October 21, 2025 • 57 mins
When Elon Musk took over X, a lot of us left the platform, searching for alternatives. One platform that gained attention is Bluesky. It looks a lot like Twitter, but it’s different. Bluesky is built on a decentralized system, and that decentralized nature has allowed powerful pockets of community to emerge. To date, Blacksky is the biggest and most successful effort to take advantage of Bluesky's decentralization.
It's led by Rudy Fraser, a technologist committed to building resilient, independent infrastructure that can be a home for Black folks online.
During a session at Rights x Tech, the growing community forum that brings together technologists, policy makers, and movement leaders to explore the intersections of technology and power, Bridget had a fascinating conversation with BlackSky’s founder, Rudy Fraser, about the project and the future of Black voices online.
Learn more about Rights x Tech: https://www.rightsxtech.com/
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Being a black person on the Internet, you just anticipate that.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
There are no girls on the Internet.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
As a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative, I'm Bridge
tad and this is there are no girls on the Internet.
When Elon Musk took over Twitter, many users left the
platform searching for alternatives, and one platform that gained attention
early is blue Sky. At first glance, blue Sky looks
(00:34):
a lot like classic Twitter, short posts, replies, and reposts,
but underneath, it's very different because blue Sky is built
on a decentralized system, meaning no single company controls your
data or the network. Folks on blue Sky can choose
the algorithms that shape their feeds, and developers can build
their own versions of the app. Blue Sky has become
(00:55):
kind of a unique space online. Some users associate it
with more progressive voices, and the most followed individual on
blue Sky right now is AOC. As of August twenty
twenty five, blue Sky had just under forty million registered users,
and just last week, the Trump administration joined the platform,
posting can't wait to spend more quality time together. Unsurprisingly,
(01:17):
absolutely no one wanted this, and according to the blue
Sky block tracking site, clear Sky The White House is
now the second most blocked account on blue Sky, just
behind Vice President j d Vance. Controversial moderation decisions have
led some to wonder if Blue Sky is just another
version of the same old social media battles, but the
(01:38):
platform's decentralized nature has allowed for powerful pockets of community
to emerge, like black Sky, a custom feed and moderation service,
gradually becoming a key space online for black folks. To date,
black Sky is the largest and most successful effort to
take advantage of Blue Sky's decentralization, and it's all being
led by Rudy Fraser, a technologist who was committed to
(02:00):
building resilient, independent infrastructure that can be a home for
black voices. During a session at right Sex Tech, the
growing community form that brings together technologists and movement leaders
to explore the intersections of technology and power, I had
the chance to sit down with black Sky founder Rudy
Fraser to talk through blue Sky, Black Sky, and the
future of Black voices online. I want to start with
(02:27):
a question, Am I the only one that is kind
of feeling a bit I guess I would say burnt
out by our current social media and technology landscape. Don't
get me wrong, I don't want to get kind of
caught up in false nostalgia for the old days. I
know social media has never been perfect, but to me
(02:47):
lately it feels like a slog And I remember when
Elon Musk took over Twitter.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
I had all of these deep, deep, fond.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Memories of cutting it out on the og black Twitter.
Some of my best days spent procrastinating at my office
job on the.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Computer were spent on black Twitter.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
And so it was very tough for me to kind
of accept that that time was over and I probably
was not going to be experiencing these feelings of genuine
connection and joy and humor and community on a social
media platform run by Elon Musk, right, And so as
we think about the future of social platforms, today's conversation
(03:30):
really invites us to, I guess, do a bit of
speculative world building, imagining what it would take to unbreak
social networks and rebuild online spaces rooted in things like care, dignity, connection, community,
and freedom. Now, to get into all of this, we'll
be speaking to Rudy Fraser. Rudy is a technologist, community organizer,
and the founder of Black Sky algorithms where he develops
(03:53):
open source infrastructure that lets communities shape their social media experience,
govern their own data, and fund their collective needs. In
this conversation, we'll be packling questions like how does Blue
Sky reimagine the role of a public square online compared
to legacy platforms like Twitter or x or whatever we're.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Calling it these days.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
What does community ownership of data mean in practice? And
how could it transform our relationship to digital platforms? And really,
where do we see opportunities for decentralized platforms to resist
things like harassment, surveillance and disinformation Rudy, I know that
these are questions that you spend I would assume a
fair amount of time really wrestling with.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
So I want to kick it over to you.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
I have been following along with a conversation happening, so
I know that it has been an interesting few weeks
over at Blue Sky and Black Sky. But before I
get into all of that, I want to take it back.
What were your early experiences like on social media? Like
where did you go online to experience things like joy
and connection and community?
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Yeah? Hey, Bridlett, So I would say the platforms I
think of are not platforms folks like consider social media platforms,
I think of early I do think of like early
internet forums. I was big into video game moding and
and kind of like hacker culture at a young age,
and so like those old video game modding forms like
(05:20):
seven sins, I felt like that was I don't know
that that was where I find community and online gaming.
You know, I've made the same way I make friends
on Black Sky and Blue Sky and then meet them
in person is the same experience I used to have
as a teenager playing online video games. Yeah, and so
(05:40):
that and then I think my traditional social media experience
was very much folks who already kind of knew online
like Facebook, MySpace era, and yeah, just being able to
stay in touch with people like family members across the
world that my family's from Guyana and South America, I
can stay in touch with them via face book stuff
(06:01):
like that.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
I gotta say, the kind of person that is the
person that you just described who was making internet friends
using technology and you know, old school platforms, and then
was like I'm going to go meet these people in person.
That's a unique personality type.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
I feel, hm, I feel like it's so normal now
I met my you know, like my wife we got
married last year. We met on bumble and so, like
the I feel like it's become where it used to
be strange. I feel like internet culture is very just
like ingrained in at least a certain generation. There's like
(06:41):
rappers who are constantly wrapping about things that happen on
the Internet, and you know, and so yeah, I think
it's like become it's it's it used to be a
weird thing, like it used to be like a weird,
separate world. Now I feel like a lot of us
understand that it is. It's a part of how we
stay connected with people.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Totally.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
You were I feel like you were an early to
be clear, you were like an early adopter of that.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
I have a very clear memory of being quite young.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
And a teacher in my school met her husband on
an online dating site and it was the biggest scandal
in our town.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
And now it's so commonplace.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
It feels like that level of connection that you were
seeking on those early days of social media and platforms
like that, you were an early adopter for what would
become commonplace today in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Yeah, for sure. And I think I had like relatives
who were very you know, folks like a lot of
my closest friends and family members, they're like creatives, and
so they were using those social media platforms to try
to like build their careers on. And so I think
I also got inspired a little bit like that.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
So you mentioned that you, you know, experienced the sort of
social media platforms that we were all probably on MySpace
side note, there was no better platform.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
That's how I learned how to code.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
When you went to my MySpace page, a panic at
the Disco song played very loud, and then the pause
button was hidden, So I was like, no, you were
gonna listen to this Panic at the Disco song? It
would definitely crash your browser with like falling glitter stars.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
So I loved those platforms as well.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
I'm curious about your journey with more sort of traditional
social media platforms. When you were on platforms like Twitter,
was there a moment or a red line that made.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
You say, no more, this is not gonna work for
me anymore.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
I actually came to this work from a different place.
It's kind of funny, like I was never really big
on Twitter. I was. I used it early on and
to like follow like like artists and stuff, like that,
but I never actually encountered myself the kinds of like
challenges you would face from like having a big platform
(08:50):
on those spaces. So I kind of came I think
that probably maybe helped in some ways because I came
into working on Black Sky with just like fresh eyes
in terms of what are the what are my expectations
of how a community should work, And that was heavily
influenced by my in real life organizing work, and so
(09:12):
I tried to like replicate the things that I was
seeing and experiencing in real life because for me, like
I guess, bigger than just like the apps, it's the
kind of like this kind of definition of community I
have that is between like mutual accountability. And before working
on Black Sky, I was working on a project called
(09:32):
paper Tree that was a way for folks to kind
of practice mutual aid and that'sy be able to pool
funds together and be able to buy like pay for
each other's groceries essentially. And so in kind of as
I kept doing mutual aid organizing and learning about mutual aid,
I thought it was very I wanted to technology was
(09:53):
my thing, and so that was the way that I
saw myself fitting into too that world and not wanting
to be like their techno solutionists person who's like I'm
going to like, you know, revolutionize mutual aid by like
building some app. It was more like I just wanted
to like find my way of being seen and being
able to contribute to what I saw as a movement
that kind of came out of twenty twenty here in
(10:13):
New York where I'm based at and building. Yeah, like
you kind of find that, like social media is actually
a really great place both for real life community to
be developed and for people to even practice like these
kinds of like care practices like mutual aid. But it's
the it's it's then seeing that you can't really do
(10:37):
something like that in the traditional platforms, right. It's more
that like that I saw with this new wave of
decentralized social media protocols, I saw an opportunity to be
able to like execute against that.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
Let's take a quick break at our back.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
It's so interesting to me that you say that the
way that your expectations for what being on a social
media platform could feel like should feel like we're really
rooted in your ir L experiences around things like mutual
aids So for you, what are the expectations that you
have in your mind for what it can feel like
or be like to try to find community on social
media platforms. What is that experience like for you? And
(11:32):
what have you taken from your work and mutual aid
to inform that.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Yeah, I think the Internet is interesting because there's and
there's people who have like all different kinds of like
philosophies and ideas around how the Internet should work. I think,
for one, I take like a you know, I think
there's some people who view, for example, that like there's
this like instrumentalist kind of view of technology, where technology
(11:58):
is it is kind of like impartial, it's non biased.
It can't be you know, it's it's a hammer is
just a hammer, And I kind of reject that. I
think tools tend to better, they tend to like align
with power structures, and they benefit they benefit someone usually,
(12:21):
and they harm they often harm someone usually. And so
I think in real life organizing you start to acknowledge
some things like that. You also kind of you also
recognize that there's this like kind of philosophy that like
every cook can govern, but like really anyone can can contribute.
There's not it's not like there's there's maybe specialized knowledge
(12:42):
that's needed to set up technical infrastructure, but there's a
role that everyone can play in like content moderation, in
community building, in getting people into physical spaces together, like
event planning. It's like a thing that I'm not really
good at that there's folks in the community who are
good at. There's folks in the community who are creators
who are like like that idea that everyone can come
in and just as long as you make it so
(13:03):
that this is not like this closed off thing that
you own that like you have this kind of abundance
mindset that there's enough to go around that everyone can
play a role that I think that some of that
is the kind of thing that influences and I do
think you get that from like community forms where it
was like, you know, there was a space created and
then people came in and gave that space value, and
then those people were rewarded with reputation and respect to
(13:28):
a degree, you know, and like that's the thing you
can get on the Internet. There's like a kind of
respect capital that gets associated with with someone. People sometimes
use that with like followers or they try to like
hack it with followers, but there's kind of a you know,
we pour a lot into our online identities and then
you know, part of the problem is that you don't
actually own that identity, like a corporation owns that and
(13:50):
they can just take that handle away from you at
any point they could shut your account down or if
they want to. But yeah, and so those fun the
mentals I think are some of the things that like
you see that in like in real life organizing where
you're doing work and then people, you know, that kind
of brings people in and they make it their own
(14:11):
and then it becomes this new thing. That's kind of
how I think of like spaces created online.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
Boy you said it, and especially you know, maybe one
day a billionaire buys the platform where you've spent most
of your time building up your capital and followers and
relationships and connections, and it's not a fun place to
hang out anymore. So that's just that maybe something us
what happens.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Yeah, and you know, I think that can happen in
real life spaces as well. But yeah, like trying to
how do you build the stuff that makes that less
possible exactly?
