isn’t banned, you could potentially see their posts, at which point you can either report those posts to your and their admins, or block them yourself.
So the mastodon service supports Nazis.
nobody owns it and anyone can run it
They could have chosen a license that forbid usage for spreading hate. They put “free software” and “open source” above blocking hate speech.
They’re providing software to Nazis, and I don’t really see how that makes them better than providing a place to post.I do see your point and I’ll actually upvote you here. But I do think there’s a meaningful difference.
Software is just an idea written down rigorously. Various societies created various conventions and social contracts to control dissemination and usage of ideas, both in their pure and written down forms. Capitalist societies generally defer to the author of the idea for how they want it handled (at least for the first few decades), so that the author can earn some money from it (of course, even ideas are monetized under capitalism) - this is patent and copyright law.
The free software movement is just a novel application of the copyright law. By sharing ideas freely but with a license that forces everyone using the idea to share their derivative ideas freely as well, it is attempting to destroy the spirit of copyright law by using the letter of copyright law.
With all this in mind, let’s examine what it would mean to add the “don’t be evil” clause to an otherwise FOSS license.
- In ideal circumstances, a society’s system of laws and social norms should incorporate “don’t be evil” in it already. Hate speech and nazism should be prohibited and punished, so the clause would be superfluous.
- In “ordinary circumstances” of neoliberal capitalism, there are agencies that will be acting in bad faith but will stand above any laws, be it geneva conventions, hate speech laws or (boring) copyright law. You won’t be able to enforce a “don’t be evil” clause against the CIA or ICE or the Rockefeller. They can just take your software and use it, so the clause would be of little use typically. This is partially applicable to our current situation.
- In extraordinary circumstances, such as capitalism in advanced decay a.k.a fascism, the law will be ignored by most evil actors anyways. Law is just a social contract and fascism is deliberately breaking all social contracts. Nobody will enforce copyright law in favor of an individual FOSS developer, especially against someone who’s on the side of the regime. So the clause is completely useless. This is also applicable to our situation.
There is some edge-cases in the middle where a “don’t be evil” clause might make a bit of sense. If the contract law (which includes copyright law) is still well-respected, but the social contract itself is falling apart around it, it might be used to prevent some nazis somewhere from using your software for a short while, but that situation is always unstable and does not last. In any case nazis are known for ignoring all social contracts, including court orders, so even this is questionable.
There are also downsides in any “don’t be evil” clause, because it requires you to rigorously define what you mean by “evil”. This is actually really hard to do well without relying on existing laws (which ruins the point), and will usually either leave nazis leeway to get away with using it, or harm legitimate users, or both - especially because legitimate users are less likely to try pushing the boundaries.
This is explicitly different from what Bluesky is doing. They are hosting known nazis. Nothing is stopping them from banning ICE and making it into a point of pride, it is really easy. There is no downside, no legitimate user hurt. It’s as easy of a decision as one can make.
To reiterate,
So the mastodon service supports Nazis.
Mastodon-the-service doesn’t really exist (unless you count mastodon.social). But the fediverse in general is not supporting nazis. Nazis are banned and defederated.
Mastodon-the-software may “support” nazis in the same way as the idea of a printing press (from your other comment) supported nazis.
They’re providing software to Nazis, and I don’t really see how that makes them better than providing a place to post.
Bluesky is categorically worse because it doesn’t have the “don’t be evil” clause in the software licenses either, and it is hosting nazis directly on the platform they run.
So for the first part, I don’t disagree at all. I just don’t think the logistics or theoretical necessity is a bearing on the symbolic-ness of it. Same for the effectiveness of it. Even if it changed literally nothing and no one would ever know I still wouldn’t shake hands with someone I considered evil.
I don’t see defining a subset of what you consider evil, like dissemination of hate speech, to be a downside.
There’s a lot of complex questions around a platform curating ideological content which could possibly make them loose certain platform protections. Right now most platforms are roughly content neutral because it allows them to be viewed as platforms, rather than publishers. This is more a response to the claim that there’s no reason for them not to remove ice. It may or may not be compelling, but it’s a real reason.
As for the use of the word “service”, sometimes my hands type slower than my brain thinks. My intent was to convey “those who develop and control the mastodon license”. Hopefully my original statement makes more sense in that context.
Those are the people providing the printing press schematic analog. Obviously an idea can’t support an ideology in that sense.I’m not of the opinion either supports them in a way that’s worth getting angry over.
We also aren’t talking about being angry at ISPs for being willing to deliver packets to and from ice or Nazis, or any of the other entities that do less then the most they could possibly do to distance themselves.
There is no Mastodon service. Its an application anyone can download and run. I understand your frustration, but it seems like you’re mad at the universe they exist in for its role in housing them.
