this post was submitted on 27 Mar 2025
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[–] [email protected] 165 points 3 weeks ago

Glad to be a citizen of the chadiverse.

[–] [email protected] 128 points 3 weeks ago (15 children)

This has absolutely nothing to do with enshittification. Bluesky doesn't need that redirect to know what you're clicking on. You're already on their platform, they can already track every single click that you do while on Bluesky including navigating to outbound links. I'm a bit shocked that nobody here is calling that out to be honest

[–] [email protected] 22 points 3 weeks ago

FUD is the name of the rage bait game.

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[–] [email protected] 115 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (3 children)

So much for the claims I read that it would be a more open platform. I can’t see how this possibly benefits the users.

The product is ~~not open source and it~~ is mainly controlled by a company through its servers and proprietary components. They own it. Even if they use some open protocols. They are about as open as OpenAI — they are not.

[–] [email protected] 60 points 3 weeks ago (20 children)

This is technically incorrect (the best kind of incorrect?). Bluesky is open source, with the exception of the discover feed algorithm, which they claim must remain secret to prevent it being manipulated. There are open-source replacements for that feed available, so it's open enough that it is theoretically possible to spin up a Bluesky replacement, albeit impossibly expensive.

Coming at it from another angle though, the product in any commercial social media product is you, so in that sense you're right: the product is not open source. Either way, open source code is not some panacea that erases all risk of commodifying its users. Bluesky is a great example because while it is open source, that in absolutely no way prevents them from tracking their users.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

you’re right that this is likely to be used for tracking crap, but i wouldn’t write off the concept as only for that

for example, home assistant has https://my.home-assistant.io/ where you can set your home assistant URL and doc links (etc) link there, and then that site in turn automatically redirects to the correct place on your local home assistant

this could be used similarly by the fediverse: imagine my.join-lemmy.org where lemmy instances you’re not logged into redirected you to, which then in turn redirects to your home instance… that way, links across the web to lemmy would automatically redirect to your home instance

perhaps it’s not something that’s worth the trade off - centralising in some ways - but in federated platforms on the web it’s far from a write-off

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

So much for the claims I read that it would be a more open platform.

There's no profit in an open platform. You only build these things to mine data.

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[–] [email protected] 94 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

They already know your IP address, you're using their website/app.

It's either to track outbound clicks (And potentially block them if they're harmful, YouTube and Steam do that), or a much more unlikely option is to hide the referrer from the target site (Since browsers have better ways to handle that now, but old ones don't)

[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Wouldn’t it be easier to just scan the original post for harmful links?

[–] [email protected] 36 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

Then you have to scan every single existing known post every time a new link is blocked, if you redirect it through a bouncer it's a single endpoint to block any link, regardless of the source of the post (since bluesky is in theory decentralized)

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[–] epyon22 16 points 3 weeks ago

Websites can change

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[–] [email protected] 86 points 3 weeks ago

Didn't take long for the expected to happen.

[–] [email protected] 66 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (5 children)

This doesn't even make sense.

If you are on their domain they can see the things you click on, this is how websites and cookies work.

This isn't nefarious, it's the raving delusions of a tech illiterate idiot.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 3 weeks ago (11 children)

No.

You can see a link was loaded in the page. Link tracking is still needed to know if the link was clicked.

It can be an "on click" JavaScript event, or a redirect to a tracking site.

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[–] [email protected] 50 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

Never follow social media to a second location.

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[–] [email protected] 48 points 3 weeks ago (10 children)

Anything under direct corporate control will enshittify. It has nothing to do with mission, values, direction, purpose, or any other bullshit in the charter of a service. If it is controlled by an entity with shareholders turning a profit, it will enshittify, because those shareholders will demand ever increasing profit for their investments. It is a one-way process.

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[–] rekabis 40 points 3 weeks ago (18 children)

There is a legitimate reason for this: it’s the only way to provide content creators with evidence of how many people actually clicked on the link.

The downside is that there is so many ways that a feature like this can be abused by BlueSky in ways that can hurt users.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 weeks ago

Yeah, it's literally the second step of enshittification, where platforms stop allocating value to users and start allocating them to publishers. This is still Bluesky expanding out its surveillance apparatus, something it will have every incentive to abuse later on like other platforms before it.

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

As predicted.... And people piled on me here when I question why they were falling head over heels over bluesky when it was yet another techo bro platform

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[–] [email protected] 35 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Oh, there is so much more you can do with this "functionality". Welp, anyone who trusts bluesky even an inch better prepare to be deeply disappointed.

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

This is not enshittification. Many other knowledgeable users who actually know what they're talking about have explained why.

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 3 weeks ago (11 children)

Anybody know what the real reason for this is?

All websites can track how often a link is clicked, and what the link is, and who clicked it (especially if you have an account).

[–] [email protected] 25 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

It's to get around a bug on some platforms where the Referer header isn't set properly. Basically when you click the link in the app (maybe other platforms too idk), it can't set the Referer, so website statistics can't know what came from bsky. This was in their changelog. It used to already work correctly on desktop, though.

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 3 weeks ago (17 children)

I use an app called URLcheck that I've installed via F-Droid. Although it doesn't appear to give me the ability to skip the bluesky redirect action but at least I know it's there I guess.

[–] [email protected] 41 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

The best part is that if you inspect elements, it still shows as the original link. They only generate the go link after you clicked.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

That is so... gross!!! Ugh. Yuck!

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

How is this enshittification? As far as an end user is aware nothing has changed right?

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Even if it didn't go to bluesky.app first before the actual link, clicks on it can still be made to be tracked. It's trivial to do it much more discreetly.

It is definitely tracked, but I would guess that turning it into a bluesky link has other uses, not all nefarious, such as: link previews, caching, dealing with dead links.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I, for one, am shocked that moving from one corporate owned social media to another corporate owned social media didn't fundamentally change anything.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

Well for one, most of the nazis stayed behind.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (7 children)

Eh. Doesn't seem too bad, but then again, I haven't made an account there because of it not really being decentralized enough for my taste.
Seems kinda dumb to go from one centralized service like X to another. Bluesky's claims of being decentralized are highly exaggerated.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)
[–] [email protected] 22 points 3 weeks ago

What is wrong wth a fucking discount code to show where you hot the referral.

I refuse all cookies everywhere and the internet works just fine.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

Bluesky has been doing enshitification since it didn’t mind having that transphobic man on their platform, as far as I’m concerned.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

I mean, it was made by former Twitter execs... and that was marketed as an "advantage" over alternatives like Mastodon. This isn't surprising at all unless you literally don't pay any attention to anything.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 weeks ago

This is for publishers to track outgoing links.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

fuck it's almost like the world runs on capitalism

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 weeks ago

I've given up trying to save people from obvious traps. They refuse to listen and they refuse all data.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)
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