> In the next 12 months we aim to set up and operate key components in the AT Protocol tech stack: PDS services, relays, and content moderation, in order to ensure that the ecosystem is robust, resilient and with a base in Europe. We also aim to kickstart the development of a suite of social applications that advance democratic and participatory civics, through technical support, access to resources, and collaboration with communities.
> To do that, we aim to raise €5-7 million over the next 12 months, and €15 million in funding by 2028.
€5-7m for operating a BlueSky instance. Great use of european funds right here!
All these "European social media" projects are, imo, cash grabs trying to capitalise on the populist "European digital sovereignty" sentiment.
If your goal was social media "built and run in Europe, ruled by our laws", you'd just host a Mastodon instance and donate those EU funds to Mastodon GmbH
There is an entire industry in europe built to take EU money and produce nothing but a stack of papers. This would just set up some OVH/Hetzner instances of open source software. It is all a very expensive joke.
This looks like it's just the open source BlueSky instance and AT protocol? That's an American project and company, right? Is it just that the instance itself is run in Europe? What is "built in Europe"?
Yes, that does seem a bit of an odd claim. Possibly they're talking about the hosting being built?
That said, I don't have an issue with using a US authored open source project for this. To use another example - PostgreSQL was originally US, but I don't have any problem with that being part of the deployment of Eurosky.
That said, I would prefer that the Open Source system we were using didn't have a profit making (US) company as principal maintainer. I think AT has some technical advantages over Mastodon, but I prefer the governance of ActivityPub/Mastodon.
I wasn't trying to be pedantic. I was just hoping to see if it was a new and novel European social site project or if it was just spinning up an instance of an existing project.
I agree with what you are saying here, but social media is pretty sterile. It's heavily censored as it is. YouTube comments is awful for it, with hiding comments and all the rest.*
I find it next to useless. Faecebook has told me about birthdays and people's bereavements weeks after they've happened. It looks awful if I reply to those late.
_
* I'm often confused by why. YouTube hid a thread in which someone pointed out the A Team had reused a Blues Brother joke.
Reputation system and elected or at least transparent moderation is what's needed to curb any bad actors. In fact, identity verification would make it easier for spammers, just buy stolen identities in bulk in darknet for a few dollars and fire away. Facebook supposedly leans very hard into real identities and the end result is a dead wasteland of bots talking to bots. And on the other hand, there are plenty of regular forums with not a sign of bad actors, because they were collectively exterminated and the newcomers are vetted.
"If identity verification is what it takes to curb russian trolls, then be it."
It's far from being just Russian. China (wumao/50 centers) and the west have armies of them. The latter was out in force during the Covid business making sure everyone agreed.
In all three cases, we are talking about government agents (human or otherwise) who are the least likely to be affected by identity verification. They can come in by the back door.
That's just throwing the baby out with the bath water. In my experience, the best kind of online interactions are those where people don't have to be limited by what their offline ID is.
i fully expect most users of eurosky will not experience any censorship. this is just such a ridiculous over-dramatization, that is so preposterously lopsided.
please man. this sounds like the tin foil hat wearing nutcase shit that is ruining the US and the world right now. there's ways to debate & talk about these things, but this isn't starting conversation, it's just being smug. you are 100% on one side, totally polarized into spot, and it's clear nothing is going to budge you: that's not a very hackerly spirit, and being so closed to possibility should be disqualifying.
Oh boy. Vaporware startup facing an unsolved cold-start problem calling itself the “next era” of something and announcing lofty funding goals. Exactly where I want to put my personal data.
Is anyone else bothered that "social media" for the last few years is equated only to the micro-post platforms like xitter, bluesky, mastodon etc.? Are there any "normal" new social networks with no arbitrary character limits, tree comment structure, usable categories or subforums and sane UI, not singularly focused on a tiny screens?
Also, the name is.... Could they really not come up with something apart from a bluesky rip off? I understand they integrate with them etc, but still if you want to create a new app that you want actual people to use, then you need to be a little more creative. Thats ignoring the web design choices that others have commented on.
Europe absolutely should build their own. Is this the one that will happen? Will they have a diverse selection of viewpoints?
>Today, social media is critical technology. It shapes information flows, social norms, and political discourse. Yet Europe runs on US-owned systems whose architectures remain outside European jurisdiction and democratic control.
Social media is a place for speech. There's nothing else there.
Democratic control over speech is their goal.
>This includes our modular moderation platform, CoCoMo.
CoCoMo is an interesting name, but also quite interesting how they never explain which speech they plan to "control"
When your stated goal is to control the speech of your political opponents, they wont join.
Readit News
> In the next 12 months we aim to set up and operate key components in the AT Protocol tech stack: PDS services, relays, and content moderation, in order to ensure that the ecosystem is robust, resilient and with a base in Europe. We also aim to kickstart the development of a suite of social applications that advance democratic and participatory civics, through technical support, access to resources, and collaboration with communities.
> To do that, we aim to raise €5-7 million over the next 12 months, and €15 million in funding by 2028.
€5-7m for operating a BlueSky instance. Great use of european funds right here!
Deleted Comment
If your goal was social media "built and run in Europe, ruled by our laws", you'd just host a Mastodon instance and donate those EU funds to Mastodon GmbH
This looks like it's just the open source BlueSky instance and AT protocol? That's an American project and company, right? Is it just that the instance itself is run in Europe? What is "built in Europe"?
That said, I don't have an issue with using a US authored open source project for this. To use another example - PostgreSQL was originally US, but I don't have any problem with that being part of the deployment of Eurosky.
That said, I would prefer that the Open Source system we were using didn't have a profit making (US) company as principal maintainer. I think AT has some technical advantages over Mastodon, but I prefer the governance of ActivityPub/Mastodon.
OTOH, in that sense, internet (or more specifically, WWW) is technically built in Europe, so can we say WWW is a European product? :D
most humans abhor sterile environments.
I find it next to useless. Faecebook has told me about birthdays and people's bereavements weeks after they've happened. It looks awful if I reply to those late.
_
* I'm often confused by why. YouTube hid a thread in which someone pointed out the A Team had reused a Blues Brother joke.
It's far from being just Russian. China (wumao/50 centers) and the west have armies of them. The latter was out in force during the Covid business making sure everyone agreed.
In all three cases, we are talking about government agents (human or otherwise) who are the least likely to be affected by identity verification. They can come in by the back door.
Dead Comment
i abhor short sterile attitudes like this!
> approved opinions only
i fully expect most users of eurosky will not experience any censorship. this is just such a ridiculous over-dramatization, that is so preposterously lopsided.
please man. this sounds like the tin foil hat wearing nutcase shit that is ruining the US and the world right now. there's ways to debate & talk about these things, but this isn't starting conversation, it's just being smug. you are 100% on one side, totally polarized into spot, and it's clear nothing is going to budge you: that's not a very hackerly spirit, and being so closed to possibility should be disqualifying.
Dead Comment
How you could imagine someone calmly setting out their stall of ideas isn't starting conversation, but you making up their emotions as a counter is?
>Today, social media is critical technology. It shapes information flows, social norms, and political discourse. Yet Europe runs on US-owned systems whose architectures remain outside European jurisdiction and democratic control.
Social media is a place for speech. There's nothing else there.
Democratic control over speech is their goal.
>This includes our modular moderation platform, CoCoMo.
CoCoMo is an interesting name, but also quite interesting how they never explain which speech they plan to "control"
When your stated goal is to control the speech of your political opponents, they wont join.