What does all this tell us about Bluesky?
There has been a lot about the website Bluesky in the news lately. It is supposedly an alternative to “X” that is geared towards left-wing persons. It is noted to censor out language they don’t like and suspend accounts of those that make the statements.
CNN gave us this story about people leaving “X” to go to Bluesky.
But then we see reports like this where it shows the users are flagging each other like crazy. 42,000 flags in one day, an average of 3000 per hour.
So what does this say about Bluesky? Are they doomed to censor themselves out of business or will they finally settle out and become a left-wing echo chamber? Will they have to change what they decide is unacceptable comments?
I’m not looking for condemnations of X…that is neither here nor there. I’m looking at what is happening to Bluesky specifically and for speculation of their future. And please note this is in the General section.
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It’s understandable that some people are looking for a site that doesn’t require sifting through a plethora of posts praising Hitler and touting race essentialism in order to find anything relevant.
But anyone who thinks they can create an ideal “digital public square” that’s free of drama and maximally free speech-oriented (even if only for people of their supposed political persuasion) is kidding themselves. Bluesky is just going to join the ranks of all these so called “marketplaces of ideas”, rife with drama, censorship, petty decisions by owners, and an algorithm that pushes the most enraging, low quality content to the fore in order to drive engagement. The enshittification of the internet is in full swing.
Twitter/X took away the ability to block obnoxious people. MAGA took advantage and went wild. BlueSky allows blocking. People can discuss in a more peaceful manner there.
@RocketGuy You can block on x.com.
Bluesky is awful in its own ways. Blocking is mutual censorship as it hides the thread with the blocked parties, which gives vast censorship power to larger accounts. It’s a weird and stupid system that makes blocking completely pointless unless you have a large follower account and want to just censor people.
It’s also very much liberal biased on not left-wing. As a left-wing person, I find Bluesky full of obnoxious centrists.
@Demosthenes I’m not arguing the internet is a bit of a cesspool. Is that more on all of us than on the site? Are we too triggered too often at hearing opinions we don’t like? If that is the case, is the drive to have those opinions going to cause even further troubles?
@RocketGuy Yes, people can discuss in a more peaceful manner, yet it seems there are so many flags being thrown that even those that can discuss in a peaceful manner are attacking each other. I don’t know of any conservatives that have any desire to go to that site. I’m sure there are some butt-heads that did, but really, that many?!? It seems unlikely.
@seawulf575 I think it is on all of us, but I think these sites and the way they’re designed, in particular how their algorithms work, exacerbate these tendencies and bring out the worst in people. It isn’t just that we can’t handle opinions we don’t like, it’s also that we’re driven to present our opinions in the most inflammatory way. The goal is to “own” or “destroy” people with differing opinions. These sites do not facilitate healthy discourse and exchange of ideas. (That’s not to say no one is doing that on X or Bluesky, I’m sure they are. But that won’t be the trend).
I’m not on Bluesky but I’ve read the users were happy until all the trolls from X got bored and came over because they were left with no one to troll at X. Right wing trolls are full of hate and the left wingers are tired of it. That’s why we are avoiding MSM. We’re tired of lies and trolling.
I lik Bluesky. It’s less obnoxious. I see more of what I want to see and less of what I don’t.
I still have a twitter account, but I only use it for sports.
@Demosthenes That’s kind of what I was getting at. I see a lot of opinions I disagree with here. I see things that I think are completely foolish. It get attacked quite often for my views. But isn’t it really on me if I get truly offended at those comments?
At least it has a better name than X. X reminds me of Charlie Manson because he carved an X in his forehead.
@chyna actually it was swastika but Musk thought better of renaming Twitter that ! ! !
That a large number of neo nazis are interfering with bluesky at the behest of Trump and musk.
Find a fox news article that’s political and go read the comments people leave. These are the people posting on X
Find a CNN article that’s political and go read the comments people leave. These are the people posting on Bluesky.
Two sides of the same coin.
