I would like to give an update on "federation" on Bluesky.
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As an update since posting the above thread I have received replies from two people, one saying I am underestimating the level of stack coverage Blacksky has, another saying I am overestimating it.
The stack is just so tall! There are *so many* layers in this protocol's model. And it seems like every single one of them is an opportunity to introduce censorship
Update: Rudy who operates blacksky.community responded to this thread on bluesky. Above I said I wasn't clear on how independent Blacksky was of the Bluesky infra. His answer is "completely". They run their own relay (which scrapes PDSes itself), the relay feeds into their own appview, the appview feeds into their own client. https://bsky.app/profile/rude1.blacksky.team/post/3lyv5rwpc722c
And since they bridge end-to-end, in my Hypothetical Example above, they *could* choose to make different moderation decisions from Bluesky PBC.
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@jdp23 Rudy says they're appview and also client. https://bsky.app/profile/rude1.blacksky.team/post/3lyvbqh3m3s2e
@mcc so I saw! I responded over there. I was in a video disucssion on Friday and I could have sworn he said that the appview wasn't released yet, but it looks like I was just confused. If so, sorry for the misinformation!
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@mcc so I saw! I responded over there. I was in a video disucssion on Friday and I could have sworn he said that the appview wasn't released yet, but it looks like I was just confused. If so, sorry for the misinformation!
@jdp23 Blacksky is not only hosting a Bluesky alternative, they are *coding* a Bluesky alternative (in Rust, where Bluesky prefers a combination of TypeScript and Go). I assume(?) the combination of Rudy's statements should be interpreted to mean that the self-authored AppView is not ready yet, so he is hosting a PDS he wrote, hosting a relay he wrote, hosting Bluesky's appview and client on top of that, and he intends to replace Bluesky's appview soon. I assume.
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@jdp23 Blacksky is not only hosting a Bluesky alternative, they are *coding* a Bluesky alternative (in Rust, where Bluesky prefers a combination of TypeScript and Go). I assume(?) the combination of Rudy's statements should be interpreted to mean that the self-authored AppView is not ready yet, so he is hosting a PDS he wrote, hosting a relay he wrote, hosting Bluesky's appview and client on top of that, and he intends to replace Bluesky's appview soon. I assume.
@mcc it's certainly possible! I didn't think they were running a separate appview yet but I could easily be wrong.
(blacksky.community is currently a fork of the Blluesky app-aka-client, it hasn't diverged much yet. not sure if and when they're planning on writing their own implementation of that)
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@mcc Bsky doesn’t have auth on your account and can’t delete individual posts.
The user can delete posts as they like and then it’s truly deleted and can’t be queried.
@boris "Bsky doesn’t have auth on your account and can’t delete individual posts."
This is true in my case because I self host a PDS. Most users use a Bluesky PBC hosted PDS. In this case, Bluesky owns everything, they have the keys, the bits are resident on their servers. What prevents them from deleting a post? Aren't they legally bound to delete posts in case of DMCA takedown, CSAM, etc?
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And that's why I say, TLDR:
- I am legitimately excited about the work being done by Blacksky Algorithms! I am using their frontend and happy with it.
- Northsky is an interesting development to watch
- If you're on a Bluesky PDS, I recommend migrating off with one of these tools https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:ii5jchdzlmcojjw4dqczcgkh/post/3lyt6t6qfa22u
- Everything Sucks. A LOT of things would have to change at a social level for *any* entity other than Bluesky to have power or independence in the ATP ecosystem. I still don't trust Bluesky.
@mcc I'm sorry that I'm too much of a fedi noob. What lead to it failing here? Defederating? Not enough people? Where could I read more on this? It sounds like it was a big hurdle to get parity with bluesky so I'm curious on what lead them to do that?
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@mcc I'm sorry that I'm too much of a fedi noob. What lead to it failing here? Defederating? Not enough people? Where could I read more on this? It sounds like it was a big hurdle to get parity with bluesky so I'm curious on what lead them to do that?
@KnightMustard "What lead to it failing here?"
What lead to what failing?
