Bluesky just verified ICE
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What's the alternative? They have admins ban any and all accounts that might be made by ice or ice personnel? Refusing to validate them doesn't take them off the platform. They'd still be there, you just wouldn't know who they were. In fact you still don't, they could very well have puppet accounts all across blue sky, Lemmy, and all of your favorite instances.
At the very least when this account starts to post insane shit, you'll know it's actually them and not some edge lord cosplayer pretending to be ice. A verified account removes the plausible deniability aspect of anonymous posting.
And I'm not being argumentative, I'm asking a genuine question. This is the Gestapo wearing a uniform. If anything, they're stupid for asking for verification. This is them wearing ICE jackets to the grocery store.
The real test will be how bluesky treats the content this verified account posts. When (and let's be real, it'll be when, not if) bluesky refuses to censor this account, then they'll have proven themselves complicit.
They have admins ban any and all accounts that might be made by ice or ice personnel?
yes.
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Apparently you slept through the part where mainstream social media did try to censor, ban, and deplatform that dictator's supporters, and it backfired.
I mean, Twitter literally banned Donald Trump, and he just started his own Twitter clone. Mainstream social media banned COVID disinformation and now we have an anti-vaxxer running the US Department of Health. Probably hundreds of thousands of people got deplatformed for claiming the 2020 elections were stolen, and more people now believe Trump won in 2020 then they did in 2021.
Biden pressured big social media to censor ideas he didn't want spreading. The ideas spread anyway. All Biden did was show he was afraid of those ideas and make some of the worst people in the world look like martyrs.
I really can't think of a better example of how "deplatforming Nazis" doesn't work than the last five years of American history.
I see what you're saying and you make a good point honestly.
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I do. But.. how will that happen if they are not verified...?
Yeah, I wasn't the clearest here. I thought they shouldn't be allowed on there at all, but I'm rethinking it now.
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Yeah, so? Verification just means they are who they say they are. It doesn't mean Bluesky endorses their posts.
The White House has a verified Bluesky account, too. They haven't posted anything in months, though, presumably because of all the ratio-ing.
I get why this would bug people.
It's a small act of legitimizing the domestic Gestapo, but we've already seen that the corporate social media is a-okay with platforming terrorists, Nazis, and the worst.
That's why we're on Lemmy instead.
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On one hand I see your point. On t'other, we've tried complete neutrality and it failed, maybe it's time for a communications platform where we hold people to a standard?
We haven't, really. Our "complete neutrality" is infested with troll farms, where people are employed to make hundreds of accounts to spread propaganda.
I'm thinking the answer is to implement a huge barrier for troll farms, but a small speed bump for real people.
It could be oauth with Steam or your cell provider, where you can make an account if you've spent over $250 with them. Actual credit history would work. You can combine these and allow any of them, which might let one person make 3-4 accounts, maybe, but that's still limited enough to make things difficult for troll farms.
There is an issue where billionaires that want to influence us have absolutely absurd resources, and maybe paying $1000 per account isn't enough of a barrier for them. But at least it gives us a chance for the bans to stick significantly more than they do now.
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So, trying to parse what's going on here.
Bluesky has verified that an account claiming to belong to the US government agency ICE really is controlled by that agency. Somehow that shows that Mastodon is better. Because Trump has his own Mastodon instance and doesn't need anyone to vouch for his goons?
Looking at the comments, maybe the issue is rather that the Bluesky company provides services to ICE. Tech companies should refuse service. Huh. I guess there is more diversity of opinion on Lemmy than I had thought, regarding the power of tech companies, democracy, and law.
It's just all emotion and no rational thought now. People just go into outrage mode when certain topics are mentioned.
Really it opens a channel to criticize ICE without needing to logon to X to do so. But that's bad because preventing communication is good?
Of course I doubt ICE will care about criticism directed towards their account on bluesky. But that means things said on the internet don't have much of an effect on things, which means it doesn't matter whether they're on bluesky (or any other forum).
Mostly it's about some weird belief by some about controlling what is being said on the internet gains power. You'd think the events that have happened would have proven this wrong, but still people continue to be upset about things being said on the internet and want some power over those things.
Really words on the internet don't matter as much as people think, and the idea of blocking unwanted information is annoying at best and can lead to ignorance. What matters is the horrible acts ICE is doing. We should want more light being shown on them, and welcome any potential channel of discussion.
Wanting to prevent discussion indicates you feel you're in the wrong. ICE is indicating they want discussion, while those that are outraged by ICE being on bluesky are indicating they don't want discussion on ICE. Why would anyone want to make is seem ICE is in the right while they're in the wrong? It's people not thinking and only reacting emotionally and handing ICE a W because they are raging instead of thinking.
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Bluesky is a centralized platform and their mods don't ban Nazis.
Trump being able to clone Mastodon is not the same as letting Trump on Mastodon.social
Every Mastodon instance can choose to defederate with truth social
BlueSky can choose to kick ICE off their platform
It's that simple
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Trump being able to clone Mastodon is not the same as letting Trump on Mastodon.social
The Mastodon devs made a choice in releasing it as open source. They could have decided to pick and chose who is allowed to use it. It was completely foreseeable, that the software would be used for something like Gab or Truth.Social. When they release update, they know that these will also be used by such services.
