I’m guessing you’re in the US. In many parts of the world including where I live, it’s the messenger app. If you don’t have WhatsApp you’re pretty much not communicating with most people.

crickets

It isn’t. But we’re talking about China right now, not the USA

I prefer to call it the masterbatorium.

Right, but ActivityPub was right there. The AT Protocol is an open standard, but in its current form it effectively turns Bluesky’s nodes into gatekeepers for the rest of the network. If you want to talk about Meta platforms, even Threads implements ActivityPub.

I need my pocket sized spaceship computer for shitposting and occasionally checking my email

There isn’t one as far as I’m concerned. People moved from one corpo social media platform to another corpo social media platform thinking that the person running the former platform was the problem, when the entire model is designed to prioritise profit over human expression.

It was founded by Jack Dorsey, the same guy who founded Twitter. At this point it does look like it’ll end up the same way.

Did anyone actually expect Bluesky to be different to any other corporate-run social media platform? What was the point of jumping from one to another?

Just more proof that FOSS and proper decentralisation (yes I know that Bluesky is technically federated but this halfway house shit they’re doing is not proper decentralisation) that are the only things that will save us.

I will never understand how sitting next to each other in silence for a couple of hours staring at a screen became something we commonly do with friends in the first place. It’s probably the most antisocial group activity I could think of.

I’d be totally cool with that. I’ll take quality discussion with less people to talk to over huge quantities of slop and rage bait any day of the week.

I think we need to let go of this idea that online platforms need to be as big as possible or be considered huge failures. This is a lie told by the owners of corporate-run and owned social media that needs to grow at the expense of basically everything else, because they somehow managed to convince investors to pour money into what is effectively a shitty glorified message board and they expect a return on that investment. There used to be thousands of niche forums all over the internet before corporate social media and link aggregators effectively staged a hostile takeover and homogenised everything, they did numbers that would look pathetic in comparison to daily users of X or Facebook, but they still had a busy feel balanced with a sense of community. It doesn’t actually take that many people to achieve that, it’s a fraction of what some people will have you believe.

I’d argue that this is just a continuation of billionaires buying up the media.

I think it does too, but the problem with nostalgia is that you forget about all the shitty parts and just remember the good bits. Tumblr is still owned by big tech oligarchs even if it is smaller than the other platforms, and is still vulnerable to the kind of enshittification that the fediverse is more insulated against. Enshittification actually came for Tumblr long ago but it looks positively tame in comparison with other platforms.

No judge would authorise a honeypot that runs for multiple years, hosting original child abuse material meaning that children are actively being abused to produce content for it. That would be an unspeakable atrocity. A few years ago the Australian police seized a similar website and ran it for a matter of weeks to gather intelligence which undoubtedly protected far more children than it harmed and even that was considered too far for many.

Understand you’re not advocating for it, but I do take issue with the idea that AI CSAM will prevent children from being harmed. While it might satisfy some of them (at first, until the high from that wears off and they need progressively harder stuff), a lot of pedophiles are just straight up sadistic fucks and a real child being hurt is what gets them off. I think it’ll just make the “real” stuff even more valuable in their eyes.

For now.

Feds have been stepping up their seized website banner game lately. The one for Genesis Market was pretty cool too.

Excellent work. That’s an unimaginable amount of abuse material.

Is it really an ad if it’s not actually trying to sell something though?

There’s been a ton in the UK outed as predators themselves. It’s projection.