David Bridges
Bluesky is actively enhancing user privacy by providing more control over personal data. The company has recently shared a proposal on Github detailing potential changes aimed at improving user privacy settings. This initiative is a significant step towards ensuring that users feel secure and empowered regarding their public content.
“This draft describes how atproto accounts (eg, Bluesky users) could declare ‘intents’ (aka, preferences) about certain categories of reuse of their public content. The mechanism and expectations are similar to robots.txt files on the web: a machine-readable format, which good actors are expected to abide, and does carry ethical weight, but is not legally enforceable”
While the technical language may seem complex, the concept is straightforward. The robots.txt file is a standard feature found on most websites, including Bluesky, that guides web crawlers regarding permissible data usage. Bluesky plans to introduce settings enabling users to communicate their preferences to these crawlers, thereby influencing how their data is handled online.
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The implications of this proposal are significant, especially considering that robots.txt functions more as a guideline than an enforceable rule. Currently, Bluesky operates as a public platform, which means that generative AI services and other data extraction tools, such as Google Search, can freely access and utilize the information available on the site. This raises essential questions about user consent and data ownership.
Jay Graber, the CEO of Bluesky, touched upon these topics during a recent discussion at South by Southwest. The conversation gained traction when Graber elaborated on the proposal through a post on Bluesky, which caught the attention of users who initially expressed concerns. Following his clarifications, many users felt more at ease with the changes being considered.
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“Generative AI companies are already scraping public data from across the web, and everything on Bluesky is public like a website is public,” Graber explained. “However, in the realm of the open web, standards like robots.txt have emerged that search engines generally respect. This proposal aims to establish a comparable standard for Bluesky users.”
The debate surrounding the use of publicly available data for training generative AI is longstanding, and many users strive to prevent AI from utilizing their content. Some corporations, notably Meta, have faced accusations of employing questionable tactics for training their AI models, which have even been labeled as piracy in some discussions.
Graber has firmly opposed such practices, making his stance clear during SXSW by wearing a T-shirt that sported the phrase Mundus sine Caesaribus (“A world without Caesars” in Latin). This was a direct nod to a similar shirt worn by Mark Zuckerberg that read Aut Zuck aut nihil (“Zuck or nothing”), signaling a cultural critique within the tech industry.
Bluesky’s merchandise, including Graber’s Mundus T-shirt, quickly gained popularity, selling out within minutes on the company’s website, demonstrating the strong community support for the values he represents.
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Ethan Carter