This is merely a statement of fact, not criticism. They chose not to exercise power or become arbiters of good and evil. That is laudable.
Bluesky is a centralized platform and their mods don’t ban Nazis.
I get it. You feel that tech companies should deny service to bad people. For example, to a government agency acting on behalf of a president elected by a solid majority of the popular vote.
I agree that the voters got it wrong, but I don't think that the rich and powerful vetoing voters will lead to good outcomes. Look at medieval Europe. Life got better with democracy, not with a supposedly more just king.
The tech lord most in line with your ideas is Elon Musk, except that he's kinda nazi. So, on a purely practical note, it doesn't seem very likely that tech companies being more political would lessen racism.
Do you think it would be better if all the billionaires, who are probably mostly non-nazi, were activist like him?
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taking a stand on what their employees and/or users believe in is a reasonable thing.
The majority of USA citizens voted for Trump. Why should Bluesky take a stand on what a minority believe in?
Even if that was true, which it isn't, a company should reflect the beliefs of its employees and community.
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You can verify yourself on Mastodon by including a piece of HTML code in your site's header.
Literally everyone can do that, even government agencies. I have it on my blog. What do we do then?
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It's just all emotion and no rational thought now. People just go into outrage mode when certain topics are mentioned.
Really it opens a channel to criticize ICE without needing to logon to X to do so. But that's bad because preventing communication is good?
Of course I doubt ICE will care about criticism directed towards their account on bluesky. But that means things said on the internet don't have much of an effect on things, which means it doesn't matter whether they're on bluesky (or any other forum).
Mostly it's about some weird belief by some about controlling what is being said on the internet gains power. You'd think the events that have happened would have proven this wrong, but still people continue to be upset about things being said on the internet and want some power over those things.
Really words on the internet don't matter as much as people think, and the idea of blocking unwanted information is annoying at best and can lead to ignorance. What matters is the horrible acts ICE is doing. We should want more light being shown on them, and welcome any potential channel of discussion.
Wanting to prevent discussion indicates you feel you're in the wrong. ICE is indicating they want discussion, while those that are outraged by ICE being on bluesky are indicating they don't want discussion on ICE. Why would anyone want to make is seem ICE is in the right while they're in the wrong? It's people not thinking and only reacting emotionally and handing ICE a W because they are raging instead of thinking.
Yeah, the reactive group signaling stuff does more harm than good, just further perpetuating the conditions that allow propaganda to proliferate. This includes intentionally using the wrong words, for dramatic effect. Wholly agree that more, rational conversation and LESS insularity is the best path forward.
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I .. don't understand? Are they bad because they verified them? Why the "welcome" comment, that's not what Verification is? Are they "platforming" them? I don't get what is the preferred outcomes?
They verified that the account belonged to ICE and didn't ban it for being, you know, the fucking gestapo.
Where nazis are welcome, no one else is.
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Yeah, I can see that perspective too, but at the same time it's Nazi propaganda they're posting. There aren't really any good options.
Yeah, but at the same time it's kinda good for people to be able to see the kind of shit they're posting for themselves.
It is propaganda, but it's not good propaganda, and that's what the community fact checking thing is meant to counter, imo.
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Yeah, so? Verification just means they are who they say they are. It doesn't mean Bluesky endorses their posts.
The White House has a verified Bluesky account, too. They haven't posted anything in months, though, presumably because of all the ratio-ing.
Most of the White House accounts were boosted by freshly created accounts. They got flagged in multiple lists immediately after joining and their engagement went to hell. After that, they got bored and went back to the nazi platform. Good moderation tools for the community helps.
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They verified that the account belonged to ICE and didn't ban it for being, you know, the fucking gestapo.
Where nazis are welcome, no one else is.
..but are they welcome, though?
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You can verify yourself on Mastodon by including a piece of HTML code in your site's header.
Literally everyone can do that, even government agencies. I have it on my blog. What do we do then?
If ICE where to join a fediverse instance they would most likely get insta-banned or their instanced would be defederated from large portions of the fediverse very quick.
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The verification is from Blue Sky itself saying that the account is indeed ICE agency.
Fuck ICE they should not be having a a platform
I just think there's an opening here to humiliate them more
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Yeah, I wasn't the clearest here. I thought they shouldn't be allowed on there at all, but I'm rethinking it now.
Like, if they post a nazi thing they can be admonished and punished and shown for what they are, but if they just are ignored, what's the platform for? We want to expose and ridicule them as much as possible
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I just think there's an opening here to humiliate them more
As fun trolling Fascists is the point is to get them to go away and never come back.
Giving them a verified account is counter to that goal
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solid majority of the popular vote
narrow plurality
It's worth pointing out that "lesser of two evils" reasoning is used by both parties. White privileged "libertarians" voted fascist because they felt unrepresented too.
Every single elected official who isn't explicitly against FPTP was OK with this outcome. They know about the spoiler effect.
