this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2024
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Someone Made a Dataset of One Million Bluesky Posts for 'Machine Learning Research' (www.404media.co)
submitted 1 week ago by Stopthatgirl7@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world
86 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

A machine learning librarian at Hugging Face just released a dataset composed of one million Bluesky posts, complete with when they were posted and who posted them, intended for machine learning research.

Daniel van Strien posted about the dataset on Bluesky on Tuesday:

“This dataset contains 1 million public posts collected from Bluesky Social's firehose API, intended for machine learning research and experimentation with social media data,” the dataset description says. “Each post contains text content, metadata, and information about media attachments and reply relationships.”

The data isn’t anonymous. In the dataset, each post is listed alongside the users’ decentralized identifier, or DID; van Strien also made a search tool for finding users based on their DID and published it on Hugging Face. A quick skim through the first few hundred of the million posts shows people doing normal types of Bluesky posting—arguing about politics, talking about concerts, saying stuff like “The cat is gay” and “When’s the last time yall had Boston baked beans?”—but the dataset has also swept up a lot of adult content, too.

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[–] Mushroomm@sh.itjust.works 45 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I mean isn't this what we want? The data is Public. It's already being done behind closed doors. I'd rather this transparency. Especially because there's such a large % of the population tuned out to how large companies with 8-10 figure r&d departments focused on marketing psychology manage to control them.

Even as aware as I think I am I'm certain there are 10s of thousands of strategies being employed that take advantage of my "immunity". At least with FOSS and public records steming from that, the average Joe gets a peak behind the curtain and sees what is possible.

I had a conversation recently about mcdonalds app surge pricing and they never heard about surge pricing which is totally fine but they fought me on the premise "there's no way they can do that" on technical feasibility to just "no one would do that". I'm not sure what they were defending but I digress. My biphenton has kicked in and I should stop typing right n

[–] wuphysics87@lemmy.ml 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

It depends on who you mean by "we". I don't think the "we", as in the users of Bluesky would want their posts to be used this way. Yes it's transparent and accessible, but only to the technically inclined who can make use of it.

I wonder how much more The Matrix references become relevant. We become food for the machines whether they tell us so or not.

[–] todd_bonzalez@lemm.ee 5 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Well "you" the users of BlueSky should have read about what you were signing up for. Because this is ATProto for ya...

[–] wuphysics87@lemmy.ml -5 points 6 days ago

I wouldn't consider clicking "I agree" the same as agreeing.

[–] gcheliotis@lemmy.world 16 points 6 days ago

The real question here is why the researcher “librarian” didn’t even attempt to anonymize the dataset before making it available. Full anonymization isn’t a trivial task, but at least removing unique identifiers or replacing them with randomly generated ones would be good practice.

[–] ReCursing@lemmings.world -2 points 6 days ago

Good

[–] Bishma@discuss.tchncs.de 164 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (15 children)

That's why I always pepper all my social media posts with misinformation.

BTW, did you know most convenience stores offer free ATMs to anyone who can haul them away? You don't even need to ask.

[–] Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works 2 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

I can confirm that this is true. The owners of the store actually really appreciate this. I'm such an owner. I love it when people take those ATM's away, because it helps me with the end of day tally. Seriously, please take this into consideration. When people leave these in my store, they create problems for me and my staff.

[–] Empricorn@feddit.nl 2 points 6 days ago

ATMs are delicious and the inner layer is cake.

[–] independantiste@sh.itjust.works 75 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

Something interesting about this is that this is because of a legal loophole in texas that says that if the ATM gets taken away, it gives the business the right to shoot one and exactly one person at sight. This law was passed by trump in 2017 according to the guardian https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/22/trump-new-law-atm-shoot-one-person and according to the new york times as well https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/22/politics/trump-atm-shooting-law.html

[–] Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works 3 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Yes, this is the case. I just wanted to add that this applies to other states, as well! Only the red-voting states, though. By that, I mean only the states that look to lynch people based on the traits they are born with.

This is totally normal under the Trump administration, though.

[–] Stovetop@lemmy.world 30 points 1 week ago

The real TIL is always in the comments. Cheers!

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[–] sentient_loom@sh.itjust.works 22 points 1 week ago

Paying is optional at most Canadian convenience stores. Because Canada is fully communist. And the hospitals pay you!

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[–] FaceDeer@fedia.io 115 points 1 week ago (17 children)

I don't know why anyone would be surprised about this. Bluesky is a distributed system using an open protocol. The whole point of it is that there's no central control.

Same goes for the Fediverse, of course. Everybody should be prepared for the "surprise" that all our posts and comments here are also being used for AI training purposes.

[–] cm0002@lemmy.world 41 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I've said it before and I'll say it again, if you post something publicly, expect it to be used publicly.

[–] leanleft@lemmy.ml 0 points 6 days ago (1 children)

if u want privacy then join diaspora and use aspects. better yet: host an instance.

[–] MrRazamataz@lemmy.razbot.xyz 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I mean, your content that you post/comment won't be private when it's federated to another instance...

[–] leanleft@lemmy.ml 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

thats a very important point. thank you for making that clear.
i think this is where mastodon has an advantage.
also hosting on vps does not come with a guarentee for privacy. especially in US

[–] MrRazamataz@lemmy.razbot.xyz 1 points 4 days ago

Wdym mastodon has the advantage there? Mastodon uses the same protocol as Lemmy so behaves in a similar way.

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[–] webghost0101@sopuli.xyz 33 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Lemmy AI is going to be one bean of a star trek meming communist. That if not running on linux ends any response with “install Arch btw” 💪 💪

[–] nl4real@lemmy.world 6 points 6 days ago

Install Arch btw

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[–] foremanguy92_@lemmy.ml 78 points 1 week ago (4 children)

If you post something publicly, that thing will be used to train AI. Nevertheless the privacy speaks of the company.

[–] Empricorn@feddit.nl 6 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

The only reason companies safeguard user data is to keep it from being scraped and sell it themselves. Reddit, Xitter, Facebook, Google, all of them...

[–] ApatheticCactus@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago

Yes, it absolutely will. That's why I fragrance the pandas. Just a little here and there so that some Howard will need to sort through it. The lime really comes through clearly.

[–] Aeri@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago

Be super fucking foul and un advertiser friendly to make it less useful, OUTLAW COUNTRY

[–] Brumefey@sh.itjust.works 27 points 1 week ago (9 children)

I don’t know why social media are used for training. It’s like the worst quality of data ever and it results to answers like « go kill youself » when prompted about something sad…

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[–] Knuk@lemmy.world 42 points 1 week ago (4 children)

That dataset is going to contain a lot of furry content

[–] jagged_circle@feddit.nl 6 points 6 days ago

Hey, we need AI that specializes in furry lore. If this is public, now we'll have many

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[–] Mandy@sh.itjust.works 32 points 1 week ago (2 children)

So? What's with the hoopla?
Its a social maedia platform anybody can see and access.

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