Leaflet stream

Bluesky is banning access to its app for people from Mississippi following a new drastic age verification law:

Some thoughts:

• Bluesky PBC is fully onboard now with viewing clients as access points to the network, and as the point where regulation happens. See also their new ToS, which also makes it clear that this is only for their client
• The messaging from PBC is quite different on this case versus how they handled OSA. Their communication on OSA did not mention at all at their gating system could be bypassed. For Mississippi regulation they explicitly explain it however:"This decision applies only to the Bluesky app, which is one service built on the AT Protocol. Other apps and services may choose to respond differently. We believe this flexibility is one of the strengths of decentralized systems—different providers can make decisions that align with their values and capabilities, especially during periods of regulatory uncertainty. We remain committed to building a protocol that enables openness and choice."
• Having alternate clients that can access the network only matters when people actually use other clients. So far, PBC has given users very little reason to use other clients, as the main client is very well developed by professionals, making it hard for single volunteer devs to keep up. Unclear if or how that dynamic will change moving forward.
• The fediverse keeps willfully misunderstanding how atproto works, nor does it show any curiosity or interest in learning about it.
• Mastodon is particularly vulnerable, with a ceo who is not interested in complying with regulation. There is this assumption that the fediverse is so decentralised that regulators will somehow ignore fediverse servers.
• My main concern is for mastodon. ceo eugen rochko is pretty explicit that he does not care, but he seems not to realise he is actually vulnerable on two points:

The new Substack for "centerleft" (lol) writers decided to open their launch with a passionate argument of why its totally fine to stay on Twitter.

There is a fuck-ton wrong with that article, but its always pretty nice when people are willing to write down in detail that they don't know how social media works in 2025.

The obvious issue is that surrounding yourself with hatred changes yourself, something that gets zero attention in the article. The second issue is that social media functions as sense-making tools, and it thus also impacts your perception of how you think other people view the world. Doing that in a nazi environment thus makes you think that nazi thoughts are more acceptable and mainstream than they are IRL.

But what really stands out to me is the total lack of a theory of power. It says:

But leaving Twitter in 2025 is not deplatforming Nazis, it is deplatforming yourself. The Nazis have already taken over the bar. The question is who will come to take it back"

It is a good question: how do you actually take power back from nazis? Which makes it very funny that the article does not even attempt to answer their own question they raise. Like seriously, its really weird how the article has nothing to say about this. It continues to talk about the possibility of persuading the normies that are still on X. Which might or might not happen, but thats an answer to a different question altogether.

It says: "We do not control the bar, we are not the proprietor or the landlord. We have no power to deplatform anybody. We are a small group of patrons, hoping we don’t get kicked out of the bar before we get the chance to grab the aux cord again."

Which is a pretty good observation! It also answers the question raised earlier by in the same article, namely that you cannot really take back power from a nazi owner of X. Which is kind of a big problem!

So to summarise, the article is both morally wrong, completely misunderstands how social media works, and does not even bother to make an attempt at answering the core question of the article. Its the final thing that really grinds my gears: I can deal with intellectual or moral disagreements. Its the lazy writing of not answering the core question of your article that really bothers me.

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