Thank you for the write-up, it was clarifying.
Just to confirm one point: the bans we see today on Bluesky are not happening at the big-relay level, but at the bsky "app-view" level?
For example on the DID side they say they'll spin out the directory into an ICANN like non-profit outside the orbit of their entity. Will they or won't they, time will tell. (For many concerned ICANN level decentralisation is fine, though of course not for everyone, hence the emergence of handshake.org domains and all that.)
Also they envision a protocol ecosystem with many clients, each with its own moderation policies (or none). Right now Bluesky (as in bsky.app) is really all there is to talk about client-wise, but there are others clients being built. A couple examples:
- https://ucho-ten.net (Japanese)
There is nothing stopping someone today from developing a client on ATprotocol with zero moderation--so Bluesky the client could be moderating quite heavily, have a full-time team for that, but for some other client in the wider protocol ecosystem anything goes.
And they envision their god-relay being deployed by others with the means, perhaps AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure deploy and offer access as a managed cloud service) or perhaps a few non-profits of the Internet Archive variety. But some others, whoever they turn out to be. In theory that keeps everyone honest, but it comes back to the first point of do they spin out the directory or not.
So right now the directory is in-house, no other client besides their flagship-demo (as they see it) has traction to speak of, nobody else has deployed the god relay or announced plans to. Though the stated vision is supposedly for all that to change.
Discussion
That’s correct.
So the big relay can be spammed to death by a billion sybil accounts and will hold all sorts of illegal, evil content in it just fine?
especially the CSAM images and videos
National law would be a different story, responded above on that.
Each ATprotocol relay would be subject to the laws of whatever country of the entity that deployed it. So if AWS deployed an ATprotocol relay then CSAM would be filtered out by the AWS team at the relay level.
Key here is that if Bluesky the LLC spins out the directory then Bluesky the LLC would have no control over what others who have deployed the relay choose to do. So, like nostr users, ATprotocol users having issues with one relay could switch to another relay with their identity and all their data intact (assuming they take control of their PDS hosting). Each of those other relay operators would have to respect the law, but beyond that it would be up to each operator what to filter and what not.
However unlike nostr deploying an ATprotocol relay is a massive lift, since each relay is like the whole entire thing, many terabytes, and all those networking costs. You could imagine countries like Thailand or Argentina with one relay each, and some countries with multiple relays. In the US maybe one at Bluesky LLC, one at each of the clould providers, maybe one at a non-profit, one run via a foundation owned by a wealthy individual driven by personal convictions, and so on. So nothing like the massive number of nostr relays, but the general idea isn't all that different. (Again the *idea* -- if they don't spin out the directory, don't convince others to deploy the relay, don't have much luck growing the client ecosystem, all that, then that idea pretty much collapses.)
Anyway coming back to question, the ban stories making the rounds are bans by Bluesky the AppView, not the relay. Yes, the relay itself (currently the only one deployed) can be set up to filter/ban, and maybe it is already for CSAM, etc. But that's not relevant to the ban stories making the rounds, that's all AppView stuff.