No, you’re not understanding what I’m saying. I’m not the person you were replying to.
Mastodon is a piece of software. It has a license, just like bluesky or any other. You can put a clause in the license saying the software cannot be used for the dissemination of hate speech. The open source community has discussed this and decided it goes against the principles of free software and open source.If you’re mad at one and not the other, you’re applying different standards because being part of the fediverse weighs more.
Personally I hold platforms to a different standard and so I’m neither mad at mastodon nor bluesky. I just think it’s hypocritical to be mad at someone for publishing a fascists letter but not be mad at the person who gave the same fascist a printing press.
You can put a clause in the license saying the software cannot be used for the dissemination of hate speech. The open source community has discussed this and decided it goes against the principles of free software and open source.
Says who? How can you authoritatively say the open source community has decided something collectively on this subject? That categorically doesn’t make sense on multiple different dimensions.
You can verify yourself on Mastodon by including a piece of HTML code in your site’s header.
Literally everyone can do that, even government agencies. I have it on my blog. What do we do then?
If ICE where to join a fediverse instance they would most likely get insta-banned or their instanced would be defederated from large portions of the fediverse very quick.
TBF users on bluesky are pretty quick to block out the Nazis also. They don’t tend to get much traction at least for now.
So, trying to parse what’s going on here.
Bluesky has verified that an account claiming to belong to the US government agency ICE really is controlled by that agency. Somehow that shows that Mastodon is better. Because Trump has his own Mastodon instance and doesn’t need anyone to vouch for his goons?
Looking at the comments, maybe the issue is rather that the Bluesky company provides services to ICE. Tech companies should refuse service. Huh. I guess there is more diversity of opinion on Lemmy than I had thought, regarding the power of tech companies, democracy, and law.
Bluesky is a centralized platform and their mods don’t ban Nazis.
Trump being able to clone Mastodon is not the same as letting Trump on Mastodon.social
Trump being able to clone Mastodon is not the same as letting Trump on Mastodon.social
The Mastodon devs made a choice in releasing it as open source. They could have decided to pick and chose who is allowed to use it. It was completely foreseeable, that the software would be used for something like Gab or Truth.Social. When they release update, they know that these will also be used by such services.
This is merely a statement of fact, not criticism. They chose not to exercise power or become arbiters of good and evil. That is laudable.
Bluesky is a centralized platform and their mods don’t ban Nazis.
I get it. You feel that tech companies should deny service to bad people. For example, to a government agency acting on behalf of a president elected by a solid majority of the popular vote.
I agree that the voters got it wrong, but I don’t think that the rich and powerful vetoing voters will lead to good outcomes. Look at medieval Europe. Life got better with democracy, not with a supposedly more just king.
The tech lord most in line with your ideas is Elon Musk, except that he’s kinda nazi. So, on a purely practical note, it doesn’t seem very likely that tech companies being more political would lessen racism.
Do you think it would be better if all the billionaires, who are probably mostly non-nazi, were activist like him?
solid majority of the popular vote
narrow plurality
It’s worth pointing out that “lesser of two evils” reasoning is used by both parties. White privileged “libertarians” voted fascist because they felt unrepresented too.
Every single elected official who isn’t explicitly against FPTP was OK with this outcome. They know about the spoiler effect.
Even then it’s highly dubious that it was even a plurality. Vote counts in swing states were HIGHLY irregular and 100% controlled by Musk.
I think that tech companies taking a stand on what their employees and/or users believe in is a reasonable thing.
Idk what the employees of bluesky believe, but I’m fairly familiar with the bay area tech scene and I think that there is a decent chance that the employees would like to take a stand by not providing services to ICE.
That being said, idk if simply allowing them to have an account is providing services. I think it’s probably better to have govt agencies have verified accounts so people know when things are official statements, even if you disagree with the agency.
I think that tech companies taking a stand on what their employees and/or users believe in is a reasonable thing.
How would that actually work? Like, you’d have pro-Trump and anti-Trump companies that only employ pro- and anti-Trump employees and only serve pro- and anti-Trump customers? What happens when someone who is basically pro-Trump thinks that ICE goes too far?
i mean, this is how it works in practice.
it’s just that the company is on whomevers side that’s in power. they donate to both campaigns usually.
It’s illegal to hire people or refuse to hire people based on political beliefs or affiliation, so you’re not gonna have companies that only employ Trump supporters or employ no Trump supporters. Politics is considered a protected group wrt employment law in the USA and many countries.
But how would it actually work?
It’s not like it’s difficult to gauge employee sentiment about ICE. If your employees are strongly against it, then you simply don’t enter the competition for ICE contracts, or you choose to not renew the contracts when they expire.
taking a stand on what their employees and/or users believe in is a reasonable thing.
