So soon, all the democrats will be on BlueSky and all the republicans will be on X/Twitter?
Meanwhile us foreigners will have to maintain an account on both platforms to understand what our global overlords have decided for us today ;p
As an aside, my country has banned Twitter... yet everyone in the government, from the prime minister to the junior bureaucrat, uses twitter to issue announcements. They all use VPN. The whole thing is hilarious and sad. And I have to use VPN to find out if the road I'll go out yet is blocked or if we will have electricity today.
Basically, the international market is unlikely to move to BlueSky, then again I could be wrong.
Once funny people and porn completely migrate to BlueSky, it might gain proper adoption. Gotta keep in mind $10/month will keep away a good chunk of demographics, if without it your posts/replies are basically unseen.
The Guardian deleted their X account and will probably get on Bluesky at some point. There seems to slowly be a groundswell developing.
The Guardian has 1.3m followers on Threads.
So pretty sure it was an easy for them to move on from X.
Bluesky is a decentralized service similar to Mastodon, so you don't need to maintain an account on the US service if you don't want to. I don't know if they're actually connected or not.
Probably just a coincidence that the recent investment in Bluesky came via a friend of Eric Adams[0] and absolutely not at all any kind of backhanding going on.
[0] Brock Pierce, crypto lunatic.
I don't care who owns it, social media is a cancer. Decentralized social media is actually worse because it fragments information, which makes it harder to access, harder to collaborate on, hides subtle knowledge, and creates further in-groups and echo chambers.
What gets highlighted is almost never what is more intellectual, moral, factual, important, or curated. Instead it's whatever is entertaining, angering, scary, validating. It's a machine for capturing people's baser instincts and biases and weaponizing them to make people stupid and reactive.
And it's designed to be addictive. This isn't even just the "big" social media sites. Anything with a "feed" or "endless scroll" is designed to hook you, keep you there, keep you engaging. Cigarettes may not be your drug of choice, but TikTok may be.
Go ahead and quit social media. You know what people almost universally report? They feel calmer. Happier. Healthier. Less scared. They have more free time. It's a weight off their shoulders. Now imagine the opposite of all that, affecting nearly everyone connected to the internet. Imagine what that does over decades.
This machine is eroding society. In the future, we're going to find out that social media was worse than cigarettes. The addictive habit that slowly destroys lives - even nations - over decades.
I'm not the only person who has had friends have nervous breakdowns from social media. This is a pubic health emergency, but we're treating it like its politics. Politics is just a symptom of the greater disease: an epidemic of manipulation machines designed to ruin our health for clicks. The machine doesn't even know it's doing this to us. It's just doing what it was programmed to do. And we lap it up, like so many flies wandering into the fly trap.
While I agree for the most part, I have an observation and a question:
Social media, specifically microblogging networks like old Twitter, were uniquely effective at delivering near real-time breaking updates in ways that left older news delivery systems in the dust. I could do without the vapid comments, but this one aspect has real utility and I don't really know of a way to replicate that in other systems. I say this as an outsider that would only occasionally use the site to search for breaking news that hasn't hit other outlets yet.
My question is about where you draw the line on what constitutes a social network as the edges get blurry. Are comment sections social media? Are sites like Reddit and hacker News? Blogs? Blog networks with social features like Tumblr?
Old Twitter was phenomenal for news discovery. I quit news cold turkey, and got my current events from Twitter for years. Despite what you might think, the results were actually less biased and more accurate than mainstream news. They key is being very selective about how you follow, and staying of the “For You” algorithmic feed.
That ended with Elon’s acquisition. Not because of anything nefarious, but rather Elon just didn’t understand what he bought. He saw it as a meme and shitposting service. Which it was for a subset of users, I guess. But the changes he brought massively undermined its utility for elite and connected microblogging, and it became far less useful for that purpose. Now that he is incentivizing content creators, it has become a text version of instagram or TikTok—nothing but vapid influencers chasing engagement.
Can you elaborate?
Personally, I was also very picky about who I follow, and also only use “Following” (never “For You”) and the only difference I felt with the Elon acquisition is less censorship — which is both good and bad — and makes it more useful as a news source.
Feel slightly qualified to comment as I've been on twitter since close to Day 1, and also exclusively use Following (despite more aggressive attempts to push the algo feed since Elons purchase)
The #1 reason I had to leave Twitter is the degradation of replies. Prioritising blue ticks ruined any productive conversation in the comments. Much like HN is (imho) most valuable for the comments, old twitter was great for the expertise in the replies - where the cream rose to the top. Now it's impossible or takes a lot of scrolling to find useful dialogue.
