NOTICE: Your account may soon be bridged to #Bluesky whether or not you want it to be.

According to @LaurensHof's excellent Fediverse Report (https://fediversereport.com/fediverse-report-121/) changes have been made to the Bluesky bridge.

"Bridgy Fed, the bridging software that connects ActivityPub with ATProto, has gotten an update where server admins can opt-in to the bridge for their entire server."

Thought Bluesky bridge opt-in vs opt-out was settled. Why has this been done without soliciting community input?

@LaurensHof

Just trying to understand the rationale behind this software change. People expressed their strong desire to not have BridgyFed automatically connect them to Bluesky. They wanted to make that decision for themselves. So BridgyFed now thinks that people will welcome having their instance admin make that decision for them. Is that the idea?

Edit: Also, what Mastodon instances want this capability? Are user's notified when their account is bridged?

@mastodonmigration As evident from their discussion in https://github.com/snarfed/bridgy-fed/issues/1305 certainly there is a use case for small organizations or instances mostly serving bots (based on feeds). Also, instance admins has always been able to force all users follow a specific account (I know mstdn.ca does it often for announcements), so there is no change other than allowing admins to decide the format of the Bluesky handle. The bot follows them back so users are notified and can unfollow the bot as well.

@austin

Thank you for posting the Github discussion. While some of the discussion is certainly about 'small' instances, the primary rationale seems to be this 'critical mass' argument which we heard during the original debate. It seems the argument is that not enough people are bridging, (only 4% on mastodon.social) so the solution is to enable the instance admin bridge them without their consent.

Would love to hear from some admins like @stux and @jerry on this.

@mastodonmigration @austin @jerry Hmm.. i kinda would like to see everything bridged from both Masto and Bsky I guess

A lot of people on Bsky also don't bridge, i wonder what number is bigger, Masto or Bsky in bridges?

@stux @mastodonmigration @austin @jerry If my instance bridges, will I suddenly have my feed crammed with Bluesky content or can I block it all?

@jredlund
Hm, perhaps.. if you block the bridge bot or the domain it's on you should be good

@mastodonmigration @austin @jerry

@mastodonmigration @austin @jerry Hmm.. i kinda would like to see everything bridged from both Masto and Bsky I guess

A lot of people on Bsky also don't bridge, i wonder what number is bigger, Masto or Bsky in bridges?

@stux @mastodonmigration @austin @jerry Can I also stop my posts from going to Bluesky?

@stux @austin @jerry

Feel like this is the problem with this software change. Many people do not want to bridge to Bluesky for whatever reasons. Giving admins the ability to make this decision is just another way of eliminating consent.

How would you determine if this were something mstdn.social would do? How would you inform your users?

@stux @austin @jerry

Feel like this is the problem with this software change. Many people do not want to bridge to Bluesky for whatever reasons. Giving admins the ability to make this decision is just another way of eliminating consent.

How would you determine if this were something mstdn.social would do? How would you inform your users?

@mastodonmigration
Yup true that.. I dont like that either! Hm.. Perhaps awareness should be a little better so people can make a better choice

@austin @jerry

@mastodonmigration @stux @austin @jerry Note that there are an array of potential liability and other legal issues involved.

@mastodonmigration
Maybe it's just better to keep it on "our side". If Bsky really wanted to become part of the Fedi they would make that happen but instead they chose to go with a completly new protocol that was not needed at all

Let them adapt, not us

@austin @jerry

How many platforms / websites have intergrated AT Proto compared to AP

Within time we are all connected and they are drifting on a social island like all the others before them..

Bsky is the same as Facebook, Twitter, etc only a little more open

It feels like an illusion they're trying to sell

@mastodonmigration @austin @jerry

@stux Sadly, like FB was to MySpace, and Twitter was to Facebook, it's where the people with the most reach in journalism are headed, so it won't be long. They spin public opinion.

If they were wise, they would take control of their social media by spinning up a true Fediverse software and then make FB, Threads, Twitter, BlueSky,etc bow down to them for content. But, it doesn't work that way. Plus, imagine all the duplicity saved.

True for businesses, too.

@mastodonmigration @austin @jerry

@jredlund
Not sure, but maybe blocking like above has the same effect

Gotta test that though

@mastodonmigration @austin @jerry

@stux As you can tell, I want nothing to do with Bluesky. The whole reason to be on Mastodon is to not be on corporate media. There are a lot of people on Mastodon who feel that way. And in these times, when ICE agents and border security are surveilling people's social media feeds, it is an existential issue.