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Let's talk about that.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
So give us a so I'm curious what drew you
to looking at decentralized platforms. And for folks who might
not know, can you give us sort of a quick
and dirty rundown of decentralization.
Speaker 4 (14:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
Yeah, So so the analogy I give a lot of
analogies with this stuff. I'll give an analogy for decentralization
in general, and then I'll give one for decentralization and interoperability,
which are big big words. But then and then then
one specifically for app protocol. So decentralization, I would say,
is like a lot of folks, you know, put together,
are used to buying furniture from some store Ikia target wherever,
(15:22):
I don't know, and then like it, often there's an
Alan wrench you know that that like hexagon shape that
you use to screw in the bolts together.
Speaker 4 (15:31):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Usually it's funny. They usually send a lot of Alan
wrenches with like a lot of the furniture you put together,
and then if you keep them, it can work on
the next thing that you buy. And so that's that's
an example of interoperability. All these if you think about it,
all these people who produced this furniture decided that they
were going to use the same hexagon shape and you know,
(15:52):
now the tools work between each other. That's an example
of interoperability and decentralization, where like decentralization like kind of
requires interoperability. It requires for two things to be able
to work together without those two people speaking. And right
now it's like you can't you cannot, you can't be
(16:15):
on Instagram. Like let's say you were just on Instagram.
You can't from your Instagram account dm someone on Twitter.
You can't export you can export your data in a
lot of these places, and then it's just like a
dead set of data, like you can't take that and
put it anywhere. You can't leave and keep your followers. Right,
that's how they that's how they get you. And folks
(16:37):
call this like a walled garden, and so decentralization eliminates that.
It makes it so that you have some kind of
data portability. You can pick up where you were, and
if you don't like it anymore, you can take it
somewhere else. And then you still have your your identity
stays the same, you still have your followers, you still
(16:59):
have your posts. You didn't lose anything, you're just under
new management. And so so that's like decentralization broadly, and
then there's lots of different ways people have approached designing
decentralized systems. You know, the one that I the space
that I work in is particularly at protocol, which the
experience of that from a user is like if every piece,
(17:21):
if you download a social media app, if you download
blue Sky, for example, everything is ran by different It's
one app, but everything is ran by a different company.
You could have downloaded blue Sky, you could have downloaded
something else another app. Skylight is another example. They're like
a TikTok version of blue Sky, and your account will
(17:41):
work with both. You can sign up on either in
your account will work with both, and then you know,
then there's your social media feed, right, Folks are usually
used to just like a following feed and then a
kind of recommendation algorithm, a for you page, a discover feed.
Blue Sky may come with those by default, and then
you can switch to another algorithm or feed that was
(18:02):
designed by someone else. So we have ones designed specifically
for showcasing black content. There's a trending version, there's a
chronological version, there's a there's a TikTok like version of videos.
There's one for just images like Instagram and uh and yeah,
and then if you encounterure some harmful content, you can
choose who your moderators are. You can choose where your
(18:23):
data is hosted. That is, that's the experience of at
protocol and I think where it comes into like the
you mentioned earlier that there's been a lot of stuff
going on in the in the ecosystem. Uh, there was
an incident that I addressed yesterday where a user who
was he had his account hosted by black Sky, but
(18:47):
he was suspended from Blue Sky. Uh. And so folks
are kind of had the reaction of like, well, what's
the point then of decentralization If you can be you
can maybe move your account, but then they can like
they can this other company can still suspending You're still
subject to the moderation rooms of the other company. But
it's really like the way app protocol is kind of
set up is that your data. It's if you imagine
(19:11):
publishing as an example, Right, you're a writer and you
want you write a manuscript, right, the PDS or some
of the infrastructure black Sky runs is a safe space
to store your manuscript. But then Blue Sky, what they
also had running is kind of this the distribution it
(19:31):
is the It's kind of like the Barnes and Noble,
the bookstore, the publishing house, the thing that gets your
manuscript from just your hands into the hands of millions
of people. And so this person was banned from the
bookstore essentially, but even though he was banned from the bookstore,
there are different apps that people have built that instead
of going to the bookstore to find the manuscript, it
(19:51):
goes directly to the author. So that's kind of the
example of like what decentralization can allow. You can still
maintain your data and your ownership and not have it
deleted because typically when Blue Sky, if you're only if
you're only on the Blue Sky infrastructure and they suspended you,
they would also delete all your data. But so some
of these conversations around data sovereignty is that like you
(20:14):
should be able to maintain your identity. An app can
suspend you because they have their rules right. They may
you may just be promoting something that they don't want
to help distribute to millions of people. That's their right.
You basically have freedom of speech but not freedom of reach.
Is kind of the example that folks talk about, like
you know, that's why. And there's other ways that can
(20:38):
kind of explain how that plays out in the ecosystem.
But you really should always be able to publish whatever
you want. And then but people who govern certain spaces,
like blue Sky governs their space, Black skuy governs our space,
those organizations and anyone can start that up. You know,
it takes some technical infrastructure or some money, but like
(20:59):
you can start to create the spaces and to kind
of design the experience you want in there without infringing
on other people's you know, ability to speak.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
I was quite surprised at how people reacted to that
user that you described their experience on the platform, and
I wondered, do you think that users are Do you
think that response was rooted in a sort of anxiety
about the kind of things that maybe are the reason
(21:30):
why they left Twitter for Blue Sky or other platforms
in the first place, That concern about how these platforms
are moderated and what's showing up their means. Like, I
was genuinely surprised at the reaction to what you just
described happening, And maybe you weren't surprised.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
But what do you think was going on there?
Speaker 1 (21:51):
There's a there's a lot. I think there's some folks
who say, like, I think I agree with some people
in the ecosystem that's like model is your product, like
if you like in a traditional social media experience, their
business model is ad driven, right, And so that's why
(22:14):
the experience of a social media app kind of plays
out the way it does because they need they make
money by having you scroll the feed and stay on
their app or as long as possible. That's why TikTok
is super addictive. They've done it's all weird to say
they've done a great job at their algorithm, but they've
they've done a great job of keeping you glued to
(22:34):
the screen. Twitter also has that for folks. And there's
like a ton of research. There's like books written. I
have a book here called like hook, like people have.
There's people have done research on how to keep you
addicted to and to these applications. It's science, and so
that's why they keep you locked in. They don't want
(22:56):
you to be able to leave. They don't want you
to be able to take your data. They want you
to be able to keep scrolling. In a decentralized protocol,
you don't have the same incentives like so the users
are not the product. In that case, you have to
find some other revenue stream. And so like blue Sky,
I think there's a lot of when there's an absence
(23:16):
of information, people fill that in with assumptions their own anxieties.
Like you mentioned, so people are like, how will blue
Sky make their money? So we don't know, you know,
probably blue Sky doesn't know, and so people fill that
in with like are they training are they taking our
data to like train an AI model? Are they are
(23:38):
they trying to pander to like these right wing conservative folks,
Like why are they doing that? Like all these different
things kind of come into play because things are not
made explicit. Uh, it's kind of like I'm sure there's
some theory of this. There's like the tyranny of structurelessness,
where it's like there's if there's like a vacuum or
like an unclear there's no clarity around a power structure
(23:59):
of power stars which are kind of forms. It's just
a little unaccountable. I think the same thing kind of
happens with like the fact that there's no clear business
model and things like that, and so people just kind
of fill in those blanks. So for me, I wasn't
as surprised because a lot of the users who were
on blue Sky as well, they vibrated from Twitter, and
(24:20):
so I think some of them without even really recognizing
they thought it was blue Sky was just Twitter but
ran by you know, not Elon. And so the expectations,
like the user education, there's a lot of stuff that's
like not there. So a lot of what I just
tried to do that seem to have gotten positive responses
(24:42):
for is just try to like break things down for people,
be really clear, be really transparent, be really honest about
where stuff is at, and like what we're planning to
do next.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
That makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
I was one of those people who just thought, screw
Elon Musk, I'm going over to the Twitter that he
doesn't own. And then someone was like, oh, you should
try mask it on if you're looking for a decentralized experience,
and that didn't work out for me, But like there
is I think there has been a user education piece
of it that I think your work at black Sky
has been so instrumental in being a foundation of can
(25:14):
you walk us through black Sky how it works and
what makes it different from centralized platforms.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
So if you visit black sky dot Community, which is
our web app, that's where you could sign up for
an account, and you'll notice immediately that like if you
want to, it looks similar to blue Sky, which looks
similar to Twitter, but it's branded as our thing. And
when you create an account on blacks dot dot community,
(25:42):
you will be under the black Sky terms of service
and privacy policy. You'll have a handle that's like bridget
dot blacksky dot app, for example, but the feed that
you see immediately is black Sky, the black Sky community itself.
So this is an algorithm that is just of the
black users on the platform who've opted in voluntarily to
(26:03):
be a part of black Sky as a community. From there,
you know, and I think even just stopping there, if
you can imagine, we sometimes get this question from folks
of like what will stop black Sky from being overran
by bad actors? And I think the last two years
(26:23):
of us running the platform has been the demonstration of that,
the like we can't stop you can't stop other people's hate,
but we have. We've put up a really good fight.
I would say I've been docks by white supremacists because
of my work on black Sky. We've had people try
to like raid the feed and do all kinds of
crazy things, but we built in systems to actively prevent
(26:47):
that harm. And not only do we have the automated
systems to do that, we also have a team of
all black moderation team, you know, very familiar with with
the the kind of context that we work within that's
always there, and so folks, folks feel attended to, folks
(27:07):
feel heard. The We strike this balance of trying to
create a space where you can have fun and like
not care about all this super technical like all this
infrastructure that we're running in the background, but we're there
when you need it, right, So like we're there when
you want to speak truth to power and then you
feel like Blue Sky the company may censor you for
(27:31):
that right or take your account down. We're there. You know,
if you encounter there's maybe there is some bad actor
that rolls up and they're like, what the fuck is
Black Sky. You know, we can you can still do
the like three hundred quote posts on that person, like
feel free, but you could also just quietly and discreetly
hit the report post button and our team will will
(27:54):
handle that and yeah, and then all your data is
hosted by us, So that's just all governed by ours
and for us, we're looking to like the next thing
that we want to do is kind of create these
community only spaces. So I believe that you should have
control over your speech on these platforms, like be able
(28:17):
to modulate your speech. So right, like every time you
make a post, it's kind of a megaphone.
Speaker 4 (28:23):
You know.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Sometimes for me, I'm trying to whisper and it ends
up being a shout because there's no really there's no
way to distinguish that I maybe replying to someone, and
then people will be like, oh, he was saying this
really low key. I'm just like, yeah, I was trying
to just say this to this one person. I guess
I should have the ended, but but yeah, and so
we sometimes you want to just speak to a more
(28:46):
closed off group of friends. On other platforms, you have
the opportunity to do stuff like private posts. In the
way the protocol is designed, you enter into these tricky
situations where things that should be obvious are just difficult
to do. So like boost in ship with private accounts,
you can't like lock your account down to just be
you know, just your followers. We're introducing something that will
(29:09):
allow you to like be able to make public posts.