It's not perfect, but for now Bluesky is scratching that itch of smart commentary immediately after a post. That was enough to get me to completely move to the platform.
Does Bluesky have politicians, CEOs, and cultural icons direct posting their unfiltered takes like 2012 Twitter?
1. Getting rid of verified accounts made Twitter a lot less usable to actual society elites. The vast majority stopped using it the way they had before. The blue check mark’s value was not authentication of the account as claimed, but to other blue check marks it was a pre-filter on their feed (since they had access to the verified-only tab), so they could experience Twitter as a social network of big wigs only.
Not very egalitarian and I admit to being disgusted by it at the time. In retrospect, it was genius and a net good. Society’s upper class (politicians, CEOs, celebrities, top journalists) spoke freely and frankly on Twitter, and we all got direct real-only access to those feeds. Not a bad setup.
Now their Twitter accounts are managed by their PR team.
2. The new creator incentives have created a ton of people pushing out phony / insincere tweets, rage bait, memes, and stealing content. It has massively decreased signal to noise.
I’m still on Twitter, but mostly out of habit and the few friends I met there that I can’t follow otherwise.
> Social media [..] were uniquely effective at delivering near real-time breaking updates
> I don't really know of a way to replicate that in other systems
Usenet, IRC, mailing lists, news websites, web forums, RSS feeds, etc. We had plenty of breaking news sources. It just wasn't as convenient as posting on twitter or looking at an endless trending feed. We've gained convenience, at the cost of our health.
And ironically, what's become easier is the pushing of "breaking news" that isn't actually important, but will sure get eyeballs on screens and enraged replies. "Kayne said WHAT???" Who in the fuck cares? Why are we hearing about this in real time? Why are we allowing ourselves to be deluged in shit?
>Social media, specifically microblogging networks like old Twitter, were uniquely effective at delivering near real-time breaking updates in ways that left older news delivery systems in the dust.
IRC did it long before some worthless derp even dared to coin the term "social media".
What was the largest IRC channel you lurked in (that didn’t have constant net splits?). I don’t think I ever passed 10K, and rarely passed 1K.
IRC did it on an incredibly small scale, IME.
> Decentralized social media is actually worse because it fragments information, which makes it harder to access, harder to collaborate on, hides subtle knowledge, and creates further in-groups and echo chambers.
Yeah, probably. But I hadn’t posted to the IPO garbage site since ~2013-ish. I enjoy my preferred replacement. There are actual dialogues. It’s missing a lot of great content for niche topics, but I consider the intimacy a strength.
True, I’m off all non-tech/science internet at the moment for mental wellbeing (USA citizen and I need less information about our current events, not more). And yes, that’s deliberate and it’s helped my state of mind. I’m reading more books and got back into a game I like.
I just don’t think decentralization is all that bad. Echo chamber? Yes. But who on FB or the shitty bird site hasn’t self-selected for that?
I mean... Hacker News is a social media site. No?
I think celebrity media sites are a trap. More so if you are able to post advertising. Social, itself, isn't necessarily bad. Social that is monetized is almost certainly a race for what makes money, though. Not what makes people social.
Hacker News is a news aggregator with a comments section.
It certainly _feels_ categorically different from the algorithmically suggested endless scroll sites
HN is a social media and was designed as such back when it was a smaller group of tech founders an angel investors sharing knowledge and opportunities. That it has since grown into what is essentially a mix of various Reddit STEM subsides or whatever they call them doesn’t exactly make it any less of a social media.
I think one of the few things that has kept it at least a little safe aside from the massive work of Dang is that you need a certain level of “karma” before you can interact with a lot of the functions. Still, if you look at the content and the discussions today they are very different from what they were. I haven’t used my original account for several years because it was associated with my real personality and that became toxic with the increase of Reddit users who would actively stalk you.
It doesn’t have doom scroll, but it does have doom update.
My argument for what makes it different was in my post. It doesn't try to monetize the social activity. It is still algorithm driven. Even has many features people typically don't know. Just nothing driving money that I know of.
I don't think money changes any of the toxic behaviors that emerge from social media. Every social site I've been on, money or not, has featured:
* Exaggerated high-intensity language intended to rant or show indignation
* Low effort posting chasing some form of in-network metacurrency (upvotes, likes, replies, etc.)
* Argumentative conversation threads that devolve because the participants just start shouting at each other.
* Angry rumors that get amplified that have dubious or no basis in reality. The rumors generally prey on some pre-existing anger in the community.
* General misinformation amplification because most folks on social don't have the bandwidth to verify facts.
