[fwn]

I'm no expert in atproto but it seems to be far worse than that. Apparently, Bluesky applies country-specific labellers automatically based on your IP address.

If you register a Bluesky account from Germany, your account is assigned the German moderation labeler with no option to opt out. As soon as I noticed, I created a new account using a US IP address. This fixed it.

While signing up for moderation sounds very attractive to me, Bluesky's whole layered moderation approach seems designed to maximize algorithmic censorship.

Compare that to, for example, a mastodon instance (or a forum like HN) where you participate because you align with the general moderation approach cultivated by and within the community.

edit: I found the following write-up which mirrors my experience https://fediversereport.com/bluesky-censorship-and-country-b...

[steveklabnik]

That is part of my (1). This is Bluesky specific. This is also repeated in your link.

[fwn]

Yes, it is specific to Bluesky. It is not dependent on the official app, though: Both the app and the website are subject to this kind of censorship.

There seem to be loopholes [1] through some third-party apps, but that does not change much about the overall problem. Defaults matter a lot.

I have a hard time understanding why the Bluesky authors came up with an idea like that in the first place. Not to mention actually creating it. The internet (or social media) probably does not benefit from even more granular censorship tools for governments all over the world.

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/23/government-censorship-come...

[steveklabnik]

Neither "the app" nor "the website" (they're the same thing) are the protocol, which is what matters.

Other applications using the protocol is not "a loophole," it's how protocols work.

[fwn]

I'm not sure if this is some kind of tactic, but both of these claims seem trivially wrong.

Bluesky is available in both main app stores and on the web. There is no merit in denying this. There are often differences in content restrictions between what app stores enforce and what service providers enable, but one cannot really say, "Just don't use the app," if by "app" they mean every common way of accessing the service.

Also, I think the protocol does not matter much if the user experience of almost every user is entirely controlled by a single provider. In such a case, the protocol might as well be entirely absent.

It is difficult to tell whether there is some substance here, since you do not explain (or source) anything.