You can speak to the megaphone because like sometimes it's
weird misunderstanding that like we just want to like create
another bubble for people that I don't think that's true.
I think people have group chats, right, you have one
on one conversations with friends. Sometimes you have a group chat.
We're trying to create a big group chat where you
can come in and be a part of a community
(29:30):
and meet people. And you'll have that and then you
we also have created a platform for you if you
really want to speak to thousands of people, Like there's
been millions of people who have viewed the Black Sky feeds.
This is also your way to get an audience. You know,
whether there's it's some important issue, you just want to
make some jokes, you want to build a following, whatever
that whatever that thing is, like you should have these options.
(29:50):
We want to give people options that keep them allowed
them to have fun and be able to also you know,
not face harassment when they want to speak out against
white supremacy and then ultimately too like we really want
to create in a long term, we want to become
like the Reddit frapp protocol. We want to be able
to anyone can come. People have been inspired by our
(30:10):
work already, there's Latin Sky we're you know, doing the
not even using our tools, but replicating how we do things.
Because there's a barrier to that, right there's today there's
a barrier to like using the stuff that we've built.
All of our code is open source. It's very transparent.
You can you can jump in and contribute to the
code if you want to to written a rust. That's
also another barrier. We're trying to break down the barriers
(30:33):
we want. We want the most amount of people to
be able to participate and co create this with us
as possible. Uh you know, but but yeah, so we
want we want people to go to come and take
their communities. Latin skuy that North Sky has followed in
our footsteps and they're doing similar things for the LGBTQ community.
And yeah, and so we want anyone to be able
(30:54):
to just come in and take our tools quick a
button and then get a whole community infrastructure and community
app setup that is not closed off. It's still like
it has a quiet space for your community, and then
it has a you also have this like public global
social media infrastructure, so you know, you can still we
(31:15):
like like app protocol wants to get to four billion
people whatever number of Facebook has, but on a decentralized
protocol that no one knoweds And so that's the vision,
that's the goal.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
More after a quick break, let's get right back into it, Rudy,
I did have a question for you. I think it's
somebody mentioned this in the chat, and I do think
(31:49):
it's worth kind of plus plusing the way that you
were very intentional about things like moderation from the beginning
of starting this process. And I've often wondered, is there
a bad lens to be had between scale and making
the biggest platform that you can have with the most
amount of users and saying, well, there might be some
value in intimacy, there might be some value in us
(32:12):
intentionally curating a smaller set of users. Do you have
is there is there a tension with what you're doing
at Black Sky in that Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
I talk about this and some presentations I give where
I think there's you know, you mentioned Macedon. I think
Macedon is a good example. If you want like maybe
one hundred people in a community and you want like
infrastructure that's like owned by you, and then maybe you
selectively connect with some other one hundred person communities and stuff.
(32:44):
I think that's good. Uh, that is a use case.
I think we want to have the fun the like
the funnest block party in the city is kind of
the experience, and I think that needs a lot of people.
(33:04):
And so I think for the kind of experience and
stuff that we want to build, I think you need
to be looking to scale. You know, we spend a
lot of money and time on creating scalable infrastructure for communities.
Blacks di again has been used by millions of people,
and we want to help out the other folks, you know.
(33:26):
I think that's why I use Reddit as the example,
Like there are some breadits that are used by millions
of people, Like that is the It's it's a technically
challenging thing to do that though as a decentralized service.
So that's where there's some of the technical tensions.
Speaker 3 (33:41):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
There's also moderation challenges. I think after a certain number
you do encounter like there's there's a question that's come
up in the community that we're working through to resolve.
But like moderation, people are very anti AI. But what
do you do when you have one hundred thig people,
like one hundred thousand images and videos being uploaded to
(34:06):
a platform every month. A lot of them are going
to be sexual content, and you have to be able
to distinguish against like what's not okay or at least
just even this label that content so that people. So
then end users can make their choice of like do
I want to see sexual content? Do want a HI day?
Do you want to have a blur of to the
warning label? People get that control on that protocol, and
so I think some of that is a bit of
(34:29):
attention because some people are like, well someone should manually
review all those images, and it's like, well, then you
have to have then you have to have a smaller space.
And so I think like we want we don't want
to be like we don't want to just have like
the billion person one space, billion person in this space.
We do want to foster communities of millions of people,
and I think we can. I think you can do
(34:50):
that with the with the tools that we've created. There's
also like one thing we didn't talk too much about,
but like we want our It's weird that people make
community guidelines but their communities don't influenced the guidelines. And
so that's something we did where we try to co
create our community guidelines with our community. We have this
tool called the black Sky People's Assembly that is a
(35:11):
deliberation tool where people can weigh in submit statements. So
we had one was like what should be our community guidelines,
and six hundred people submitted over I think about five
hundred statements of what should go into our community guidelines,
over twenty thousand votes submitted on the different things of
(35:31):
like what people agree with, what people disagree with. So
these are the things where it's like, you know, if
you were if you want to do this at scale,
there's tools that need to be built to allow you
to do this kind of decentralized community governance at scale.
I think that's just a very interesting space for us
to work here.
Speaker 3 (35:49):
Yeah, I mean that speaks to the question that we
got from John who says it's worth highlighting that black
Sky is incredibly unusual complimentary for focusing on moderation upfront
and having a moderation expert as a core member of
the team. How many other social networks have ever done that.
I don't know any Rudy, I don't know if that's
a question that you have any insight into, but I
(36:10):
do think it highlights exactly what you were just speaking
about the importance of having these decisions be things that
are bought a very early on and foundational to the
experience of being on this platform.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
Yeah, I think that comes from like, honestly, I mean
that's more like sometimes I think people have this like
superficial understanding of like why Black Sky is important. And
I think that, like being a black person on the Internet,
you just anticipate that, you know, like you just anticipate
we will get attacked. And so for me, I'm always
(36:45):
just like, Okay, I know this is going to happen,
so I'll have a plan for when it happens, and
then when it happens, then I can just immediately drop
the thing. Like we have a feature called band from
TV that stops people from being able to view the
Black Sky Feed, and I knew that that was going
to be a thing that we were going to want
to do at some point. And then there was an
(37:05):
issue where people were like trolling the Black skyfeed to
find they weren't posting to the Black skyfeet but they're
finding people and then harassing them. So it was like, oh,
like now this is happening, so now let me ship this.
And that was like the second month that we were
in operation of the Black skyfeed. So it happened. It
all happened very quickly, but we've been battle tested over time,
(37:26):
and then, yeah, I've always wanted our community moderators. There's
folks who used to work at places like TikTok, There's
people who worked at doing trust and safety there, there's
folks who have done research on misogynal war shouted doctor K. Yeah.
So we've got a team of folks who all have
done community moderation in other spaces before and now do
it for Black scot They've done it for Masterton, etc.
Speaker 3 (37:49):
It kind of makes me I haven't took a bittersweet
thing to hear you describe this, because on the one hand,
what a tired story that it's like, oh, you're a
black person or some sort of a traditionally marginalized person
in a digital space, get ready.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
For harassment, you know.
Speaker 3 (38:05):
But also part of me is like, well, I'm glad
that people in charge have that historical and cultural knowledge
or that they didn't have to go through the thing
of being like, oh, we are shocked this happened and
are not prepared for it, which I feel that so
often is the case on social media platforms where people
don't necessarily have that cultural background.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
Do you know what I'm saying?
Speaker 1 (38:25):
Yeah, absolutely, there's always like, yeah, the shocked Pikachu face
every time someone abuses your platform. It's just like I
don't know, like we I don't know even what practice
of I don't know. I always find it dishonest because
like even if you're if you put a server up
on the Internet, it's getting scanned by like attackers immediately,
(38:47):
like and so this just kind of like defensive posture
without having it take without having it be a burden
of you know, we still have this. We have a
move fast break chains ethos at Black Sky, which is
that like, like I think there are some folks who
are like, I don't know, there is a lot going on,
(39:08):
or there's always this, uh so there's kind of like
a move slow ethos. Sometimes with social justice spaceism, I'm like,
if you believe the problems are urgent, I feel like
you should move fast, Like if you think that like
we're in like late stage capitalism and we're under fascism,
Like why would you be chill about that? And so
that's why we want to build things as quickly as
(39:28):
possible for like private spaces for people, for people to
be able to yet fuild communities, send money to each other,
practice mutual aid because we think it's urgent. And then
there's the break change part, which is that like we
are going to be encounter We know that we are encountering,
like we're fighting an uphill battle, and we should just
be prepared for that, like you kind of just kind
(39:50):
of know what comes with it. My own team sends
it back to me, it's like you named your you
name the company Black Sky, Like it's gonna like get attacked.
Speaker 3 (39:58):
Yeah, can you this is a personal question. Can you
put move fast and Break chains on a T shirt?
Speaker 2 (40:05):
For me? Or perhaps some so, I mean soon soon?
Speaker 1 (40:09):
How these shirts?
Speaker 3 (40:11):
I mean that that doesn't even One of my kind
of questions is how do you think about balancing things
like freedom of expression with genuine, meaningful, community driven safety
in decentralized environments.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
Yeah, I think of uh, I think of their people
often because of I Like, I guess there's some people
who have this like understanding of like okay, well you
know black Scott, so it will be attacked. There's like, uh,
there's issue, there's like outside attackers, right, and then there's
(40:47):
community conflict, and I think of like the outside attackers
we have generally you know, knock on wood. But like
so far has been a solve problem for us. The
really interesting challenges do come with Okay, now there's intracommunal conflict,
not intercommunal, intercommunal, and so it's like, do you something
(41:08):
there's you know, like generally our approaches to be hands off,
like let the community sort itself out, because conflict can
be generative at times as long as folks aren't demonstrating
forms of like internal internalized anti blackness or or misogynal war.
(41:33):
You know, as long as you aren't breaking our community
guidelines again, which we develop with the community. So like
now there's going to be things around like fat phobia
and and like and and and all these other protections,
but as long as you are following the community guidelines,
go off. You know, we want to be we want
to leave space for people to get creative, have fun
(41:55):
sometimes you know, sometimes sometimes the jokes are a dicks,
so someone but I think there's still like I think
that's still like a worthwhile experience that you can have
in a communal space and then you brush it off,
you come back the next day.
Speaker 3 (42:08):
And it's a kind of I mean, haven't we all
been roasted by our cousins where it's like, or are
you laugh a little too hard at a joke?
Speaker 2 (42:15):
And someone is like, I know you're not laughing and
you're like, oh no.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
They got it, Like I posted by listening to the
young Thug and someone was like, I hope you heal
And I'm like, do you know I can't. I'm like,
even I'm getting cooked on my own app So.
Speaker 3 (42:32):
And I think, I mean having folks who know folks
who know our communities at the helm is important. This
is gonna be a weird analogy, but there's a scene
in the movie Mean.
Speaker 2 (42:41):
Girls with the popular girls. They all have to.
Speaker 3 (42:44):
Have like a like a girl student wide me like
needing to discuss tensions, and the popular girls realize, oh,
the drama girls have their own little, you know, conflict.
In the softball team, they have their own little conflict.
Then there's all these other little micro conflicts in these
communities that people might not know the norms that dictate
(43:06):
those communities that you just sort of have to let
them talk it out and work it out amongst themselves
because that's the only way they're going to get anywhere.