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Update: Rudy who operates blacksky.community responded to this thread on bluesky. Above I said I wasn't clear on how independent Blacksky was of the Bluesky infra. His answer is "completely". They run their own relay (which scrapes PDSes itself), the relay feeds into their own appview, the appview feeds into their own client. https://bsky.app/profile/rude1.blacksky.team/post/3lyv5rwpc722c
And since they bridge end-to-end, in my Hypothetical Example above, they *could* choose to make different moderation decisions from Bluesky PBC.
@mcc I'm appreciating your efforts to gather info and summarize - I think I saw the same post that set you off on this odyssey last week, and I'm kinda shocked by how far they've come.
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@KnightMustard "What lead to it failing here?"
What lead to what failing?
@mcc You mentioned they got harassed off Fediverse? Perhaps I'm over complicating it?
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@mcc You mentioned they got harassed off Fediverse? Perhaps I'm over complicating it?
@KnightMustard No. I am saying a different group of people got harassed, a few years back, and I saw people leave the Fediverse as a result. My perception, which obviously is the perception of an outsider and so not trustworthy, is that black Fedi is smaller now than it used to be.
Rudy says he's never used Fedi.
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I would like to give an update on "federation" on Bluesky.
My expectation was it was unlikely we'd ever see this happen because "federation" on ATProto means basically reproducing the entirety of the Bluesky software stack. In old Big Data terms, on ActivityPub your instance is a "horizontal shard" of the network; ATProto forces full DB replicas only.
Still, we're seeing movement on this front, which I'd split into two categories:
1. Your fault (you reading this)
2. Aaron Rodericks's fault@mcc thanks for this!
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@benroyce @txtechnician @mcc the funding is an interesting one. If we don't hear anything new about another BSky funding round in the next 6 months they'll start being close to running dry (they're currently closing in on one year since the last round that was supposed to be for two years and had a failed one early 2025)
Some of these recent troubling decisions may already be influenced by that. They've said they want to start running ads and that has implications for moderation for example.
@ikuturso @benroyce @txtechnician @mcc
How much has actually been invested in Bluesky? Public information (https://accessipos.com/bluesky-stock-ipo/) is three rounds, a seed round and an $8M in 2023 and $15M (Blockchain Capital) in 2024. In January 2025 a round lead by Bain Capital (https://www.businessinsider.com/x-competitor-bluesky-valuation-new-funding-round-2025-1) was reported setting valuation at $700M, but no further info if that round closed has been reported. Is the total to date $23M plus seed accurate? What happened with the big January Bain Capital round?
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@ikuturso @benroyce @txtechnician @mcc
How much has actually been invested in Bluesky? Public information (https://accessipos.com/bluesky-stock-ipo/) is three rounds, a seed round and an $8M in 2023 and $15M (Blockchain Capital) in 2024. In January 2025 a round lead by Bain Capital (https://www.businessinsider.com/x-competitor-bluesky-valuation-new-funding-round-2025-1) was reported setting valuation at $700M, but no further info if that round closed has been reported. Is the total to date $23M plus seed accurate? What happened with the big January Bain Capital round?
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@ikuturso @benroyce @txtechnician @mcc
In general, their finances are very opaque. Some are saying that the $15M can last them for 2 years, but it is hard to understand how a 25 person silicon valley company with 100 contract moderators, and no revenue can be running at $625K per month. In any case, as mentioned above, either they have to start raising more money or they have some other undisclosed source of funding.
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@aeva @cthos either you rely on bluesky to get the content (meaning you have to trust them to convey the content) or you prepare and mirror the content yourself. No real third option, fundamentally. If there were several blacksky-like towers then they could potentially pool resources, but no other actor has gotten as far as blacksky so there's no one to pool with.
This is just me thinking out loud without much direct knowledge, but isn't live Atmosphere content supposed to remain available on its home PDS indefinitely? So couldn't an AppView implement an LRU cache rather than a full mirror of all content? Or does this storage cost come from something else that can't be trivially re-fetched later?