@Blackwater_Park I disagree. I find X to just be a mess with ads, posts I don’t want to see, weird algorhythms. Bluesky I can follow whom I want to follow and there is much less drama. The signal to noise is much higher on Bluesky. But YMMV
I have a twitter account that I use twice a year at most. I never liked it.
A couple of people in my Democratic Facebook groups have recommended going to bluesky, but I haven’t tried it. The people recommending it in my community tend to be unable to listen to anything that doesn’t fit the narrative they believe in, God forbid you say something that doesn’t agree with their view. I’m not talking about trolls and bots or even fiercely defending a counterpoint, I just mean someone pointing out actual facts to add information to their thought process. Now that I see some jellies like using it maybe eventually I will give it a try.
In terms of what will happen with bluesky or what it tells us, maybe it depends on how the country is doing once Trump is in office.
So I joined Blue Sky because there were a lot less conspiracy theorists and such on their period but honestly, I still like Twitter. Although I refuse to pay Elon Musk $8 a month or whatever it is so I just scroll by the ads. But one of the things I didn’t like was that everybody’s like everybody follow everybody else and I don’t want to be followed by so many people or vice versa that it just clogs up my feed. So I’m a lot more discerning about who I follow.
But I probably didn’t answer your question very well. So there is something called a block list where it can be theme based and then you can subscribe to the list and block everybody on it if you want or just block individual accounts. But in general I like to check out people’s accounts separately. You can also do the reverse and follow all of them too but I don’t want to do that either. I don’t really know about the flagging thing. I haven’t flagged anybody. If I see somebody being really nasty, no matter who they voted for, I block them because I do not like that. I’m down to only going on there once a day briefly and I hardly ever get any notifications anymore so I don’t know how long my interest will last.
One slightly odd thing. I don’t post that much on Bluesky—just movie reviews and astronomy stuff. But lately I’ve been getting a ton of follows. I’m not sure why. Someone might have put me on some medical list as most of the follows are other doctors. And I never post about medicine. It’s all good as I haven’t been spammed yet.
X is full of hate speech, rape threats, antisemitism, and highly-accessible porn. You used to be able to block users (who posted hate speech or threats to you) and they wouldn’t be able to view your posts, but now everyone can view your posts but blocked accounts supposedly can’t reply. There was also a change to the algorithm in terms of AI training that people were very concerned about (but I believe it is in line with other social media platforms). As a chronically ill, disabled person, I will keep my X account to connect with similar people. But it is a cesspool. I don’t care about the political leanings at bluesky – people are nice there. So far, it is a very pleasant place. It is a relatively new phenomena to call blocking hate speech and porn “censorship” and I don’t buy into the premise. As a multiple sexual abuse survivor, I shouldn’t have to face rape and death threats for posting (on X) about vaccination. It’s absurd. These posts are threatening and illegal – it is not “censorship” to remove them.
Both Twitter and BlueSky started out as nonpartisan.
Ideologues are a mass infection upon America, and ideologues only want to hear things that reaffirm what they already believe. And so when Twitter started banning Conspiracy Theories… most Trumpers got upset with that because when you ban Conspiracy Theories, you’re basically banning Trumpers.
And then a Conspiracy Theorist purchases Twitter and reverses everything.
The liberal ideologues (as well as people who are nonpartisan but hate conspiracy theories) run over to BlueSky. Now the liberals infight with the nonpartisans over there, fueled further by Trumper agent provocateurs.
BlueSky has to find the balance between free speech and restricting BS.
Twitter totally gave up on restricting bullshtt.
When someone restricts bullshtt, they are not being ideological. They are just restricting bullshtt.
The danger is when an ideologue or a team of ideologues is put in charge of choosing what is, and what is not bullshtt.
Most Americans do not have the intelligence to discern truth from disinformation, without ideological loyalties clouding their minds. They are insecure, and scared to death of their preconceptions being wrong.
But some of them do have that ability. Many reporters have that ability. And those are the ones who should be in charge of Bluesky’s standards.
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