It kind of seems like that of there is some
value in just sort of letting folks settle being tensions
and conflict in their own community via their own norms
that like you might not necessarily know the ins and
outs of.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
Yeah, and I think that, like, I think that's like
super important. Community norms are Like sometimes people are like,
what's this hard and fast rule that you're going to
put in place to stop this thing from happening. I'm like, well,
I feel like we have norms for that. Like there's
there's laws, and then there's norms. And I don't want
to make a law for like something that could just
(43:47):
be resolved with a norm and the community should organically
come up with that community norm to like enforce that behavior.
And yeah, and I think that, like you, yeah, you
see that within in real life groups all the time,
like that that conflict resolution is uh And I think
(44:11):
you have to draw a line. You have to be
able to draw a line around a space, So there's
a question around here about like the public square conversation,
and I've I really I think the public square is
somebody else's problem. I am trying to create community spaces.
I'm trying to make the hangout spot. And you know,
we got some bouncers here. We got uh you know,
(44:34):
they're just on the outside garden the door. Folks on
the inside are figuring themselves out. We have some music playing.
We want and and you know, and it's a voluntary association.
You want to you want to come kick it with us,
Come kick it with us. That is what we're trying
to solve for. And then you also have like maybe
a mega uh you know, we have like I guess
(44:56):
a loud speaker outside if you want to go reach
everybody else feel free. But the public square has been
dominated by people trying to fight it out in the
marketplace of ideas and algorithms like trying to influence people
in all kinds of ways and so like that is
a different problem that someone else may be trying to solve.
But I'm trying to solve for communal spaces where you come,
you have a good time.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
More.
Speaker 3 (45:19):
After a quick break, let's get right back into it.
This conversation is all about sort of how we are
trying to unbreak social networks. How do you think Blue
(45:41):
Sky helps move us more toward those community centered digital spaces.
Speaker 1 (45:47):
I think that Black skies more so the ones like
helping to demonstrate what that can look like. I think
Blue Sky wants to invest more into the creation of
commune unity. There's been conversations about like turning kind of
following again following and offert steps of like combining a
feed with a moderation service and then calling that like
(46:09):
a particular space and so there's a place where you
can go you can post to a feed. I think
there's like some of that work being done. I'm personally
really there's some like under explored areas with a at
protocol in Blue Sky that I'm that we're interested in,
Like we we just we just got this fellowship, this
(46:31):
cipherpunk fellowship to help kind of develop private payments, you know.
I think that's a very I think it's again practice
of mutual aid. It's important Black Sky as a community
have done that for a while from the very beginning.
But then also creators being able to like monetize their content.
There's someone on on Black Skuy who the name is ni.
(46:55):
Every every day they post like a they call it
question Sky and they post like these like twenty questions
that people all quote post and reply and it's always
like a different theme and then they end it with
like their cash app, and so like people should be
able to like help, you know, support the creators in
there in these spaces, and then like you know, sex
workers as well should be able to be able to
monetize their content without you know, worrying about all kinds
(47:19):
of restrictions that could end up being placed on them.
The other thing is reputation so verification. The conversation around
this has subsided a little bit, but folks were a
little disappointed that Blue Sky's model for verification ended up
being that like blue Sky gives out the blue checks.
(47:43):
There are more interesting versions of this that could be
built out with like web of trust kind of models.
So basically, like I think of like, I really I
don't think it's perfect, but Reddit's karma score is very interesting. So, like,
are there ways for you to create a decentralized is
reputation system for people? Because I do think that like,
(48:03):
once you online identities cost nothing to create and so
there should be some way for you to be able
to build up reputation on against a certain identity over
time and know that this is like a trusted a
trusted thing they have like domain, Like you can like
make your domain your handle on blue scar and that's
(48:25):
like that was like the original form of verification. So
you know, fake CNN dot BSk dot social is clearly
distinguished from CNN dot com or like rudipraser dot com
versus fake Rudy dot Biski dot social. But I think
there's like more that could be explored there, and I
think communities can verify people like it. You know, I've
(48:46):
always like Black Skys should be able to hand out
verifications so like key members of their community badging, you know,
being able to say that like I'm a sucker for
like get hub, you get a certain amount of stars,
you get like a gold medal, you get a silver medal.
Being able to incorporate stuff like that, like if you're
a black Sky supporter, be able to show like a
badgering and profile. I think stuff like that is really
(49:10):
cool and interesting to build, to be able to take
to basically build on the decentralized identity layer, which is
like way in the background for a lot of people,
but there's interesting stuff there. There's a meeting with someone
from the Applied Social Media Lab, where I was a
fellow earlier this year. They want to work on verified credentials,
so you can basically say that like connect to your
Blue Sky identity to this account on Instagram and Twitter
(49:32):
and stuff like that. So I think that's those are
like interesting spaces to work on.
Speaker 3 (49:39):
Yeah, I'm curious, do you see all of these so
both with the success of Black Sky and then the
smaller decentralized platforms and communities popping up, do you see
this as the way of the future that we genuinely
can help reset or unbreak kind of our default settings
and default learnings of social media platforms and what they
(49:59):
can be.
Speaker 1 (50:00):
Yeah, I think there's a strong signal there. Even even Facebook,
to their credit like build threads and they're trying to
integrate with the fediverse. I think there is. It's like
a half hearted attempt, but I do think that like
that's acknowledgment that you know, maybe that's like Zuckerberg in
the back of his head, like not wanting to be
disrupted in the future. But yeah, I think it lets
(50:21):
you unlock way more creativity around around the stuff that
you're that you're doing, being able to like and I've
been asked a lot about like our niche online spaces
the future of social media. I want, I personally want
(50:42):
it both ways. I want you to be able to
have a cozy corner to hang out in and for
you to be able to because organize again with organizing
right like we have we We the People NYC, which
I'm a lead organizer for, is a mu mutual aid
group in New York. We have a like one hundred
person signal group chat where we're like organizing and talking
about stuff. And then we like if like the cops,
(51:04):
you know, arrest us at our mutual aid distro, we
then do want to post on Instagram and TikTok and
get one hundred thousand views because that's what brings the
news crews around and then we can like get our
message out and you know, and so like, I think
you need both. I think you need private spaces and
you need to be able to have like a global reach,
(51:25):
especially if you think about internationally, like folks who are
like facing like these real life crises around the world.
Like they they need a global reach. They need people
who understand their context, right, Like if you think of
like Facebook's role in genocides globally like meandmar and stuff like,
(51:45):
some of that was because there are the moderators did
not have a local context and they didn't have the tool.
They had the option to use the tools to translate it,
but they didn't, Right. And there's like a world where
you know, there weren't seeing this yet, but we're actually
we're actually seeing with the europe I guess there's some
folks trying to create Eurosky. There's like building tools that
(52:06):
are specific to the regulations and norms of your physical
geolocation and then still being able to reach everyone around
the world. You know, I do think that is the future.
Speaker 3 (52:21):
Yeah, yeah, I mean I want to sort of click
into that because you know, I think back to all
the different very impactful social and political movements that were
started on social media platforms, things like me Too, things
like Black Lives Matter, the racial justice, autriety uprisings that
we saw in twenty twenty. Do you think that have
(52:42):
we Because in some ways what you're saying makes me
feel hopeful. I sometimes get a little pessimistic and think, oh,
we'll never see another global movement pop off on social
media as effectively as we once did. But when you
were speaking, I thought, maybe it won't look like it did,
or maybe it won't be on the platform that it
happened in in twenty twenty or twenty sixteen, But that
(53:03):
doesn't mean it can't still happen.
Speaker 2 (53:05):
What do you think about that?
Speaker 1 (53:07):
Yeah, I mean it's nowhere near those other movements, But
like the Tesla takedown thing did start on blue scar
look like a blue Sky post, and then I do
think that it won't look like how they did it,
how it looked in the past. I think I think
it will look differently. I can't speak for the early
(53:31):
Black Lives Matter protests that started on Twitter, but I
do know that, like I do know how it felt
for like twenty twenty in the George Floyd uprisings, and
we did use Instagram, Like Instagram kept me informed on
lots of things. Instagram is still like useful for a
lot of that and like getting people out in the street.
(53:51):
But I think I do like, I don't know how
it will look, but people are actually matter of we
have current examples Nepal. They're like using tools like Jack
Dorsey's Bitchat, the one of the noster devs like shared
this chart that's like he he knows that he knows
(54:14):
when there's a social uprising because he sees like installs
from certain locations with like the Bitchat installs go out.
So like me and mar had a bunch of installs
recently because they have are not me, I'm sorry, Matta
Gascar had something going on recently Nepal like they they
also the Neapolo Journal was interesting because like I wasn't
they voted in their prime minister like in discord and
(54:37):
so like, you know, I'm like for meo, like why
didn't they I think that's like a damning thing, Like
why didn't they use these other so called decentralized social
media platforms like to do that on you know, And
so I think there's a lot there that is like
under explored. So yes, I don't think it will look
the same.
Speaker 3 (54:57):
What is giving you hope about building the the healthier
community centered online spaces these days?
Speaker 1 (55:04):
I'm always just really everyone that's joined the team has
joined like voluntarily or like the fact that like people
just kind of come into Black Sky like make it
their own. There's a very common narrative I think in
like like particularly like white tech circles that like the
founder is just like visionary who like charts this course
(55:25):
and like really I think of first myself as just practicing,
you know, like being influenced by the black radical tradition
and being influenced by my cultural upbringing and like literally
like how I grew up, as like the way I
think about the stuff that I build and seeing people
then come into Like someone made a fellowship to get
(55:46):
people to get Black Sky members to the app protocol
conference earlier this year. Shout out to Linda there. Otherwise
I would have probably been one of the two black
people there if it wasn't for Linden and the fellows.
One of those fellows became is now like a core
team member. The other fellow has been like a contributor
to our documentation which has helped other people learn about
the tools. There's folks who have built like entire applications
(56:11):
for us, and some of this tool called safe Skies.
That is a way for us to even further decentralize
our moderation so that the other moderators on the team
can come in and control the feed, the algorithm of
the feed, and so like the I'm like and just
being able to have this kind of like black Tech project,
(56:33):
open source all the ethos behind it, and see that
reach people and see how that inspires them to like
how it changes them a bit. It's that's what keeps
me going and makes it worth it for me.
Speaker 2 (56:45):
Wow, what a beautiful vision.
Speaker 3 (56:48):
I mean, I started this conversation saying that I wasn't
feeling great about our current social media landscape and tech landscape,
but ending it there with what's making you feel hope,
what's giving you motivation and what keeps you in this
work and in this fight that we all know sometimes
can feel.
Speaker 2 (57:03):
Like uslog I think is really beautiful.
Speaker 3 (57:10):
Got a story about an interesting thing in tech, or
just want to say hi? You can read us at
Hello at tegody dot com. You can also find transcripts
for today's episode at tengody dot com. There Are No
Girls on the Internet was created by me bridget Toad.
It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed creative. Jonathan Strickland
is our executive producer. Tari Harrison is our producer and
sound engineer. Michael Almato is our contributing producer. I'm your host,
(57:31):
Bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow, rate
and review us on Apple Podcasts. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
get your podcasts
Being a black person on the Internet, you just anticipate that.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
There are no girls on the Internet.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
As a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative, I'm Bridge
tad and this is there are no girls on the Internet.