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This is just me thinking out loud without much direct knowledge, but isn't live Atmosphere content supposed to remain available on its home PDS indefinitely? So couldn't an AppView implement an LRU cache rather than a full mirror of all content? Or does this storage cost come from something else that can't be trivially re-fetched later?
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Update: Rudy who operates blacksky.community responded to this thread on bluesky. Above I said I wasn't clear on how independent Blacksky was of the Bluesky infra. His answer is "completely". They run their own relay (which scrapes PDSes itself), the relay feeds into their own appview, the appview feeds into their own client. https://bsky.app/profile/rude1.blacksky.team/post/3lyv5rwpc722c
And since they bridge end-to-end, in my Hypothetical Example above, they *could* choose to make different moderation decisions from Bluesky PBC.
@mcc what about the PLC DID directory?
AFAIK:
1) ‘blacksky community’ doesn’t have control over ‘their accounts’ as long as they don’t run their own directory.
2) running an ‘independent directory’ means: no zerocost migration between networks and no coherent communication between networks without bridging elements.
I find it distressing that, as of now, most bsky documentation still omits the fact that the directory underpins *everything*.
Paul Fuxjäger (@cypherhippie.bsky.social)
Looks like the component that carries ALL the weight of ‘credible exit’ marketing claims is exposed to increasing levels of spam/dos. *absolutely nobody* saw that coming. /SCNR Longterm viable ‘DID:PLC Registry Write Access Governance Model’, anyone? [contains quote post or other embedded content]
Bluesky Social (bsky.app)
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@mcc what about the PLC DID directory?
AFAIK:
1) ‘blacksky community’ doesn’t have control over ‘their accounts’ as long as they don’t run their own directory.
2) running an ‘independent directory’ means: no zerocost migration between networks and no coherent communication between networks without bridging elements.
I find it distressing that, as of now, most bsky documentation still omits the fact that the directory underpins *everything*.
Paul Fuxjäger (@cypherhippie.bsky.social)
Looks like the component that carries ALL the weight of ‘credible exit’ marketing claims is exposed to increasing levels of spam/dos. *absolutely nobody* saw that coming. /SCNR Longterm viable ‘DID:PLC Registry Write Access Governance Model’, anyone? [contains quote post or other embedded content]
Bluesky Social (bsky.app)
@cypherhippie PLC is bullshit and honestly, I believe it is not possible to work around it. Or rather I have an entire design proposal for how to fix plc (replace it) and I know at least one other person with a design proposal for how to fix it (by replacing it), but I don't know how to solve the social part because the social part is "convince bluesky to give up power" and I can't think of a reason they'd do that.
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And that's why I say, TLDR:
- I am legitimately excited about the work being done by Blacksky Algorithms! I am using their frontend and happy with it.
- Northsky is an interesting development to watch
- If you're on a Bluesky PDS, I recommend migrating off with one of these tools https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:ii5jchdzlmcojjw4dqczcgkh/post/3lyt6t6qfa22u
- Everything Sucks. A LOT of things would have to change at a social level for *any* entity other than Bluesky to have power or independence in the ATP ecosystem. I still don't trust Bluesky.
@mcc I'd love to migrate but it's all and I mean ALL way over my head
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Update: Rudy who operates blacksky.community responded to this thread on bluesky. Above I said I wasn't clear on how independent Blacksky was of the Bluesky infra. His answer is "completely". They run their own relay (which scrapes PDSes itself), the relay feeds into their own appview, the appview feeds into their own client. https://bsky.app/profile/rude1.blacksky.team/post/3lyv5rwpc722c
And since they bridge end-to-end, in my Hypothetical Example above, they *could* choose to make different moderation decisions from Bluesky PBC.
@mcc Right now there are people hosted on Blacksky who cannot post because they are banned by Bluesky.
I've been asking Rudy about how independent Blacksky is from Bluesky but have not heard back yet.
From what someone said, it seems that Blacksky is using the Bluesky labeling system which performs moderation. Thus, to be banned on Bluesky means you are locked out on any instance that uses its labeling.
Some more context https://bsky.app/profile/bloomfilters.bsky.social/post/3m2ih4oh64r2v