I've seen these on Usenet, on forums, and all of these things happen on Mastodon despite none of these networks having money tied into them. My feeling is that these behaviors happen on all text-based networks (and many media-based networks, but I think those are different) that humans socialize on. Moderation and filtration is probably the best way to clamp down on this behavior.
Hacker News is algorithmically curated. The main inputs are upvotes/downvotes, time posted, and (maybe) number of comments - instead of likes and time spent. But that's still algorithmically curated.
I will grant that it is not infinite scroll. I think that speaks more to this site having a limited amount of content.
So what do you think Reddit is?
Twitter at it's peak had less monthly active users than Facebook Stories.
Outside of the journalist and media class, nobody used twitter. 300M+ people are a huge number, but barely scratches the surface in the Social Media world. What can bluesky do different to attract normies?
> Outside of the journalist and media class, nobody used twitter.
??? What???
Twitter has basically been the place for artists to share their stuff. It's a huge place for game and tech discussions and sharing knowledge. It lets absolute normies share stuff with thousands of people.
Meanwhile, facebook stories is much more limited in reach. People sharing pictures of their baby and vacations with family who'll click a thumbs up just to show they know you exist but don't care about the content. Instagram, facebook's other child, is for people to pose and post pictures of their lunch in an exotic location and pretend they just casually decided to eat 10000 miles from home because they're rich and spontaneous like that.
Twitter has been huge for creative types, and the content that thrives on Facebook-style platforms struggles there. A lot of them are currently migrating to bluesky due to various problems recently. Tumblr still kind of has a thing going on, but it's for much more niche art/fan fiction type stuff. But they're all for normies to go and see cool shit and not have to stare at endless feeds of "Me and my baby. Did you know I have a baby? I have a baby btw" type stuff.
> the place for artists to share their stuff.
I don't know the same artists you do then. Agree with the rest, but wether it's sound designer, musician or graphic artist, most of the talented ones I know weren't on Twitter. I know one who is but honestly half her work are memes, and the rest isn't that good. Artstation/deviantArt in the other hand, that's where you can discover _very_ good art (and some bad one).
Nearly artist who has an account there has a bsky/twitter account as well.
Artstation and deviantart is where people who make art go to look at other art. Twitter and bsky are places where everyone, including non-artists, goes to find art.
Why do they need to, except for letting them read postings and follow selected users/entities?
To avoid the cesspool effect, Bluesky should just charge publishers (anyone who wants to post) a high monthly fee, and make user accounts for reading free. Then governments or companies or anyone else can just use it as their announcement service.
People who want to chat can use Reddit or whatever.
> To avoid the cesspool effect, Bluesky should just charge publishers (anyone who wants to post) a high monthly fee
So they should become a subscription-based press release distribution channel? That doesn't sound too different from the "verified" account practice at current Twitter, just more expensive.
Non-verified accounts on Twitter can still post, respond to posts, etc. I'm proposing that they don't allow this, and in fact simply disable replies altogether. It should just be a one-way announcement service.
That's called a newsletter.
Exactly! That's all anyone really needs here. Official government accounts don't need comments from the peanut gallery (random people, who might not even be constituents) every time they make an official announcement.
> What can bluesky do different to attract normies
Don't. Threads already has that market locked up as it is now about ~300m MAUs.
Bluesky should focus on its current strengths i.e. news, politics, science and less mainstream content.
Between the two it should relegate X to just being a Truth Social competitor.
So basically an ideological split.
It was inevitable once Musk changed the direction of X.
If you sign up for a new account the majority of the content is either Musk or right-wing political content even if you never asked for it.
Why would a normie be attracted to the stream of conscious timelines of randos?
MAU doesn't mean influential. There are forums of less than 100 people that have more influence than stories.
Anyone not chronically online
They should really take some money and use that to set up their own PDS.
Personal Data Server
Bluesky is built on their open protocol ATProto (https://atproto.com)
One of the core issues of social media and mastodon they aimed to change is account portability. Every user has an sqlite database which is trivial to move. The other part is using DNS for DID
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Jack.
Jack Dorsey left Bluesky's board in May. I don't believe he has anything to do with the company anymore.
The CEO of Bluesky is Jay Graber. (Who despite the name is a Chinese woman.)
Jack got mad that people were making fun of him for being into crypto, left for another decentralized service Nostr, did too many psychedelics and fried his brain, then moved back to Twitter.
Jack invested to get BlueSky moving, and his company has been a major investor since the beginning. He also invested in Nostr. Only just this last week did his company divest from a lot of their social media stuff and invest in Crypto instead (given the company's basis in the US and recent politics that experts are predicting a decline in social media and huge increases in crypo ventures)