Bluesky

[Tristan]

Bluesky needs to decide (or rather needed to decide a year ago before it dropped the invite requirement) what it's actually for. Is it a serious alternative to Twitter, or a cosy little members club for people who all think alike?

There's a lot of toxic people on there who see themselves as Good Guys^TM because they believe the "right" things.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/ ... c-00193862

[Stranger Mouse]

Is No Context Brits on it? Only thing I'll miss on Twitter.

No, there’s only an account (with misspelled handle) that calls itself ‘unofficial’ and is flagged as a content scraper.

You can find Paul Bronks and the World Bollard Association on there in the meantime though.

And Meldrew Point

[Grumble]

Bluesky needs to decide (or rather needed to decide a year ago before it dropped the invite requirement) what it's actually for. Is it a serious alternative to Twitter, or a cosy little members club for people who all think alike?

There's a lot of toxic people on there who see themselves as Good Guys^TM because they believe the "right" things.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/ ... c-00193862

Why does it need to decide? It’s whatever the members make it into.

[Bewildered]

Bluesky needs to decide (or rather needed to decide a year ago before it dropped the invite requirement) what it's actually for. Is it a serious alternative to Twitter, or a cosy little members club for people who all think alike?

There's a lot of toxic people on there who see themselves as Good Guys^TM because they believe the "right" things.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/ ... c-00193862

Why does it need to decide? It’s whatever the members make it into.

You mean it should be unmoderated? I guess that might be seen as not deciding in some sense. Otherwise I guess they do need to make some decisions.

Wasn’t the big complaint against Twitter and other social media that a lack of moderation led to them being toxic places where (maybe a small number of) toxic trolls, bullies or racist/sexist etc a..holes made it very hard for some groups to participate?

[Tristan]

Actually on reflection, and despite that article, I think Bluesky are starting to show what they’re for and some of the most vocals users won’t like it. They just need to not buckle.

I disagree that it’s up to the users to define what Bluesky becomes. Platforms aren’t shaped by users alone—they’re defined by leadership decisions, especially on moderation. The Jesse Singal situation of the last week or so shows this.

Bluesky chose not to ban Singal despite vocal outrage, sending a clear message: dissent from a dominant ideological frame isn’t grounds for exclusion if rules aren’t broken. That decision angered many users, but it was the right one. A ban would have told millions of potential users, “This platform isn’t for you unless you conform,” turning Bluesky into a narrow echo chamber.

Every moderation choice—or refusal to act—defines a platform’s culture. If Bluesky avoids making clear decisions about what it is, it risks chaos or irrelevance. The idea that “users decide” ignores the fact that users respond to the boundaries set by leadership.

Bluesky’s choice not to cave to pressure shows it values open participation over enforcing a single perspective. That’s critical for creating a diverse, sustainable platform. Leadership must continue to define its values, or Bluesky will be shaped by the loudest voices instead of its long-term vision.

Bewildered is right about one of the common complaints about Twitter being bullies and toxic users. Bluesky has those too, but people don’t see it as that because they’re people who have the “correct” ideological postions.

[bjn]

Jack Dorsey may no longer be there, but BlueSky will be enshitified in the not too distant future. It’s now in phase I of the cycle; being super nice to users to build a captive audience base. They are burning cash like crazy and have taken a significant amount of funding from crypto bros who will want a return on their investment. They are now talking about taking on advertising, which will open phase II of the enshitification cycle, be super nice to their customers (ie advertisers) at users’ expense. Once they do they can start phase III, which is exploit both.

Can’t be bothered with riding all that again. I’m on mastodon and throw a few pounds every month at my server host to support it.

[Grumble]

You may well be right bjn, hope not but we’ll see. And Tristan, a variety of voices is valuable but with the ever increasing polarisation in the world it needs strong moderation and user tools to stop the conversations becoming fights.

[El Pollo Diablo]

The answer to that politico article, of course, is "no" - bluesky isn't just as toxic as twitter. Nowhere near. It's not owned by a narcissistic fascist, for one thing.