When Elon Musk took over Twitter, many users left the
platform searching for alternatives, and one platform that gained attention
early is blue Sky. At first glance, blue Sky looks
(00:34):
a lot like classic Twitter, short posts, replies, and reposts,
but underneath, it's very different because blue Sky is built
on a decentralized system, meaning no single company controls your
data or the network. Folks on blue Sky can choose
the algorithms that shape their feeds, and developers can build
their own versions of the app. Blue Sky has become
(00:55):
kind of a unique space online. Some users associate it
with more progressive voices, and the most followed individual on
blue Sky right now is AOC. As of August twenty
twenty five, blue Sky had just under forty million registered users,
and just last week, the Trump administration joined the platform,
posting can't wait to spend more quality time together. Unsurprisingly,
(01:17):
absolutely no one wanted this, and according to the blue
Sky block tracking site, clear Sky The White House is
now the second most blocked account on blue Sky, just
behind Vice President j d Vance. Controversial moderation decisions have
led some to wonder if Blue Sky is just another
version of the same old social media battles, but the
(01:38):
platform's decentralized nature has allowed for powerful pockets of community
to emerge, like black Sky, a custom feed and moderation service,
gradually becoming a key space online for black folks. To date,
black Sky is the largest and most successful effort to
take advantage of Blue Sky's decentralization, and it's all being
led by Rudy Fraser, a technologist who was committed to
(02:00):
building resilient, independent infrastructure that can be a home for
black voices. During a session at right Sex Tech, the
growing community form that brings together technologists and movement leaders
to explore the intersections of technology and power, I had
the chance to sit down with black Sky founder Rudy
Fraser to talk through blue Sky, Black Sky, and the
future of Black voices online. I want to start with
(02:27):
a question, Am I the only one that is kind
of feeling a bit I guess I would say burnt
out by our current social media and technology landscape. Don't
get me wrong, I don't want to get kind of
caught up in false nostalgia for the old days. I
know social media has never been perfect, but to me
(02:47):
lately it feels like a slog And I remember when
Elon Musk took over Twitter.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
I had all of these deep, deep, fond.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Memories of cutting it out on the og black Twitter.
Some of my best days spent procrastinating at my office
job on the.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Computer were spent on black Twitter.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
And so it was very tough for me to kind
of accept that that time was over and I probably
was not going to be experiencing these feelings of genuine
connection and joy and humor and community on a social
media platform run by Elon Musk, right, And so as
we think about the future of social platforms, today's conversation
(03:30):
really invites us to, I guess, do a bit of
speculative world building, imagining what it would take to unbreak
social networks and rebuild online spaces rooted in things like care, dignity, connection, community,
and freedom. Now, to get into all of this, we'll
be speaking to Rudy Fraser. Rudy is a technologist, community organizer,
and the founder of Black Sky algorithms where he develops
(03:53):
open source infrastructure that lets communities shape their social media experience,
govern their own data, and fund their collective needs. In
this conversation, we'll be packling questions like how does Blue
Sky reimagine the role of a public square online compared
to legacy platforms like Twitter or x or whatever we're.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Calling it these days.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
What does community ownership of data mean in practice? And
how could it transform our relationship to digital platforms? And really,
where do we see opportunities for decentralized platforms to resist
things like harassment, surveillance and disinformation Rudy, I know that
these are questions that you spend I would assume a
fair amount of time really wrestling with.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
So I want to kick it over to you.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
I have been following along with a conversation happening, so
I know that it has been an interesting few weeks
over at Blue Sky and Black Sky. But before I
get into all of that, I want to take it back.
What were your early experiences like on social media? Like
where did you go online to experience things like joy
and connection and community?
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Yeah? Hey, Bridlett, So I would say the platforms I
think of are not platforms folks like consider social media platforms,
I think of early I do think of like early
internet forums. I was big into video game moding and
and kind of like hacker culture at a young age,
and so like those old video game modding forms like
(05:20):
seven sins, I felt like that was I don't know
that that was where I find community and online gaming.
You know, I've made the same way I make friends
on Black Sky and Blue Sky and then meet them
in person is the same experience I used to have
as a teenager playing online video games. Yeah, and so
(05:40):
that and then I think my traditional social media experience
was very much folks who already kind of knew online
like Facebook, MySpace era, and yeah, just being able to
stay in touch with people like family members across the
world that my family's from Guyana and South America, I
can stay in touch with them via face book stuff
(06:01):
like that.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
I gotta say, the kind of person that is the
person that you just described who was making internet friends
using technology and you know, old school platforms, and then
was like I'm going to go meet these people in person.
That's a unique personality type.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
I feel, hm, I feel like it's so normal now
I met my you know, like my wife we got
married last year. We met on bumble and so, like
the I feel like it's become where it used to
be strange. I feel like internet culture is very just
like ingrained in at least a certain generation. There's like
(06:41):
rappers who are constantly wrapping about things that happen on
the Internet, and you know, and so yeah, I think
it's like become it's it's it used to be a
weird thing, like it used to be like a weird,
separate world. Now I feel like a lot of us
understand that it is. It's a part of how we
stay connected with people.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Totally.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
You were I feel like you were an early to
be clear, you were like an early adopter of that.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
I have a very clear memory of being quite young.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
And a teacher in my school met her husband on
an online dating site and it was the biggest scandal
in our town.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
And now it's so commonplace.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
It feels like that level of connection that you were
seeking on those early days of social media and platforms
like that, you were an early adopter for what would
become commonplace today in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Yeah, for sure. And I think I had like relatives
who were very you know, folks like a lot of
my closest friends and family members, they're like creatives, and
so they were using those social media platforms to try
to like build their careers on. And so I think
I also got inspired a little bit like that.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
So you mentioned that you, you know, experienced the sort of
social media platforms that we were all probably on MySpace
side note, there was no better platform.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
That's how I learned how to code.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
When you went to my MySpace page, a panic at
the Disco song played very loud, and then the pause
button was hidden, So I was like, no, you were
gonna listen to this Panic at the Disco song? It
would definitely crash your browser with like falling glitter stars.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
So I loved those platforms as well.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
I'm curious about your journey with more sort of traditional
social media platforms. When you were on platforms like Twitter,
was there a moment or a red line that made.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
You say, no more, this is not gonna work for
me anymore.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
I actually came to this work from a different place.
It's kind of funny, like I was never really big
on Twitter. I was. I used it early on and
to like follow like like artists and stuff, like that,
but I never actually encountered myself the kinds of like
challenges you would face from like having a big platform
(08:50):
on those spaces. So I kind of came I think
that probably maybe helped in some ways because I came
into working on Black Sky with just like fresh eyes
in terms of what are the what are my expectations
of how a community should work, And that was heavily
influenced by my in real life organizing work, and so
(09:12):
I tried to like replicate the things that I was
seeing and experiencing in real life because for me, like
I guess, bigger than just like the apps, it's the
kind of like this kind of definition of community I
have that is between like mutual accountability. And before working
on Black Sky, I was working on a project called
(09:32):
paper Tree that was a way for folks to kind
of practice mutual aid and that'sy be able to pool
funds together and be able to buy like pay for
each other's groceries essentially. And so in kind of as
I kept doing mutual aid organizing and learning about mutual aid,
I thought it was very I wanted to technology was
(09:53):
my thing, and so that was the way that I
saw myself fitting into too that world and not wanting
to be like their techno solutionists person who's like I'm
going to like, you know, revolutionize mutual aid by like
building some app. It was more like I just wanted
to like find my way of being seen and being
able to contribute to what I saw as a movement
that kind of came out of twenty twenty here in
(10:13):
New York where I'm based at and building. Yeah, like
you kind of find that, like social media is actually
a really great place both for real life community to
be developed and for people to even practice like these
kinds of like care practices like mutual aid. But it's
the it's it's then seeing that you can't really do
(10:37):
something like that in the traditional platforms, right. It's more
that like that I saw with this new wave of
decentralized social media protocols, I saw an opportunity to be
able to like execute against that.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
Let's take a quick break at our back.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
It's so interesting to me that you say that the
way that your expectations for what being on a social
media platform could feel like should feel like we're really
rooted in your ir L experiences around things like mutual
aids So for you, what are the expectations that you
have in your mind for what it can feel like
or be like to try to find community on social
media platforms. What is that experience like for you? And
(11:32):
what have you taken from your work and mutual aid
to inform that.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Yeah, I think the Internet is interesting because there's and
there's people who have like all different kinds of like
philosophies and ideas around how the Internet should work. I think,
for one, I take like a you know, I think
there's some people who view, for example, that like there's
this like instrumentalist kind of view of technology, where technology
(11:58):
is it is kind of like impartial, it's non biased.
It can't be you know, it's it's a hammer is
just a hammer, And I kind of reject that. I
think tools tend to better, they tend to like align
with power structures, and they benefit they benefit someone usually,
(12:21):
and they harm they often harm someone usually. And so
I think in real life organizing you start to acknowledge
some things like that. You also kind of you also
recognize that there's this like kind of philosophy that like
every cook can govern, but like really anyone can can contribute.
There's not it's not like there's there's maybe specialized knowledge
(12:42):
that's needed to set up technical infrastructure, but there's a
role that everyone can play in like content moderation, in
community building, in getting people into physical spaces together, like
event planning. It's like a thing that I'm not really
good at that there's folks in the community who are
good at. There's folks in the community who are creators
who are like like that idea that everyone can come
in and just as long as you make it so
(13:03):
that this is not like this closed off thing that
you own that like you have this kind of abundance
mindset that there's enough to go around that everyone can
play a role that I think that some of that
is the kind of thing that influences and I do
think you get that from like community forms where it
was like, you know, there was a space created and
then people came in and gave that space value, and
then those people were rewarded with reputation and respect to
(13:28):
a degree, you know, and like that's the thing you
can get on the Internet. There's like a kind of
respect capital that gets associated with with someone. People sometimes
use that with like followers or they try to like
hack it with followers, but there's kind of a you know,
we pour a lot into our online identities and then
you know, part of the problem is that you don't
actually own that identity, like a corporation owns that and
(13:50):
they can just take that handle away from you at
any point they could shut your account down or if
they want to. But yeah, and so those fun the
mentals I think are some of the things that like
you see that in like in real life organizing where
you're doing work and then people, you know, that kind
of brings people in and they make it their own
(14:11):
and then it becomes this new thing. That's kind of
how I think of like spaces created online.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
Boy you said it, and especially you know, maybe one
day a billionaire buys the platform where you've spent most
of your time building up your capital and followers and
relationships and connections, and it's not a fun place to
hang out anymore. So that's just that maybe something us
what happens.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Yeah, and you know, I think that can happen in
real life spaces as well. But yeah, like trying to
how do you build the stuff that makes that less
possible exactly?
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Let's talk about that.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
So give us a so I'm curious what drew you
to looking at decentralized platforms. And for folks who might
not know, can you give us sort of a quick
and dirty rundown of decentralization.
Speaker 4 (14:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
Yeah, So so the analogy I give a lot of
analogies with this stuff. I'll give an analogy for decentralization
in general, and then I'll give one for decentralization and interoperability,
which are big big words. But then and then then
one specifically for app protocol. So decentralization, I would say,
is like a lot of folks, you know, put together,
are used to buying furniture from some store Ikia target wherever,
(15:22):
I don't know, and then like it, often there's an
Alan wrench you know that that like hexagon shape that
you use to screw in the bolts together.
