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by redsolver 1086 days ago
Well, for one you can download all data on the network (posts, likes, follows, ...) using a free public API, even in real-time. If you want to try Bluesky without an invite code, you can run your own PDS (personal data server) today and federate with the official sandbox network, there are already 100 servers doing that: https://atscan.net/pds
1 comments
RobotToaster 1086 days ago
Judging by how they can apparently wipe all the data and remove people from the network on a whim, it doesn't seem very decentralised.
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devttyeu 1086 days ago
You can download and keep your data and keep a backup, it's all content-addressed (like git repos), and just upload to another instance

Like moving from GitHub to GitLab.

Each instance then has its own moderation policies, again, kind of like GitHub. But your identity is still your identity, and you can keep a copy of your data.

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spiderice 1086 days ago
> You can download and keep your data and keep a backup

> and you can keep a copy of your data

Is this really a selling point / concern for anyone? I’ve never heard anyone express that the problem with tradition social media is that they can’t download and keep a backup of their data. Its about a central corporation being able to decide what is allowed to be said.

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devttyeu 1086 days ago
That specifically is not the selling point, but it is how one of the selling points works.

You can just take your data to another instance whenever you don’t agree with the policies of your current one. And all your connections/interactions/data should stay intact.

If it works as well as it seems to in the federation sandbox, you shouldn’t even be able to tell that you’re using a different service, the app just sends requests to a different server, and the web url may be different, and your default feeds are generated somewhere else.

Now, you may say that users won’t care about backing up their data, but that can be solved with some open (or paid) archival services.

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afiori 1085 days ago
It is not about backups but about transferability of content and identity
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that_guy_iain 1086 days ago
As far as I know, It's not decentralised at all at the moment.

But do you have more info on this wiping data and removing people claim? All I've seen is people pissy because someone wasn't banned for something rather minor.

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RobotToaster 1086 days ago
https://atproto.com/blog/federation-developer-sandbox

>Given that this is a testing environment, we will be defederating from any instances that do not abide by these guidelines

>As part of the sandbox, we will be doing routine wipes of all network data.

It seems like it's centralised on a single "Big Graph Service", even if you run your own server.

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