"A bad thing happened to me, a journalist" is not the same thing as "these two bad things are equivalent".

[Tristan]

You may well be right bjn, hope not but we’ll see. And Tristan, a variety of voices is valuable but with the ever increasing polarisation in the world it needs strong moderation and user tools to stop the conversations becoming fights.

It does not have strong moderation though. You can make death threats and nothing happens to your account.

[dyqik]

You may well be right bjn, hope not but we’ll see. And Tristan, a variety of voices is valuable but with the ever increasing polarisation in the world it needs strong moderation and user tools to stop the conversations becoming fights.

A variety of voices is only valuable to the extent that people feel safe expressing their voice and can disagree without causing people to hide what they want to say.

As Twitter is showing, there's no value to providing a service that allows all speech without moderation or social norms. "But it's an echo chamber" is the cry of the abuser who's been criticized or told to f.ck off.

(Telling someone to f.ck off is fairly civil disagreement in the grand scheme of these things)

[Tristan]

As Twitter is showing, there's no value to providing a service that allows all speech without moderation or social norms. "But it's an echo chamber" is the cry of the abuser who's been criticized or told to f.ck off.

Bluesky is showing this too

[dyqik]

As Twitter is showing, there's no value to providing a service that allows all speech without moderation or social norms. "But it's an echo chamber" is the cry of the abuser who's been criticized or told to f.ck off.

Bluesky is showing this too

Not to the same degree, and not as deliberate policy set by the owner.

The main form of complaint here seems to be that a journalist turns up on $socialmedia site, follows some people that are a tiny subset of the user base, and then is rude to those people. They are then told not to be rude by those people. So they write and promote an article about how everyone on $socialmedia site is in an echo chamber.

[Tristan]

Nothing to see here. Just a Bluesky user telling someone not to be rude.

IMG_0887.png (46.85 KiB) Viewed 1422 times

Yes, I know this isn’t in relation to the guy who wrote that article. This is in response to someone else.

[Grumble]

Nothing to see here. Just a Bluesky user telling someone not to be rude. IMG_0887.png

Yes, I know this isn’t in relation to the guy who wrote that article. This is in response to someone else.

I would suggest Jesse Singal should block and move on. There are plenty of dicks on Bluesky like everywhere, the block function is really handy.

Not sure if I’m meant to know who Jesse Singal is?

[El Pollo Diablo]

You don't need to know, it's not important.

[dyqik]

Nothing to see here. Just a Bluesky user telling someone not to be rude. IMG_0887.png

Yes, I know this isn’t in relation to the guy who wrote that article. This is in response to someone else.

I would suggest Jesse Singal should block and move on. There are plenty of dicks on Bluesky like everywhere, the block function is really handy.

Not sure if I’m meant to know who Jesse Singal is?

I've no idea why Tristan hasn't just blocked and moved on as well, and had instead decided to attack the platform for the common abuse by the user.

Tristan, what you just posted is not a true threat that is legally actionable, it's mere common abuse. You just block and move on. Bluesky has given you the tools to deal with it, via a powerful block functionality - something that Twitter has recently taken away.

[lpm]

A rent-a-mob are trying to drive Jesse Singal from Bluesky. By reporting posts, contacting potential employers, silly petitions and threats, as well as common abuse.

So it simply doesn't work to say "block and move on".

There are tried and tested ways to drive "enemies" from public spaces. They work, particularly to silence women.

Minimising this problem is not a good look.

[Tristan]

Minimising this problem is not a good look.

The thing is, this is being done by the Good Guys^TM who have the right opinions, so it's actually fine.

[Grumble]

A rent-a-mob are trying to drive Jesse Singal from Bluesky. By reporting posts, contacting potential employers, silly petitions and threats, as well as common abuse.

So it simply doesn't work to say "block and move on".

There are tried and tested ways to drive "enemies" from public spaces. They work, particularly to silence women.

Minimising this problem is not a good look.