The majority of USA citizens voted for Trump. Why should Bluesky take a stand on what a minority believe in?
Even if that was true, which it isn’t, a company should reflect the beliefs of its employees and community.
It’s just all emotion and no rational thought now. People just go into outrage mode when certain topics are mentioned.
Really it opens a channel to criticize ICE without needing to logon to X to do so. But that’s bad because preventing communication is good?
Of course I doubt ICE will care about criticism directed towards their account on bluesky. But that means things said on the internet don’t have much of an effect on things, which means it doesn’t matter whether they’re on bluesky (or any other forum).
Mostly it’s about some weird belief by some about controlling what is being said on the internet gains power. You’d think the events that have happened would have proven this wrong, but still people continue to be upset about things being said on the internet and want some power over those things.
Really words on the internet don’t matter as much as people think, and the idea of blocking unwanted information is annoying at best and can lead to ignorance. What matters is the horrible acts ICE is doing. We should want more light being shown on them, and welcome any potential channel of discussion.
Wanting to prevent discussion indicates you feel you’re in the wrong. ICE is indicating they want discussion, while those that are outraged by ICE being on bluesky are indicating they don’t want discussion on ICE. Why would anyone want to make is seem ICE is in the right while they’re in the wrong? It’s people not thinking and only reacting emotionally and handing ICE a W because they are raging instead of thinking.
To me, this feels like school politics.
OMG! Jaden invited ICE to his birthday party! I’m never talking to him again!
Oh No! ICE nabbed Julio! I’m telling the teacher and they will get suspended!
Probably a good number of these people are actual children. I know there are adults who have broadly similar ideas. For someone living a very sheltered and privileged life, being trolled on the internet is the absolute worst form of aggression they ever experience. Particularly in Europe, activists and politicians talk about “digital violence”, which tells you that they have no sense of proportion.
Yep. Better to have these assholes than not.
Also verification isn’t complicated. Anyone can do it.
Yeah, the reactive group signaling stuff does more harm than good, just further perpetuating the conditions that allow propaganda to proliferate. This includes intentionally using the wrong words, for dramatic effect. Wholly agree that more, rational conversation and LESS insularity is the best path forward.
it’s called guilt by assocation. it’s shitty and lame type of logical fallacy
if you live on the same street as a nazi, you must be a nazi. because apparently you have to sell your home and move away if a nazi moves in.
of course, if you do this and it’s a non-white person you are racist… and a bad person, but if you do it for a nazi you’re a good person.
it’s not as if the logic of the thing is what at’s fault, and the accuser has hyperbolic sense of other people’s social obligations to appeal to their sensibility.
Not that big of a deal IMHO; it’s what verification is for, unlike X’s blue check model.
Obligatory fuck ICE.
Everyone responding here and confused why this matters seem not get the point. This post is just a warning that the types of people most of us don’t want to associate with are now on that platform. The problem is not that they are verified, it’s that they exist there at all.
Edit: some reasonable arguments have been made here for allowing these Nazis on Blue sky, which I originally thought was a bad idea, but maybe disallowing them won’t actually solve anything and may exacerbate things. I don’t know. I’ll think about it some more.
Personally, I do want a common communication platform for people I despise because I want to be able to keep tabs on their public announcements. Also, I don’t want any tech platform to have sole authority over who can communicate, as in the present, that will invariably work against the left more than the right.
I do not want to share close proximity to them on a network graph, or regularly engage with their supporters, though. So I agree that federation is crucial. But to be clear, it’s not because I want to ban them from a platform, it’s because I want managed distance and better moderation.
I don’t mind Bluesky verifying them, but I’m glad that on Mastodon I don’t have to share the same giant server as them.
They have always been on there. There have been waves of brigading and trolling, etc. BlueSky’s blocking tools and options for no algorithm dramatically limit their visibility, and they eventually have no impact and get bored and eventually go away.
If it’s an official govt agency I think it makes sense for them to be allowed on communications platforms and to be verified, so that people can see what they’re saying and know that it’s an official statement.
Then people can see the post and make their own judgements about it, knowing it’s an official agency statement.
Having twitter style factcheck for blatant misinformation is also important for this, though.Yeah, I can see that perspective too, but at the same time it’s Nazi propaganda they’re posting. There aren’t really any good options.
Yeah, but at the same time it’s kinda good for people to be able to see the kind of shit they’re posting for themselves.
It is propaganda, but it’s not good propaganda, and that’s what the community fact checking thing is meant to counter, imo.
How the tf would them being verified make them “on the platform” as opposed to them literally being on the platform but not verified. Total cope comment from someone who tried to back rationalise their initial reaction.