Speaker 4 (15:31):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Usually it's funny. They usually send a lot of Alan
wrenches with like a lot of the furniture you put together,
and then if you keep them, it can work on
the next thing that you buy. And so that's that's
an example of interoperability. All these if you think about it,
all these people who produced this furniture decided that they
were going to use the same hexagon shape and you know,
(15:52):
now the tools work between each other. That's an example
of interoperability and decentralization, where like decentralization like kind of
requires interoperability. It requires for two things to be able
to work together without those two people speaking. And right
now it's like you can't you cannot, you can't be
(16:15):
on Instagram. Like let's say you were just on Instagram.
You can't from your Instagram account dm someone on Twitter.
You can't export you can export your data in a
lot of these places, and then it's just like a
dead set of data, like you can't take that and
put it anywhere. You can't leave and keep your followers. Right,
that's how they that's how they get you. And folks
(16:37):
call this like a walled garden, and so decentralization eliminates that.
It makes it so that you have some kind of
data portability. You can pick up where you were, and
if you don't like it anymore, you can take it
somewhere else. And then you still have your your identity
stays the same, you still have your followers, you still
(16:59):
have your posts. You didn't lose anything, you're just under
new management. And so so that's like decentralization broadly, and
then there's lots of different ways people have approached designing
decentralized systems. You know, the one that I the space
that I work in is particularly at protocol, which the
experience of that from a user is like if every piece,
(17:21):
if you download a social media app, if you download
blue Sky, for example, everything is ran by different It's
one app, but everything is ran by a different company.
You could have downloaded blue Sky, you could have downloaded
something else another app. Skylight is another example. They're like
a TikTok version of blue Sky, and your account will
(17:41):
work with both. You can sign up on either in
your account will work with both, and then you know,
then there's your social media feed, right, Folks are usually
used to just like a following feed and then a
kind of recommendation algorithm, a for you page, a discover feed.
Blue Sky may come with those by default, and then
you can switch to another algorithm or feed that was
(18:02):
designed by someone else. So we have ones designed specifically
for showcasing black content. There's a trending version, there's a
chronological version, there's a there's a TikTok like version of videos.
There's one for just images like Instagram and uh and yeah,
and then if you encounterure some harmful content, you can
choose who your moderators are. You can choose where your
(18:23):
data is hosted. That is, that's the experience of at
protocol and I think where it comes into like the
you mentioned earlier that there's been a lot of stuff
going on in the in the ecosystem. Uh, there was
an incident that I addressed yesterday where a user who
was he had his account hosted by black Sky, but
(18:47):
he was suspended from Blue Sky. Uh. And so folks
are kind of had the reaction of like, well, what's
the point then of decentralization If you can be you
can maybe move your account, but then they can like
they can this other company can still suspending You're still
subject to the moderation rooms of the other company. But
it's really like the way app protocol is kind of
set up is that your data. It's if you imagine
(19:11):
publishing as an example, Right, you're a writer and you
want you write a manuscript, right, the PDS or some
of the infrastructure black Sky runs is a safe space
to store your manuscript. But then Blue Sky, what they
also had running is kind of this the distribution it
(19:31):
is the It's kind of like the Barnes and Noble,
the bookstore, the publishing house, the thing that gets your
manuscript from just your hands into the hands of millions
of people. And so this person was banned from the
bookstore essentially, but even though he was banned from the bookstore,
there are different apps that people have built that instead
of going to the bookstore to find the manuscript, it
(19:51):
goes directly to the author. So that's kind of the
example of like what decentralization can allow. You can still
maintain your data and your ownership and not have it
deleted because typically when Blue Sky, if you're only if
you're only on the Blue Sky infrastructure and they suspended you,
they would also delete all your data. But so some
of these conversations around data sovereignty is that like you
(20:14):
should be able to maintain your identity. An app can
suspend you because they have their rules right. They may
you may just be promoting something that they don't want
to help distribute to millions of people. That's their right.
You basically have freedom of speech but not freedom of reach.
Is kind of the example that folks talk about, like
you know, that's why. And there's other ways that can
(20:38):
kind of explain how that plays out in the ecosystem.
But you really should always be able to publish whatever
you want. And then but people who govern certain spaces,
like blue Sky governs their space, Black skuy governs our space,
those organizations and anyone can start that up. You know,
it takes some technical infrastructure or some money, but like
(20:59):
you can start to create the spaces and to kind
of design the experience you want in there without infringing
on other people's you know, ability to speak.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
I was quite surprised at how people reacted to that
user that you described their experience on the platform, and
I wondered, do you think that users are Do you
think that response was rooted in a sort of anxiety
about the kind of things that maybe are the reason
(21:30):
why they left Twitter for Blue Sky or other platforms
in the first place, That concern about how these platforms
are moderated and what's showing up their means. Like, I
was genuinely surprised at the reaction to what you just
described happening, And maybe you weren't surprised.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
But what do you think was going on there?
Speaker 1 (21:51):
There's a there's a lot. I think there's some folks
who say, like, I think I agree with some people
in the ecosystem that's like model is your product, like
if you like in a traditional social media experience, their
business model is ad driven, right, And so that's why
(22:14):
the experience of a social media app kind of plays
out the way it does because they need they make
money by having you scroll the feed and stay on
their app or as long as possible. That's why TikTok
is super addictive. They've done it's all weird to say
they've done a great job at their algorithm, but they've
they've done a great job of keeping you glued to
(22:34):
the screen. Twitter also has that for folks. And there's
like a ton of research. There's like books written. I
have a book here called like hook, like people have.
There's people have done research on how to keep you
addicted to and to these applications. It's science, and so
that's why they keep you locked in. They don't want
(22:56):
you to be able to leave. They don't want you
to be able to take your data. They want you
to be able to keep scrolling. In a decentralized protocol,
you don't have the same incentives like so the users
are not the product. In that case, you have to
find some other revenue stream. And so like blue Sky,
I think there's a lot of when there's an absence
(23:16):
of information, people fill that in with assumptions their own anxieties.
Like you mentioned, so people are like, how will blue
Sky make their money? So we don't know, you know,
probably blue Sky doesn't know, and so people fill that
in with like are they training are they taking our
data to like train an AI model? Are they are
(23:38):
they trying to pander to like these right wing conservative folks,
Like why are they doing that? Like all these different
things kind of come into play because things are not
made explicit. Uh, it's kind of like I'm sure there's
some theory of this. There's like the tyranny of structurelessness,
where it's like there's if there's like a vacuum or
like an unclear there's no clarity around a power structure
(23:59):
of power stars which are kind of forms. It's just
a little unaccountable. I think the same thing kind of
happens with like the fact that there's no clear business
model and things like that, and so people just kind
of fill in those blanks. So for me, I wasn't
as surprised because a lot of the users who were
on blue Sky as well, they vibrated from Twitter, and
(24:20):
so I think some of them without even really recognizing
they thought it was blue Sky was just Twitter but
ran by you know, not Elon. And so the expectations,
like the user education, there's a lot of stuff that's
like not there. So a lot of what I just
tried to do that seem to have gotten positive responses
(24:42):
for is just try to like break things down for people,
be really clear, be really transparent, be really honest about
where stuff is at, and like what we're planning to
do next.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
That makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
I was one of those people who just thought, screw
Elon Musk, I'm going over to the Twitter that he
doesn't own. And then someone was like, oh, you should
try mask it on if you're looking for a decentralized experience,
and that didn't work out for me, But like there
is I think there has been a user education piece
of it that I think your work at black Sky
has been so instrumental in being a foundation of can
(25:14):
you walk us through black Sky how it works and
what makes it different from centralized platforms.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
So if you visit black sky dot Community, which is
our web app, that's where you could sign up for
an account, and you'll notice immediately that like if you
want to, it looks similar to blue Sky, which looks
similar to Twitter, but it's branded as our thing. And
when you create an account on blacks dot dot community,
(25:42):
you will be under the black Sky terms of service
and privacy policy. You'll have a handle that's like bridget
dot blacksky dot app, for example, but the feed that
you see immediately is black Sky, the black Sky community itself.
So this is an algorithm that is just of the
black users on the platform who've opted in voluntarily to
(26:03):
be a part of black Sky as a community. From there,
you know, and I think even just stopping there, if
you can imagine, we sometimes get this question from folks
of like what will stop black Sky from being overran
by bad actors? And I think the last two years
(26:23):
of us running the platform has been the demonstration of that,
the like we can't stop you can't stop other people's hate,
but we have. We've put up a really good fight.
I would say I've been docks by white supremacists because
of my work on black Sky. We've had people try
to like raid the feed and do all kinds of
crazy things, but we built in systems to actively prevent
(26:47):
that harm. And not only do we have the automated
systems to do that, we also have a team of
all black moderation team, you know, very familiar with with
the the kind of context that we work within that's
always there, and so folks, folks feel attended to, folks
(27:07):
feel heard. The We strike this balance of trying to
create a space where you can have fun and like
not care about all this super technical like all this
infrastructure that we're running in the background, but we're there
when you need it, right, So like we're there when
you want to speak truth to power and then you
feel like Blue Sky the company may censor you for
(27:31):
that right or take your account down. We're there. You know,
if you encounter there's maybe there is some bad actor
that rolls up and they're like, what the fuck is
Black Sky. You know, we can you can still do
the like three hundred quote posts on that person, like
feel free, but you could also just quietly and discreetly
hit the report post button and our team will will
(27:54):
handle that and yeah, and then all your data is
hosted by us, So that's just all governed by ours
and for us, we're looking to like the next thing
that we want to do is kind of create these
community only spaces. So I believe that you should have
control over your speech on these platforms, like be able
(28:17):
to modulate your speech. So right, like every time you
make a post, it's kind of a megaphone.
Speaker 4 (28:23):
You know.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Sometimes for me, I'm trying to whisper and it ends
up being a shout because there's no really there's no
way to distinguish that I maybe replying to someone, and
then people will be like, oh, he was saying this
really low key. I'm just like, yeah, I was trying
to just say this to this one person. I guess
I should have the ended, but but yeah, and so
we sometimes you want to just speak to a more
(28:46):
closed off group of friends. On other platforms, you have
the opportunity to do stuff like private posts. In the
way the protocol is designed, you enter into these tricky
situations where things that should be obvious are just difficult
to do. So like boost in ship with private accounts,
you can't like lock your account down to just be
you know, just your followers. We're introducing something that will
(29:09):
allow you to like be able to make public posts.
You can speak to the megaphone because like sometimes it's
weird misunderstanding that like we just want to like create
another bubble for people that I don't think that's true.
I think people have group chats, right, you have one
on one conversations with friends. Sometimes you have a group chat.
We're trying to create a big group chat where you
can come in and be a part of a community
(29:30):
and meet people. And you'll have that and then you
we also have created a platform for you if you
really want to speak to thousands of people, Like there's
been millions of people who have viewed the Black Sky feeds.
This is also your way to get an audience. You know,
whether there's it's some important issue, you just want to
make some jokes, you want to build a following, whatever
that whatever that thing is, like you should have these options.
(29:50):
We want to give people options that keep them allowed
them to have fun and be able to also you know,
not face harassment when they want to speak out against
white supremacy and then ultimately too like we really want
to create in a long term, we want to become
like the Reddit frapp protocol. We want to be able
to anyone can come. People have been inspired by our
(30:10):
work already, there's Latin Sky we're you know, doing the
not even using our tools, but replicating how we do things.
Because there's a barrier to that, right there's today there's
a barrier to like using the stuff that we've built.
