‘Decentralized Twitter’ Bluesky releases code, outlines content moderation

cointelegraph.com:

Twitter’s decentralized social media project Bluesky has released its first batch of code, and also committed to content moderation on the network.

Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey first announced Bluesky back in late 2019, but the project went independent in February after receiving $13 million worth of funding from Twitter. However, Dorsey is still a member of the board.

Bluesky released its “Authenticated Data eXperiment” (ADX) protocol code via a May 5 blog post titled “Working in Public.” The team noted that it will be publicly sharing the process of developing the platform by “releasing work before it’s complete, but also giving ourselves time to workshop new directions at early stages.”

Today we're open-sourcing the Authenticated Data eXperiment (ADX) to begin working in public. https://t.co/lJY08TzRps

Developers are now free to experiment with the network architecture, but Bluesky notes that it is still very basic, and that “things are missing, and things are going to change.”

At this stage, the ADX protocol will utilize “self-authenticating data” which is a model that enables operations on a network to be certified independently without a centralized host or authority. The general idea is that the user will have control over their data and can move it from platform to platform without permission, which is an idea central to the Web3 movement.

While the platform will be decentralized, Bluesky outlined that it is “not possible to have a usable social network without moderation,” and intends to build a moderation model for the network dubbed “speech and reach.”

It’s not possible to have a usable social network without moderation. Our view is that “speech” and “reach” should be two separate layers. The speech layer can be