Reading comprehension isn’t your strong suit. What about my statement means that them being there before was okay? I assume most people upset about it didn’t have a fucking clue they were there before. Not that it matters since it’s clear from your tone you’re a troll.
The original post explicitly calls them out specifically for being verified, not being on the platform. Then you walk in, dick swinging, saying “ummm ackchully it’s about them being on the platform not being verified. And you’re illiterate for being able to read and thinking otherwise 😏” yeah okay buddy keep coping
If you actually read the thread like I did you might get it. But yeah I’m weirdly macho and also wrong or something
If you actually read the post like I did you might get it, but yeah I’m weirdly illiterate and also wrong or something
deleted by creator
realisation that their own argument wasn’t consistent with what they previously commented moment
I deleted my account on BlueSky since last Sept. BlueSky is pretty trash
BlueSky - Because maybe we can go back to the way things were?
Literally every post they make is going to have a thousand people telling them to go fuck themselves
This makes ICE much easier to block.
How about kick them off the platform? Make a big deal about doing it. Tell them to fuck off. Stop tolerating intolerance. I don’t know how blue sky works, but surely there is a way to kick them off of the platform.
Nah tolerating intolerance has been working out well so far. I mean “free speech” is worth literally any price, and further, we should never pressure private companies to align with common morality. That’s just censorship!!
HUGE /s, and thank you for an actually sane take ITT.
Bsky is actually quite centralized. Bluesky the company owns the only full-network indexer (I think they call it a “relay” or something), which collects posts from all other servers and allows those posts to be rendered by various apps (e.g. bsky.app, but all other frontends use the same indexer). They could just ban them at indexer level.
But even that is moot, because they are letting them host their account on a server Bluesky the company owns, bsky.social.
There’s another relay: https://atproto.africa/ .
Relays don’t index posts, they collect them from different servers, and provide a “firehouse” of events.
You can crawl pdses directly, akin to the fediverse. AppViewLite does this (and is lightweight enough to run on a phone).
You don’t need a relay or appview with https://reddwarf.app/ .
The fediverse also has relays.
Good to know there’s a second full-network relay (assuming this is what it is). Last time I checked all third-party relays only indexed some sections of the network, so my knowledge was outdated.
Conceptually relays are the indexers of the network, you can view individual PDSes without them, but you won’t get cross-PDS discovery; this is because PDSes don’t actually federate with each other.
This means that in practice, relays define what it means to be “on bluesky”. If you are banned on all relays, your PDS becomes just a weird standalone microblog.
This is different from the fediverse, where all instances federate with each other by default and relays just enhance discoverability and connectivity, rather than being the only way to do it.
And in any case this is all a bit academic, bluesky are hosting nazis on their own PDS, bsky.social.
Block them if you want. Block lists are public so… use caution.
There are MANY government accounts on Blusky. I think if they did not verify them, the government would find someone to buy them or shut them down. Use your heads here.
I prefer the instance blocking Nazis instead of users manually having to do so.
So you’re not using your head then.
You think Nazis should not be banned by admins on your instance?
What’s the alternative? They have admins ban any and all accounts that might be made by ice or ice personnel? Refusing to validate them doesn’t take them off the platform. They’d still be there, you just wouldn’t know who they were. In fact you still don’t, they could very well have puppet accounts all across blue sky, Lemmy, and all of your favorite instances.
At the very least when this account starts to post insane shit, you’ll know it’s actually them and not some edge lord cosplayer pretending to be ice. A verified account removes the plausible deniability aspect of anonymous posting.
And I’m not being argumentative, I’m asking a genuine question. This is the Gestapo wearing a uniform. If anything, they’re stupid for asking for verification. This is them wearing ICE jackets to the grocery store.
The real test will be how bluesky treats the content this verified account posts. When (and let’s be real, it’ll be when, not if) bluesky refuses to censor this account, then they’ll have proven themselves complicit.
They have admins ban any and all accounts that might be made by ice or ice personnel?
yes.
ok, but how do they know which accounts those are?
I welcome another avenue to let them know how much I hate them.
On paper it’s a government agency which would normally be allowed to have verification.
However it is a government agency functioning more like a hate group, right now very inimical to the concept and idea of civil rights (already enshrined as law), and hostile to diversity and social justice; with absolutely no regulation of its activities, it is an agency mandated directly by the executive to remove anyone who is not white and Christian.
Unfortunately, Bluesky still has to verify them.
Why does Bluesky have to verify them? They are a terror group, using social media to recruit and further their racist terrorism. I don’t think they should be pre-emptively banned necessarily but I don’t buy these arguments here about how they must be given a microphone to broadcast nazi messages.
Same logic as, “she smiled at me while taking my order she must be into me”
why is this such an issue?? it just shows everyone who to clown on more?