All of our code is open source. It's very transparent.
You can you can jump in and contribute to the
code if you want to to written a rust. That's
also another barrier. We're trying to break down the barriers
(30:33):
we want. We want the most amount of people to
be able to participate and co create this with us
as possible. Uh you know, but but yeah, so we
want we want people to go to come and take
their communities. Latin skuy that North Sky has followed in
our footsteps and they're doing similar things for the LGBTQ community.
And yeah, and so we want anyone to be able
(30:54):
to just come in and take our tools quick a
button and then get a whole community infrastructure and community
app setup that is not closed off. It's still like
it has a quiet space for your community, and then
it has a you also have this like public global
social media infrastructure, so you know, you can still we
(31:15):
like like app protocol wants to get to four billion
people whatever number of Facebook has, but on a decentralized
protocol that no one knoweds And so that's the vision,
that's the goal.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
More after a quick break, let's get right back into it, Rudy,
I did have a question for you. I think it's
somebody mentioned this in the chat, and I do think
(31:49):
it's worth kind of plus plusing the way that you
were very intentional about things like moderation from the beginning
of starting this process. And I've often wondered, is there
a bad lens to be had between scale and making
the biggest platform that you can have with the most
amount of users and saying, well, there might be some
value in intimacy, there might be some value in us
(32:12):
intentionally curating a smaller set of users. Do you have
is there is there a tension with what you're doing
at Black Sky in that Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
I talk about this and some presentations I give where
I think there's you know, you mentioned Macedon. I think
Macedon is a good example. If you want like maybe
one hundred people in a community and you want like
infrastructure that's like owned by you, and then maybe you
selectively connect with some other one hundred person communities and stuff.
(32:44):
I think that's good. Uh, that is a use case.
I think we want to have the fun the like
the funnest block party in the city is kind of
the experience, and I think that needs a lot of people.
(33:04):
And so I think for the kind of experience and
stuff that we want to build, I think you need
to be looking to scale. You know, we spend a
lot of money and time on creating scalable infrastructure for communities.
Blacks di again has been used by millions of people,
and we want to help out the other folks, you know.
(33:26):
I think that's why I use Reddit as the example,
Like there are some breadits that are used by millions
of people, Like that is the It's it's a technically
challenging thing to do that though as a decentralized service.
So that's where there's some of the technical tensions.
Speaker 3 (33:41):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
There's also moderation challenges. I think after a certain number
you do encounter like there's there's a question that's come
up in the community that we're working through to resolve.
But like moderation, people are very anti AI. But what
do you do when you have one hundred thig people,
like one hundred thousand images and videos being uploaded to
(34:06):
a platform every month. A lot of them are going
to be sexual content, and you have to be able
to distinguish against like what's not okay or at least
just even this label that content so that people. So
then end users can make their choice of like do
I want to see sexual content? Do want a HI day?
Do you want to have a blur of to the
warning label? People get that control on that protocol, and
so I think some of that is a bit of
(34:29):
attention because some people are like, well someone should manually
review all those images, and it's like, well, then you
have to have then you have to have a smaller space.
And so I think like we want we don't want
to be like we don't want to just have like
the billion person one space, billion person in this space.
We do want to foster communities of millions of people,
and I think we can. I think you can do
(34:50):
that with the with the tools that we've created. There's
also like one thing we didn't talk too much about,
but like we want our It's weird that people make
community guidelines but their communities don't influenced the guidelines. And
so that's something we did where we try to co
create our community guidelines with our community. We have this
tool called the black Sky People's Assembly that is a
(35:11):
deliberation tool where people can weigh in submit statements. So
we had one was like what should be our community guidelines,
and six hundred people submitted over I think about five
hundred statements of what should go into our community guidelines,
over twenty thousand votes submitted on the different things of
(35:31):
like what people agree with, what people disagree with. So
these are the things where it's like, you know, if
you were if you want to do this at scale,
there's tools that need to be built to allow you
to do this kind of decentralized community governance at scale.
I think that's just a very interesting space for us
to work here.
Speaker 3 (35:49):
Yeah, I mean that speaks to the question that we
got from John who says it's worth highlighting that black
Sky is incredibly unusual complimentary for focusing on moderation upfront
and having a moderation expert as a core member of
the team. How many other social networks have ever done that.
I don't know any Rudy, I don't know if that's
a question that you have any insight into, but I
(36:10):
do think it highlights exactly what you were just speaking
about the importance of having these decisions be things that
are bought a very early on and foundational to the
experience of being on this platform.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
Yeah, I think that comes from like, honestly, I mean
that's more like sometimes I think people have this like
superficial understanding of like why Black Sky is important. And
I think that, like being a black person on the Internet,
you just anticipate that, you know, like you just anticipate
we will get attacked. And so for me, I'm always
(36:45):
just like, Okay, I know this is going to happen,
so I'll have a plan for when it happens, and
then when it happens, then I can just immediately drop
the thing. Like we have a feature called band from
TV that stops people from being able to view the
Black Sky Feed, and I knew that that was going
to be a thing that we were going to want
to do at some point. And then there was an
(37:05):
issue where people were like trolling the Black skyfeed to
find they weren't posting to the Black skyfeet but they're
finding people and then harassing them. So it was like, oh,
like now this is happening, so now let me ship this.
And that was like the second month that we were
in operation of the Black skyfeed. So it happened. It
all happened very quickly, but we've been battle tested over time,
(37:26):
and then, yeah, I've always wanted our community moderators. There's
folks who used to work at places like TikTok, There's
people who worked at doing trust and safety there, there's
folks who have done research on misogynal war shouted doctor K. Yeah.
So we've got a team of folks who all have
done community moderation in other spaces before and now do
it for Black scot They've done it for Masterton, etc.
Speaker 3 (37:49):
It kind of makes me I haven't took a bittersweet
thing to hear you describe this, because on the one hand,
what a tired story that it's like, oh, you're a
black person or some sort of a traditionally marginalized person
in a digital space, get ready.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
For harassment, you know.
Speaker 3 (38:05):
But also part of me is like, well, I'm glad
that people in charge have that historical and cultural knowledge
or that they didn't have to go through the thing
of being like, oh, we are shocked this happened and
are not prepared for it, which I feel that so
often is the case on social media platforms where people
don't necessarily have that cultural background.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
Do you know what I'm saying?
Speaker 1 (38:25):
Yeah, absolutely, there's always like, yeah, the shocked Pikachu face
every time someone abuses your platform. It's just like I
don't know, like we I don't know even what practice
of I don't know. I always find it dishonest because
like even if you're if you put a server up
on the Internet, it's getting scanned by like attackers immediately,
(38:47):
like and so this just kind of like defensive posture
without having it take without having it be a burden
of you know, we still have this. We have a
move fast break chains ethos at Black Sky, which is
that like, like I think there are some folks who
are like, I don't know, there is a lot going on,
(39:08):
or there's always this, uh so there's kind of like
a move slow ethos. Sometimes with social justice spaceism, I'm like,
if you believe the problems are urgent, I feel like
you should move fast, Like if you think that like
we're in like late stage capitalism and we're under fascism,
Like why would you be chill about that? And so
that's why we want to build things as quickly as
(39:28):
possible for like private spaces for people, for people to
be able to yet fuild communities, send money to each other,
practice mutual aid because we think it's urgent. And then
there's the break change part, which is that like we
are going to be encounter We know that we are encountering,
like we're fighting an uphill battle, and we should just
be prepared for that, like you kind of just kind
(39:50):
of know what comes with it. My own team sends
it back to me, it's like you named your you
name the company Black Sky, Like it's gonna like get attacked.
Speaker 3 (39:58):
Yeah, can you this is a personal question. Can you
put move fast and Break chains on a T shirt?
Speaker 2 (40:05):
For me? Or perhaps some so, I mean soon soon?
Speaker 1 (40:09):
How these shirts?
Speaker 3 (40:11):
I mean that that doesn't even One of my kind
of questions is how do you think about balancing things
like freedom of expression with genuine, meaningful, community driven safety
in decentralized environments.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
Yeah, I think of uh, I think of their people
often because of I Like, I guess there's some people
who have this like understanding of like okay, well you
know black Scott, so it will be attacked. There's like, uh,
there's issue, there's like outside attackers, right, and then there's
(40:47):
community conflict, and I think of like the outside attackers
we have generally you know, knock on wood. But like
so far has been a solve problem for us. The
really interesting challenges do come with Okay, now there's intracommunal conflict,
not intercommunal, intercommunal, and so it's like, do you something
(41:08):
there's you know, like generally our approaches to be hands off,
like let the community sort itself out, because conflict can
be generative at times as long as folks aren't demonstrating
forms of like internal internalized anti blackness or or misogynal war.
(41:33):
You know, as long as you aren't breaking our community
guidelines again, which we develop with the community. So like
now there's going to be things around like fat phobia
and and like and and and all these other protections,
but as long as you are following the community guidelines,
go off. You know, we want to be we want
to leave space for people to get creative, have fun
(41:55):
sometimes you know, sometimes sometimes the jokes are a dicks,
so someone but I think there's still like I think
that's still like a worthwhile experience that you can have
in a communal space and then you brush it off,
you come back the next day.
Speaker 3 (42:08):
And it's a kind of I mean, haven't we all
been roasted by our cousins where it's like, or are
you laugh a little too hard at a joke?
Speaker 2 (42:15):
And someone is like, I know you're not laughing and
you're like, oh no.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
They got it, Like I posted by listening to the
young Thug and someone was like, I hope you heal
And I'm like, do you know I can't. I'm like,
even I'm getting cooked on my own app So.
Speaker 3 (42:32):
And I think, I mean having folks who know folks
who know our communities at the helm is important. This
is gonna be a weird analogy, but there's a scene
in the movie Mean.
Speaker 2 (42:41):
Girls with the popular girls. They all have to.
Speaker 3 (42:44):
Have like a like a girl student wide me like
needing to discuss tensions, and the popular girls realize, oh,
the drama girls have their own little, you know, conflict.
In the softball team, they have their own little conflict.
Then there's all these other little micro conflicts in these
communities that people might not know the norms that dictate
(43:06):
those communities that you just sort of have to let
them talk it out and work it out amongst themselves
because that's the only way they're going to get anywhere.
It kind of seems like that of there is some
value in just sort of letting folks settle being tensions
and conflict in their own community via their own norms
that like you might not necessarily know the ins and
outs of.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
Yeah, and I think that, like, I think that's like
super important. Community norms are Like sometimes people are like,
what's this hard and fast rule that you're going to
put in place to stop this thing from happening. I'm like, well,
I feel like we have norms for that. Like there's
there's laws, and then there's norms. And I don't want
to make a law for like something that could just
(43:47):
be resolved with a norm and the community should organically
come up with that community norm to like enforce that behavior.
And yeah, and I think that, like you, yeah, you
see that within in real life groups all the time,
like that that conflict resolution is uh And I think
(44:11):
you have to draw a line. You have to be
able to draw a line around a space, So there's
a question around here about like the public square conversation,
and I've I really I think the public square is
somebody else's problem. I am trying to create community spaces.
I'm trying to make the hangout spot. And you know,
we got some bouncers here. We got uh you know,
(44:34):
they're just on the outside garden the door. Folks on
the inside are figuring themselves out. We have some music playing.
We want and and you know, and it's a voluntary association.
