I would like to give an update on "federation" on Bluesky

[mcc@mastodon.social]

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.

[evan@cosocial.ca]

@mcc thanks for this!

[mattsheffield@mastodon.social]

@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

[mcc@mastodon.social]

So. The thread above. An update.

We finally got a live test of the "Gertrude scenario", when a popular Blacksky user got permbanned by Bluesky. I, using my own PDS and blacksky's website, can't see him or his posts ( https://blacksky.community/profile/did:plc:2aebn3xk5t63net43eeepire/post/3m2iokicegs2b ). What gives?

A lot of people claim this is because Blacksky really is using Bluesky's appview, and gave me a way to verify this looking at headers. This seems to contradict Rudy's previous claims. I've asked Rudy for clarification: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:2aebn3xk5t63net43eeepire/post/3m2jve23cf22m

[tess@mastodon.social]

@mcc my understanding - and this may be completely useless, but I've read a bunch of threads by a bunch of people - is that (a) the Blacksky app view migration is still in process, and that (b) Bluesky is still working on migrating their moderation from the firehose (where it isn't supposed to be) to the app view (where it is supposed to be).

Either of these might cause a blocked user to fail to appear in the Blacksky front end.

[mcc@mastodon.social]

@tess But

1. Even if Blacksky's appview is limited to the last seven days, or limited only to information Blacksky controls (eg the blacksky pds), I should still be able to see Link's posts, or Link's last seven days of posts. So it seems blacksky's appview isn't being used at all.

2. The test linked above, too, seems to imply I am using Bluesky's appview in all cases.

[bigshellevent@mastodon.social]

@mcc I stay as far away from Dorsey as possible, and they banned LINK?!?!!!

[corax42@mastodon.social]

@mcc Is Blacksky operating its own relay? Is it possible to ban users at the relay level?

[mattsheffield@mastodon.social]

@mcc Link, the banned user in question, is accessible via the raw Bluesky network feed (the "fire hose"). But he cannot be viewed by any server that utilizes Bluesky labelers. Does your PDS?

It seems as though Blacksky does, which is why he can't be seen there. But he can still post. I'm in touch with him and he's posted to me, which you can see here in the fire hose: https://pdsls.dev/at://did:plc:63hvnyjvqi2nzzcsjgnry5we/app.bsky.feed.post

[mcc@mastodon.social]

@mattsheffield The pds doesn't view posts. The appview views posts. You need like five separate components in order to look at a post on Bluesky and every single one of them introduces the potential for censorship. I can't read the site through pdsls that's bonkers

[mattsheffield@mastodon.social]

@mcc The layers are indeed censorship choke points.

What I'm saying is that in this case, it appears to be the labeler of Bluesky that's the issue. Any app view that uses it will suppress Link's parts, even if he's not banned locally.

The app view of Blacksky would hide him locally but he wouldn't be banned. This is why he can post but can't see his own posts. The Blacksky app view (the site) is independent except for the labeling.

[tess@mastodon.social]

@mcc that all scans, and, I hope it's just a miscommunication as to the current state of BlackSky.

If nothing else, this is the five-alarm fire that should expedite the switchover.

[mcc@mastodon.social]

@tess I am inclined to give Rudy a lot of leeway because he is clearly moving very fast. I'd rather him engineer than answer my questions and I'd rather not interrupt him while he's engineering a thing I want to use.

But I just want to know what the software I'm using… like… is.

[tess@mastodon.social]

@mcc *sigh* i get it

I'm holding out for Northsky even though I fear it's going to be the typical flameout but the fact that BlackSky is offering PDSes to people outside the community is also super appealing.

Seeing how they handle this situation might be what puts me over the edge.

That said, I'm also not trying to build my own tools; just use a nice platform run by people I trust.

[mcc@mastodon.social]

@mattsheffield *sighs*

I feel like I'm having a lot of repetitive conversations. The thing you are claiming was my conclusion as of last night, but then I was shown an additional piece of evidence, which makes me conclude something different. This was documented in one of the threads I link above, but I link a lot of things above, so I assume you didn't see it. I can explain it, but it would make more sense to just wait for Rudy (who I've asked for an explanation) to explain.

[mattsheffield@mastodon.social]

@mcc I think I did see it, the one referencing the network traffic from bsky.app? I think that's because the labeling instructions are pulled from there and assembled by the client. So it appears to be an app view issue but is actually a labeling one.

But you're right that only Rudy can clarify this

[mcc@mastodon.social]

@mattsheffield In the screenshot, you see two headers: atproto-accept-labelers, which shows two labelers i assume to be bluesky and blacksky, and atproto-proxy, which indicates which appview is to be used (source: bryan newbold from bluesky), and shows only api.bluesky. So I believe both issues are live. But I am more worried about the appview/atproto-proxy issue, because out of the two, I assume it to be the more difficult issue to fix.

[mattsheffield@mastodon.social]

@mcc It's possible that Rudy has an independent app view because that can be part of a PDS, but he is not deploying it because his users wouldn't be able to use a mobile app to interface with.

They tout the ability to log in via the Bluesky app into Blacksky PDS, and possibly this is why that traffic is happening.

I have seen Link's account on another PDS, which does suggest that the app view and labeler are both live issues, as you're surmising. https://social.shatteredsky.net/profile/did:plc:63hvnyjvqi2nzzcsjgnry5we

[mcc@mastodon.social]

@mattsheffield I do not think, in the context of the post you have made here, shatteredsky is "a PDS". I think we are using terminology differently and this is making it difficult for me to follow the conversation.