objects (@objects@dansu.org)
I'm not citing anything quoted below as authoritative. Especially not Wikipedia. These are simply some of the sources and claims that exist.
* The part about Jay Graber and Bluesky employees owning a majority of Bluesky is a claim allegedly made by Graber in multiple venues, by The Intercept in 2023, and by the BBC in 2024.
"Majority" might mean as little as 51% but prior to dilution the figure would typically be higher.
The Intercept comments are theoretically visible at the link below. There is a paywall, so I'll quote below that from an IArchive copy of the page:
https://theintercept.com/2023/06/01/bluesky-owner-twitter-elon-musk/
The IArchive copy states that Jeremy Johnson of Bluesky stated on April 09, 2023 that "The founding team holds the equity, no proper fundraise has happened yet, twitter owns none of it, jack is only on the board."
The BBC's comment is online at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8dm0ljg4y6o
The BBC article states that Bluesky "is now run and predominantly owned by chief executive Jay Graber..."
The North Carolina Bar Association and other numerous other entities cite the BBC's claim as fact.
I'd guess that the Intercept and BBC articles are two of the sources that are relied upon the most for this part.
* Wikipedia adds that Bluesky "is owned by CEO Jay Graber and other Bluesky Social employees. Graber has the largest ownership share of the company." There is no citation to this effect.
* The roles of Blockchain Capital and Neo Collective LLC and the dollar amounts involved are discussed in numerous articles and posts at sites such as The Verge, Tech Startups, TechCrunch, Silicon Legal, Ad Week, Axios, and Yahoo Finance as well as at Wikipedia.
* The preceding said, I'm not aware yet of proof, other than claims, that Jack Dorsey or any other significant individual or organization -- such as Twitter -- does *not* own and/or control at least part of Bluesky [either directly or by proxy].
It's unlikely, though, that an unknown party has control of #Bluesky as a whole [either directly or by proxy]. Graber would need to be a key part of the picture and would face immense legal risks.
I have reservations either way for the reasons that I've explained. Web 2.0 and corporate control of news and discussion needs to be over. It's as simple as that.
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objects (@objects@dansu.org)
Subject: Bluesky is cosplaying federation
Jay Graber and about 25 past or present Bluesky employees [plus or minus 5] together presently hold a majority share of the company. The rest is believed to be held by venture capital firms and other external investors, none of whom has as much as Graber does. The largest institutional investors are probably Blockchain Capital and Neo Collective LLC.
It isn't unusual for a company that isn't publicly traded to withhold details. There is also no indication yet that a group or individual not listed above owns enough of Bluesky to be able to demand much control.
Ownership is a red herring, though. There are concerns separate from ownership by specific parties that invalidate Bluesky as federated social media.
The vast majority of the Bluesky servers that hold user data, whether or not users supposedly "own" their data, are centralized and under the control of the one single [and private] company. That isn't expected to change.
In theory, Bluesky users may now set up self-hosted servers [referred to as Personal Data Servers] as in the Fediverse. In practice, the visibility of such servers requires the cooperation of the company's central servers.
Additionally, the Bluesky central servers control the identity of each Bluesky user whether or not the user runs a self-hosted server. Bluesky users can't migrate their identity and data without the cooperation of the central servers.
Further, for technical reasons, full or even just large scale decentralization of Bluesky isn't even possible.
Bluesky is designed so that due to high operational costs the infrastructure needed to support full operation independent of the Bluesky central servers is expected to be unaffordable to all but a few wealthy entities. In short, a billionaire's club.
I fail to see a difference, in a topological sense, between Bluesky and Twitter. My advice to those who prefer not to be krill is to run away, run away fast.
I intend no offense to #Bluesky users. However, the future of social media as a force for truth and for change is in #federation and nowhere else. When I researched this post, I found a comment that Bluesky is just "cosplaying federation" and the comment strikes me as accurate.
I asked an LLM to comment on my conclusions. Yes, LLMs are bad. See my recent posts for a related 15-page essay. Hold flames on the subject. This said, the following LLM response has merit. [This is lightly edited.]
"Most social media startups follow a trajectory where the need for a Return on Investment (ROI) eventually necessitates the monetization of user attention. And, even if the protocol is open, the most popular [i.e., commercial core] instance exerts gatekeeping power. For a platform to serve the public good, it must be insulated from the whims of the owners of such instances."
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SunnyIndigo (@SunnyIndigo@urbanists.social)
The saying is..”If you don’t see what you are looking for, create it.” I did it! I created a feed on #Bluesky & #Flashes for people like me. I hope to see you there! 🥰 No ads, commercials, or selling! This is not TT! #smallspaces #apartmentliving #decor #tinyliving #homedecor #homeorganization #studioapartments
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WorldTravelerAll7 (@WorldTravelerAll7@mastodon.world)
What The Actual Fuck? I go to share my Loops account, and I get this?!
Not #Mastodon or #Bluesky. No, ex-twitter & facebook. i am so disappointed. smh😞
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tiefling (@tiefling@bardicperspiration.club)
I dun want to pay but there might be some stuffs in:
https://icis.corp.delaware.gov/ecorp/entitysearch/NameSearch.aspx
File No. 6282898
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r (@r@fed.brid.gy)
The #Bluesky app just hang up on me during writing a text to be deleted for all time. This is the worst app I ever had on any phone ever! …
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r (@r@bsky.brid.gy)
#MissKittyPolitics #AI #Research for the win!
When I have a target, I forget to eat. In the last 5 months, I've lost 20 lbs on #Bluesky. I feel great. 🤜🏻😹🤛🏻 I can't recommend it as a diet for everyone. 😹😹😹
--
Prompt:
It is this inquirer assertion that Peter Thiel is a singular pivot point of ...
RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:hc7tndm7gduompba65aps75k/post/3me5hwmn2s22o
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r (@r@fed.brid.gy)
#美しい風景 #ブルスコ写真部 #Bluesky #Photography #Photo #photographic #landscape #landscapephotography @botanical.bsky.social@bsky.brid.gy @bskyphotos.bsky.social@bsky.brid.gy
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r (@r@bsky.brid.gy)
#美しい風景 #ブルスコ写真部 #Bluesky #Photography #Photo #photographic #landscape #landscapephotography @botanical.bsky.social@bsky.brid.gy @bskyphotos.bsky.social@bsky.brid.gy
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rombat (@rombat@sfba.social)
👀 Bluesky users:
Me and GitHub Copilot and not very much time at all: https://chrisromp.github.io/bsky-cleaner/
I couldn't find a free/OSS cleanup tool that worked the way I wanted. No problem.
Would love to hear any feedback on the tool.
#Bluesky #Privacy #OSS #OpenSource #GitHub #GitHubCopilot
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r (@r@fed.brid.gy)
Explanation: This message above took me about 10 minutes because the app sucks bad. It sucks very bad because it glitches and it loves to glitch. This app has so many bucks still. And the GIF support is also very very bad. #Bluesky doesn’t allow your own GIF here. So you have to rely on a
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r (@r@fed.brid.gy)
OMG does #giphy and #gif on #bluesky suck bad …
a close up of a cartoon charac...
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