🦋 Bluesky Social

Bluesky has restricted access to 72 accounts and one post in Turkey, marking a shift for the decentralized social media platform that had previously resisted government censorship, according to a report by the Freedom of Expression Association (İFÖD).

According to İFÖD, Turkish court orders led to the blocking of 59 accounts at the internet service provider level. Separately, Bluesky voluntarily made 13 accounts and one post inaccessible in Turkey, likely in response to legal pressure.

Bluesky, known for its decentralized structure, which allows users to create and operate independent servers rather than relying on a central authority, had been seen as a free-speech-friendly alternative to mainstream platforms such as X.

Turkey has increased pressure on digital platforms in recent years, requiring companies to appoint local representatives and quickly comply with content removal requests or face fines and bandwidth throttling. In March Turkish authorities blocked access to 126 X accounts, including those of independent media outlets.

At the same time, press freedom in Turkey has sharply declined. Turkey, which is known as one of the top jailers of journalists in the world, ranks 158th among 180 countries in the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) 2024 World Press Freedom Index.

Independent outlets face financial and legal pressure, while pro-government media dominate the landscape. The Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK) and other regulatory bodies have been used to sanction dissenting voices, further curbing freedom of expression.

Bluesky has not publicly commented on the recent restrictions.

Trust is everything. Social media has connected us in powerful ways, but it hasn’t always given us the tools to know who we’re interacting with or why we should trust them.

In 2023, we launched our first layer of verification: letting individuals and organizations set their domain as their username. Since then, over 270,000 accounts have linked their Bluesky username to their website. Domain handles continue to be an important part of verification on Bluesky. At the same time, we've heard from users that a larger visual signal would be useful in knowing which accounts are authentic.

Now, we’re introducing a new layer — a user-friendly, easily recognizable blue check. Bluesky will proactively verify authentic and notable accounts and display a blue check next to their names. Additionally, through our Trusted Verifiers feature, select independent organizations can verify accounts directly. Bluesky will review these verifications as well to ensure authenticity.

Blue checks issued by platforms are just one form of trust. But trust doesn’t come only from the top down; it emerges from relationships, communities, and shared context.

So, we’re also enabling trusted verifiers: organizations that can directly issue blue checks. Trusted verifiers are marked by scalloped blue checks, as shown below.

For example, the New York Times can now issue blue checks to its journalists directly in the app. Bluesky’s moderation team reviews each verification to ensure authenticity.

When you tap on a verified account's blue check, you’ll see which organizations have granted verification.

You can also choose to hide verification within the app — navigate to Settings > Moderation > Verification Settings to toggle it off. How to Get Verified on Bluesky

You can self-verify by setting your domain as your username. We highly encourage official organizations and individuals to do this.

During this initial phase, Bluesky is not accepting direct applications for verification. As this feature stabilizes, we’ll launch a request form for notable and authentic accounts interested in becoming verified or becoming trusted verifiers.

With regards to posts being blocked in Turkey, this would allow users to bypass them. However, I wouldn't be surprised if this and other tools are eventually blocked there.

Link to the article without the paywall

https://archive.ph/MnXLx

Source: https://mas.to/@osma/114346166890552471

Bluesky images can be embedded on Lemmy by linking directly to the jpeg file hosted on https://cdn.bsky.app/img/

Twitter videos can be embedded on Lemmy by linking directly to the mp4 file hosted on https://video.twimg.com/amplify_video/.

For Bluesky videos, I found this potentially relevant GitHub thread, but the example links provided don't seem to embed on Lemmy.

Is there an equivalent way to embed Bluesky videos on Lemmy?

Do you think this action is justified or was it exaggerated?

Version 2.0 did not arrive and instead version 1.100 of Bluesky arrived.

On this occasion, Kamala Harris used her own Web Domain compared to Barack Obama who for now uses the nickname under the .bsky.social umbrella

Original link: https://www.wired.com/story/bluesky-cant-take-a-joke/

What Brown experienced is familiar to any former Twitter/X user gathering their bearings on the young and decidedly more earnest social network Bluesky: a distinct humor-detection issue. Some users are unable to decipher jokes, or they are deliberately trying to miss the point to make a different one. Many Bluesky users migrated over from X, where the top DOGE who did Nazi-like salutes on television is live-tweeting the destruction of American infrastructure. That’s a different and much more serious problem. Still, the seeming obliviousness-slash-self-seriousness of many Bluesky users is grating when you’re not used to it.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/27802844

This post is a blogpost version of a recent talk that Daniel Holmgren gave at AtmosphereConf (March 2025).

AT Protocol (or atproto) is a protocol for creating decentralized social applications.

It's not the first protocol with that aim to exist. In the history of decentralized social media protocols, atproto takes a unique approach which is still deeply influenced by technologies and movements that came before it.

The phrase “atproto ethos” often comes up during our protocol design discussions. It's a fuzzy term, but we use it to refer to the philosophical and aesthetic principles that underlie the design of the network.

In this post, we'll distill that ethos. First, we look at the movements in technology that have most directly influenced atproto.Then, we pull out the core innovations that atproto brought to the table. Finally, we highlight some opinionated ways of thinking that influenced the design.

~~You can join the iOS testflight here.~~

For Android users, there is an APK you can download here, or you can wait for it to enter the Google Play store.

It is possible to make a new account with a .sprk.so username or use your existing Bluesky account, which will transfer over all your existing posts, follows, and followers.