You want to you want to come kick it with us,
Come kick it with us. That is what we're trying
to solve for. And then you also have like maybe
a mega uh you know, we have like I guess
(44:56):
a loud speaker outside if you want to go reach
everybody else feel free. But the public square has been
dominated by people trying to fight it out in the
marketplace of ideas and algorithms like trying to influence people
in all kinds of ways and so like that is
a different problem that someone else may be trying to solve.
But I'm trying to solve for communal spaces where you come,
you have a good time.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
More.
Speaker 3 (45:19):
After a quick break, let's get right back into it.
This conversation is all about sort of how we are
trying to unbreak social networks. How do you think Blue
(45:41):
Sky helps move us more toward those community centered digital spaces.
Speaker 1 (45:47):
I think that Black skies more so the ones like
helping to demonstrate what that can look like. I think
Blue Sky wants to invest more into the creation of
commune unity. There's been conversations about like turning kind of
following again following and offert steps of like combining a
feed with a moderation service and then calling that like
(46:09):
a particular space and so there's a place where you
can go you can post to a feed. I think
there's like some of that work being done. I'm personally
really there's some like under explored areas with a at
protocol in Blue Sky that I'm that we're interested in,
Like we we just we just got this fellowship, this
(46:31):
cipherpunk fellowship to help kind of develop private payments, you know.
I think that's a very I think it's again practice
of mutual aid. It's important Black Sky as a community
have done that for a while from the very beginning.
But then also creators being able to like monetize their content.
There's someone on on Black Skuy who the name is ni.
(46:55):
Every every day they post like a they call it
question Sky and they post like these like twenty questions
that people all quote post and reply and it's always
like a different theme and then they end it with
like their cash app, and so like people should be
able to like help, you know, support the creators in
there in these spaces, and then like you know, sex
workers as well should be able to be able to
monetize their content without you know, worrying about all kinds
(47:19):
of restrictions that could end up being placed on them.
The other thing is reputation so verification. The conversation around
this has subsided a little bit, but folks were a
little disappointed that Blue Sky's model for verification ended up
being that like blue Sky gives out the blue checks.
(47:43):
There are more interesting versions of this that could be
built out with like web of trust kind of models.
So basically, like I think of like, I really I
don't think it's perfect, but Reddit's karma score is very interesting. So, like,
are there ways for you to create a decentralized is
reputation system for people? Because I do think that like,
(48:03):
once you online identities cost nothing to create and so
there should be some way for you to be able
to build up reputation on against a certain identity over
time and know that this is like a trusted a
trusted thing they have like domain, Like you can like
make your domain your handle on blue scar and that's
(48:25):
like that was like the original form of verification. So
you know, fake CNN dot BSk dot social is clearly
distinguished from CNN dot com or like rudipraser dot com
versus fake Rudy dot Biski dot social. But I think
there's like more that could be explored there, and I
think communities can verify people like it. You know, I've
(48:46):
always like Black Skys should be able to hand out
verifications so like key members of their community badging, you know,
being able to say that like I'm a sucker for
like get hub, you get a certain amount of stars,
you get like a gold medal, you get a silver medal.
Being able to incorporate stuff like that, like if you're
a black Sky supporter, be able to show like a
badgering and profile. I think stuff like that is really
(49:10):
cool and interesting to build, to be able to take
to basically build on the decentralized identity layer, which is
like way in the background for a lot of people,
but there's interesting stuff there. There's a meeting with someone
from the Applied Social Media Lab, where I was a
fellow earlier this year. They want to work on verified credentials,
so you can basically say that like connect to your
Blue Sky identity to this account on Instagram and Twitter
(49:32):
and stuff like that. So I think that's those are
like interesting spaces to work on.
Speaker 3 (49:39):
Yeah, I'm curious, do you see all of these so
both with the success of Black Sky and then the
smaller decentralized platforms and communities popping up, do you see
this as the way of the future that we genuinely
can help reset or unbreak kind of our default settings
and default learnings of social media platforms and what they
(49:59):
can be.
Speaker 1 (50:00):
Yeah, I think there's a strong signal there. Even even Facebook,
to their credit like build threads and they're trying to
integrate with the fediverse. I think there is. It's like
a half hearted attempt, but I do think that like
that's acknowledgment that you know, maybe that's like Zuckerberg in
the back of his head, like not wanting to be
disrupted in the future. But yeah, I think it lets
(50:21):
you unlock way more creativity around around the stuff that
you're that you're doing, being able to like and I've
been asked a lot about like our niche online spaces
the future of social media. I want, I personally want
(50:42):
it both ways. I want you to be able to
have a cozy corner to hang out in and for
you to be able to because organize again with organizing
right like we have we We the People NYC, which
I'm a lead organizer for, is a mu mutual aid
group in New York. We have a like one hundred
person signal group chat where we're like organizing and talking
about stuff. And then we like if like the cops,
(51:04):
you know, arrest us at our mutual aid distro, we
then do want to post on Instagram and TikTok and
get one hundred thousand views because that's what brings the
news crews around and then we can like get our
message out and you know, and so like, I think
you need both. I think you need private spaces and
you need to be able to have like a global reach,
(51:25):
especially if you think about internationally, like folks who are
like facing like these real life crises around the world.
Like they they need a global reach. They need people
who understand their context, right, Like if you think of
like Facebook's role in genocides globally like meandmar and stuff like,
(51:45):
some of that was because there are the moderators did
not have a local context and they didn't have the tool.
They had the option to use the tools to translate it,
but they didn't, Right. And there's like a world where
you know, there weren't seeing this yet, but we're actually
we're actually seeing with the europe I guess there's some
folks trying to create Eurosky. There's like building tools that
(52:06):
are specific to the regulations and norms of your physical
geolocation and then still being able to reach everyone around
the world. You know, I do think that is the future.
Speaker 3 (52:21):
Yeah, yeah, I mean I want to sort of click
into that because you know, I think back to all
the different very impactful social and political movements that were
started on social media platforms, things like me Too, things
like Black Lives Matter, the racial justice, autriety uprisings that
we saw in twenty twenty. Do you think that have
(52:42):
we Because in some ways what you're saying makes me
feel hopeful. I sometimes get a little pessimistic and think, oh,
we'll never see another global movement pop off on social
media as effectively as we once did. But when you
were speaking, I thought, maybe it won't look like it did,
or maybe it won't be on the platform that it
happened in in twenty twenty or twenty sixteen, But that
(53:03):
doesn't mean it can't still happen.
Speaker 2 (53:05):
What do you think about that?
Speaker 1 (53:07):
Yeah, I mean it's nowhere near those other movements, But
like the Tesla takedown thing did start on blue scar
look like a blue Sky post, and then I do
think that it won't look like how they did it,
how it looked in the past. I think I think
it will look differently. I can't speak for the early
(53:31):
Black Lives Matter protests that started on Twitter, but I
do know that, like I do know how it felt
for like twenty twenty in the George Floyd uprisings, and
we did use Instagram, Like Instagram kept me informed on
lots of things. Instagram is still like useful for a
lot of that and like getting people out in the street.
(53:51):
But I think I do like, I don't know how
it will look, but people are actually matter of we
have current examples Nepal. They're like using tools like Jack
Dorsey's Bitchat, the one of the noster devs like shared
this chart that's like he he knows that he knows
(54:14):
when there's a social uprising because he sees like installs
from certain locations with like the Bitchat installs go out.
So like me and mar had a bunch of installs
recently because they have are not me, I'm sorry, Matta
Gascar had something going on recently Nepal like they they
also the Neapolo Journal was interesting because like I wasn't
they voted in their prime minister like in discord and
(54:37):
so like, you know, I'm like for meo, like why
didn't they I think that's like a damning thing, Like
why didn't they use these other so called decentralized social
media platforms like to do that on you know, And
so I think there's a lot there that is like
under explored. So yes, I don't think it will look
the same.
Speaker 3 (54:57):
What is giving you hope about building the the healthier
community centered online spaces these days?
Speaker 1 (55:04):
I'm always just really everyone that's joined the team has
joined like voluntarily or like the fact that like people
just kind of come into Black Sky like make it
their own. There's a very common narrative I think in
like like particularly like white tech circles that like the
founder is just like visionary who like charts this course
(55:25):
and like really I think of first myself as just practicing,
you know, like being influenced by the black radical tradition
and being influenced by my cultural upbringing and like literally
like how I grew up, as like the way I
think about the stuff that I build and seeing people
then come into Like someone made a fellowship to get
(55:46):
people to get Black Sky members to the app protocol
conference earlier this year. Shout out to Linda there. Otherwise
I would have probably been one of the two black
people there if it wasn't for Linden and the fellows.
One of those fellows became is now like a core
team member. The other fellow has been like a contributor
to our documentation which has helped other people learn about
the tools. There's folks who have built like entire applications
(56:11):
for us, and some of this tool called safe Skies.
That is a way for us to even further decentralize
our moderation so that the other moderators on the team
can come in and control the feed, the algorithm of
the feed, and so like the I'm like and just
being able to have this kind of like black Tech project,
(56:33):
open source all the ethos behind it, and see that
reach people and see how that inspires them to like
how it changes them a bit. It's that's what keeps
me going and makes it worth it for me.
Speaker 2 (56:45):
Wow, what a beautiful vision.
Speaker 3 (56:48):
I mean, I started this conversation saying that I wasn't
feeling great about our current social media landscape and tech landscape,
but ending it there with what's making you feel hope,
what's giving you motivation and what keeps you in this
work and in this fight that we all know sometimes
can feel.
Speaker 2 (57:03):
Like uslog I think is really beautiful.
Speaker 3 (57:10):
Got a story about an interesting thing in tech, or
just want to say hi? You can read us at
Hello at tegody dot com. You can also find transcripts
for today's episode at tengody dot com. There Are No
Girls on the Internet was created by me bridget Toad.
It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed creative. Jonathan Strickland
is our executive producer. Tari Harrison is our producer and
sound engineer. Michael Almato is our contributing producer. I'm your host,
(57:31):
Bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow, rate
and review us on Apple Podcasts. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
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For more than 30 years The River Cafe in London, has been the home-from-home of artists, architects, designers, actors, collectors, writers, activists, and politicians. Michael Caine, Glenn Close, JJ Abrams, Steve McQueen, Victoria and David Beckham, and Lily Allen, are just some of the people who love to call The River Cafe home. On River Cafe Table 4, Rogers sits down with her customers—who have become friends—to talk about food memories. Table 4 explores how food impacts every aspect of our lives. “Foods is politics, food is cultural, food is how you express love, food is about your heritage, it defines who you and who you want to be,” says Rogers. Each week, Rogers invites her guest to reminisce about family suppers and first dates, what they cook, how they eat when performing, the restaurants they choose, and what food they seek when they need comfort. And to punctuate each episode of Table 4, guests such as Ralph Fiennes, Emily Blunt, and Alfonso Cuarón, read their favourite recipe from one of the best-selling River Cafe cookbooks. Table 4 itself, is situated near The River Cafe’s open kitchen, close to the bright pink wood-fired oven and next to the glossy yellow pass, where Ruthie oversees the restaurant. You are invited to take a seat at this intimate table and join the conversation. For more information, recipes, and ingredients, go to https://shoptherivercafe.co.uk/ Web: https://rivercafe.co.uk/ Instagram: www.instagram.com/therivercafelondon/ Facebook: https://en-gb.facebook.com/therivercafelondon/ For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iheartradio app, apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
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