How can open social protocols fail us?

I put together an analysis comparing several specific failure modes between Farcaster, Bluesky, and Mastodon.

Please let me know if any of the protocol descriptions could be presented more fairly!

How can open social protocols fail us?

I put together an analysis comparing several specific failure modes between Farcaster, Bluesky, and Mastodon.

Please let me know if any of the protocol descriptions could be presented more fairly!

https://shazow.net/posts/open-social-2025/

good article! 

my understanding here is that if the PLC decides to delete your DID keys you lose the ability to update your identity. there is some promise to decentralize it in the future, but it hasn't been executed yet. 

is this incorrect?

A doodler and computerer. I like permissive/permissionless open source, smart contracts, p2p systems, room-scale VR, and NixOS.

shazow.net

Currently: WhatsABI

I'm eth newbie..just learning
(working on @farcaster)

terminally.online

The output of the directory is "self verifying" state transitions. Think of it like a centralized DA and sequencing. The infra that consumes it checks that signatures match up for the state transitions (eg key A signs over permission to key B). The main failure mode is same as DA/sequencer disappearing, would need social coordination to move to another DA/sequencer.

https://warpcast.com/shazow.eth/0xfeba2af0

PLC is a "self-verifying ledger" (full of signed state transitions like "key A signature giving permission for key B"), I don't think it can remove a key without breaking the integrity of the ledger (if you request the log).

That said, I do think they can censor updates (if I go to update my key, they can refuse to append it to the ledger). And I think they can omit logged updates in whatever "flattened" resolving helpers they offer.

A bit more here:

Technowatermelon. Elder Millenial. Building Farcaster. 

nf.td/varun

do users control all the keys that update the PLC? or does bluesky have keys which can make updates? 

if the latter is true, they can produce a new PLC trivially quickly to omit anyone they don't like.  and it would still be consistent with the rules of the PLC.

PLC is a "self-verifying ledger" (full of signed state transitions like "key A signature giving permission for key B"), I don't think it can remove a key without breaking the integrity of the ledger (if you request the log).

That said, I do think they can censor updates (if I go to update my key, they can refuse to append it to the ledger). And I think they can omit logged updates in whatever "flattened" resolving helpers they offer.

A bit more here: https://warpcast.com/shazow.eth/0xee35a765