Bridgy Fed, a bridge between the Fediverse and other protocols such as BlueSky, is using an opt-out model and that raises a lot of discussion
Opt-out is a terrible default and should be reconsidered · Issue #835 · snarfed/bridgy-fed
Github ticket: https://github.com/snarfed/bridgy-fed/issues/835
I don't get the problem. It's just syncing public information back and forth. I mean, the information is fully public for anyone to access. If you mind who accesses it, you shouldn't make it public.
In ActivityPub, you have the freedom to defederate.
This bridge doesn't allow you to do so, I can understand why people have issues with it.
So/so.
You only have the option if it's your instance that you're having defederated. You cannot prevent anyone from:
The second part is basically what is happening here.
Importantly, I feel people misunderstand on a fundamental level what it means to post things openly on the internet. Your only way to prevent this is simply to not post to a site that people can access freely and without a process through which you are vetting them for whether you trust them. As in: Just like IRL when you decide whether to tell things to friends or acquaintences or well, not.
But, on the web, you not only cannot prevent someone taking your public data and copying it over to wherever they so desire, you don't even know since they could be posting it in a place that you in turn have no access to so you cannot see it there.
False equivalence.
Copyright has fair use provisions, and one could argue that a bridge that lets you public content on a different network is no different than providing a VCR-to-DVD service.
It does indeed outside of the united IP holders of america.
In the free world, you can record any tv or radio program that is freely available for your personal consumption.
Welcome to the actual land of the free.
Edit: answering another comment of yours. You can absolutely repost the twitter, reddit and whatnot post of anyone. It is paywalled stuff that you are not allowed to share.
Yes.
Should federation between servers be opt-in?
Should Mastodon-compatible clients have posts private-by-default on the UI?
This argument against bridges is beyond stupid. If you are posting on a public network, it's more than reasonable to work with the expectation that your content will be visible outside of original channel.
They also assert that Bluesky doesn’t federate (it currently doesn’t, but the protocol is designed for federation!) when it’s clear that it now does.
I'm not surprised about the skepticism there though. These are just promises, and we all know that a for-profit entity will happily sacrifice any promies if it means they make more money that way. Also depending on how exactly that federation will work it might be practically useless as well.
How does it work exactly? From a quick look at the docs, it sounds like everything through the bridge would appear as coming from @web.brid.gy. Is that right? If so, that kind of mucks up the standard behavior of Lemmy. Lemmy allows both users and admins to block entire instances, so aggregating instances into one "mega-instance" effectively breaks that functionality. That's not good from a UX perspective.
I tried searching for some bridges instances but didn't have any luck. I guess I'm doing it wrong. Does anyone have a real example of something that works?
it sounds like everything through the bridge would appear as coming from @web.brid.gy.
Because this is the only current deployment of the bridge. The code is open source, if you want to host/run/manage your own bridge, you can do it.
That was the same issue that I had with fediverser and alien.top. Everyone got so obsessed with the bots from alien.top and caused so much drama that no admin would be interested in using it for the "login with reddit" functionality. If there was a few more other instances running the software, it would have been incredibly more helpful to get people to move away from Reddit while helping bootstrap the niche communities here (which are until today completely lacking in content and not attractive at all for the masses).
mastodon users continuing to show why mastodon will never reach mass appeal.
complaining about a tool that makes posts based on an open protocol that allows them to be shared across networks is bonkers.
this is probably the best tool that we'll have that will make social media actually fun to use again since twitter ruined it and segregated every service. if it gets ruined by going to an explicit opt-in service because of the loud minority, i'm gonna be so sad.
Exactly, the gatekeeping here is really present.
We can make a bridge to different protocols?? Pretty Cool
This concern is made even more ridiculous by the fact bsky.app already offers login gating for any user who wishes to use it, and I believe it blocks RSS as well. It's just such a funny practice. like? who hurt you ??
Reading through that thread, it highlights why I object to blue-sky stuff being posted in Fediverse areas like they're one in the same and have the same values. The fact that someone is stealing content to prop up blue-sky is egregious. That this is being defended is baffling.
Calling it "stealing content" is loaded terminology. You're posting content on an open protocol whose very purpose is to broadcast it far and wide.
Unless there's some actual technical reason why this a bad idea, I don't buy the "ethical" hand-wringing here. It sounds like just another case of not liking specific social media companies and wanting the defaults to conform to those personal dislikes.
It's exactly this. Bluesky has its problems but there is a massive overreaction from the fediverse crowd that it makes it hard for me to sympathise with them even if I agree on the principle.
EDIT: JSYK, the Bridgy Fed developer is working towards making the bridge opt-in! https://tech.lgbt/@ShadowJonathan/111925391727699558
That kinda sucks. We need more openly accessible information without everyone erecting their little walled gardens. :'(
Thank you for this!