Well folks, it seems I’m finally busted.

[tanghus@freeradical.zone]

@webhat @aral @nemo in phanpy it says "post removed by author"

[dalias@hachyderm.io]

@greenWhale @aral Yes, and he's been repeatedly banned from respectable instances after posting anti-Palestinian hate speech.

[casey@kafeneio.social]

@aral It’s comical how obsessed they are. I would be incredibly impressed if I’ve been on all of these calls with someone you fabricated who didn’t really exist. Might need to admit myself somewhere if that were the case In all seriousness, we all know you, Aral, and I’ve personally spent enough time with our lovely Joy to know her as well. Some people simply have too much time on their hands and truly need to invest it in an actual hobby.

[aral@mastodon.ar.al]

@casey

[davidculley@hachyderm.io]

@aral What a coward hiding behind an anonymous account. He doesn't believe his own fabricated story.

Your description was funny ("from your trusted sources") even though the subject matter is not. You have my full support, Aral. ️

As a decent person, I struggle to imagine the path that leads a person to become like that.

[disisdeguey@expressional.social]

@davidculley @aral #iofootprint in every line.

[davidculley@hachyderm.io]

@greenWhale Yes. LinuxIsBest is the guy who claims to work for Facebook.

[raphaellakay@mastodon.world]

@aral

their "article" gave me a headache, it makes no sense at all ‍

that's really shitty of them to take Joy's pictures without permission + pretending to be another person

[fishnameddog@mastodon.social]

@aral given that the person's Not-Accusations-Nope-Not-At-All-I'm-Just-Asking-Questions about the photos being AI-generated, the fact that the image for the profile is clearly AI generated is...interesting.

[gomli@piaille.fr]

@aral
You have my full support. I've been following you since the ground offensive. Thank you again for your initial work with @joynewacc . We're with you!

[aral@mastodon.ar.al]

@gomli @joynewacc

[mynameistillian@plush.city]

@aral "joy is a different person each time because her bracelets and nailjobs are different" local man discovers the concept of taking jewelry off

[mynameistillian@plush.city]

@aral everyone knows palestinians die in the clothes they were born in, and live in them, forever

[aral@mastodon.ar.al]

@nlupo CC @fabio And even those gibberish claims about the PDS are technically incorrect, right?

[amro@todon.nl]

@mynameistillian @aral
‍️ "Sorcery I tell you, sorcery"

[bebatjof@twoot.site]

@aral you mean this isn't Johnny Depp?

[fabio@manganiello.eu]

@aral@mastodon.ar.al @nlupo@amikejo.xyz that's right. PDS used by Joy's account on Bluesky:

❯ curl -s "https://plc.directory/$(
  curl -s 'https://bsky.social/xrpc/com.atproto.identity.resolveHandle?handle=joyfromghazza.bsky.social' | jq -r '.did'
)" | jq -r '.service[0].serviceEndpoint'
https://fibercap.us-west.host.bsky.network

Server info:

❯ curl -s "https://fibercap.us-west.host.bsky.network/xrpc/com.atproto.server.describeServer" | jq

{
  "did": "did:web:fibercap.us-west.host.bsky.network",
  "availableUserDomains": [
    ".fibercap.us-west.host.bsky.network"
  ],
  "inviteCodeRequired": true,
  "links": {
    "privacyPolicy": "https://bsky.social/about/support/privacy-policy",
    "termsOfService": "https://bsky.social/about/support/tos"
  },
  "contact": {}
}

It's a server hosted on Bluesky's own network, further confirmed by the fact that it even advertises Bluesky's official ToS and privacy policy (something that matches what Joy said from the very beginning, that she was on a PDS sympathetic with minorities, but still part of the main network).

And a quick search for recent posts on that PDS shows that there's still activity from other users, even if Joy is no longer posting there:

❯ curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer $BSKY_JWT" "https://bsky.social/xrpc/app.bsky.feed.searchPosts?q=fibercap.us-west.host.bsky.network" \
    | jq -r '.posts[].author.handle'
aragorn-estragon.bsky.social
ohlamoole.bsky.social
shigepon.net
...

So yeah...so much for the theory of "this is a PDS that Aral took online just to host his fake account".