If you’ve been following the Bridgy and Mastodon drama, consider that many Mastodon users don’t want a bridge that allows Bluesky to federate with Mastodon, but they do want Bluesky to support ActivityPub so Bluesky can… also federate with Mastodon. 😜

@manton This, to me, is the weirdest bit, since socially the effect is the same.

@manton the first time I heard about the ATProtocol project I went into their discord and just posted the org url for activitypub in the general channel and immediately got a "well but, ..." response.

(this was years ago.)

((just saying: I tried.))

@manton If Mastodon people don’t want a bridge, they shouldn’t build one, silly silly shmucks.

@manton Not the same users. Those who block skybridge will probably wanr to block an ActivityPub compatible Bluesky too.

@manton I think there is some interesting lessons in human behavior with all this.

@kdw @manton @tchambers But what does it say about the whole I-don’t-want-my-data-in-the-wrong-hands angle of the ongoing argument?

@kdw I understand, but I’m thinking along the lines of what many are saying is the reason they don’t want the ActivityPub–ATP bridge: because they don’t want their data in BlueSky’s hands. If these very people are OK with bridging via ActivityPub (had that been the case with BlueSky) then what’s the actual reason? The protocol or the principle of not sharing data with BlueSky? If it’s the latter, the protocol shouldn’t matter. If it’s the former, then this isn’t a principled debate at all.

@vhbelvadi but BS *didn’t* want AP- that’s informative. The protocol has massive implications, and it’s totally reasonable to also interpret that with respect to what BS will do with people’s data!

@kdw Interesting thought. So this is more a case of a protocol variation suggesting variation in data handling as well; which begs the question, what if someone comes up with a better alternative to ActivityPub in the future? And do we know ATP isn’t objectively better than AP? (About the last part, I genuinely have no idea/experience, hence the question.)

@vhbelvadi @kdw @tchambers The “common cause” is (in my view) wanting to support the open social web. It goes beyond single platforms. Even today, anyone with bad intentions can set up an ActivityPub server and harvest data. This is what blocking is good for and would apply equally to bridging networks.

@manton Right, so then one shouldn’t be against the bridge at all given that there's been an opt-out plan all along which would be too different from blocking instances. Or am I missing something? Why are people opposed to a bridge in the first place?