So if it’s a bigger problem then moderation should come in, absolutely.

[Woodchopper]

Nothing to see here. Just a Bluesky user telling someone not to be rude. IMG_0887.png

Yes, I know this isn’t in relation to the guy who wrote that article. This is in response to someone else.

I would suggest Jesse Singal should block and move on. There are plenty of dicks on Bluesky like everywhere, the block function is really handy.

Not sure if I’m meant to know who Jesse Singal is?

I've no idea why Tristan hasn't just blocked and moved on as well, and had instead decided to attack the platform for the common abuse by the user.

Tristan, what you just posted is not a true threat that is legally actionable, it's mere common abuse. You just block and move on. Bluesky has given you the tools to deal with it, via a powerful block functionality - something that Twitter has recently taken away.

Perhaps it wouldn't cross a threshold in the US, but it seems to me that if it were one of several similar posts then what Tristan posted might well be an example of harassment or malicious communications in the UK, and similar offences in other European countries.

[Woodchopper]

Jack Dorsey may no longer be there, but BlueSky will be enshitified in the not too distant future. It’s now in phase I of the cycle; being super nice to users to build a captive audience base. They are burning cash like crazy and have taken a significant amount of funding from crypto bros who will want a return on their investment. They are now talking about taking on advertising, which will open phase II of the enshitification cycle, be super nice to their customers (ie advertisers) at users’ expense. Once they do they can start phase III, which is exploit both.

Can’t be bothered with riding all that again. I’m on mastodon and throw a few pounds every month at my server host to support it.

That's probably how it'll pan out. But the implication also seems to be that a large open platform will only be not-enshittified if its being funded by as a pet project by rich donors. Good that masto works for you, but I don't see it being a replacement. As far as I can see moderation is patchy and depends upon the interest of whoever is running a server.

[Woodchopper]

A rent-a-mob are trying to drive Jesse Singal from Bluesky. By reporting posts, contacting potential employers, silly petitions and threats, as well as common abuse.

So it simply doesn't work to say "block and move on".

There are tried and tested ways to drive "enemies" from public spaces. They work, particularly to silence women.

Minimising this problem is not a good look.

Chopper's rule of the internet is that any prosocial online space will be taken over by antisocial people unless the space is actively policed (such as by restricting access, moderating users behaviour and banning miscreants). The problem for large platforms is that active enforcement of rules takes a lot of time, and at some point when volunteers aren't interested that costs a lot of money. So then they either get taken over by the antisocial mobs, or they have to raise lots of money by selling access to the users.

[bjn]

Jack Dorsey may no longer be there, but BlueSky will be enshitified in the not too distant future. It’s now in phase I of the cycle; being super nice to users to build a captive audience base. They are burning cash like crazy and have taken a significant amount of funding from crypto bros who will want a return on their investment. They are now talking about taking on advertising, which will open phase II of the enshitification cycle, be super nice to their customers (ie advertisers) at users’ expense. Once they do they can start phase III, which is exploit both.

Can’t be bothered with riding all that again. I’m on mastodon and throw a few pounds every month at my server host to support it.

That's probably how it'll pan out. But the implication also seems to be that a large open platform will only be not-enshittified if its being funded by as a pet project by rich donors. Good that masto works for you, but I don't see it being a replacement. As far as I can see moderation is patchy and depends upon the interest of whoever is running a server.

That bit is no different to most social media. My feed is nearly entirely free from abuse, one advantage of having no opaque algorithms throwing crap at me to drive “engagement”.

[Tristan]

It appears nobody knows where Bluesky’s EU HQ is, which is a problem for regulatory purposes. https://www.euronews.com/next/2024/11/2 ... m=referral

[dyqik]

It appears nobody knows where Bluesky’s EU HQ is, which is a problem for regulatory purposes. https://www.euronews.com/next/2024/11/2 ... m=referral

Do Bluesky actually operate in any meaningful sense the EU? They don't have advertising yet, so they aren't selling anything in the EU.

At the moment, they are just a website and an app.