You lot are making me want to go back on Twitter one last time, just to collect the list of people I used to follow, and see if they’re now on Bluesky.
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I used to have a fairly sizeable twitter following - nothing incredible but a good little community of youth football fans. I left Twitter way back in 2015 just because I felt like it was taking up too much of my time.
The remarkable thing for me whenever I go back on there, usually following a link, is the amount of hatred and bile that is being spewed. It doesn’t seem to matter what the topic is, the first few comments twitter shows me are outright disgusting. I don’t think it used to be that way.
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So
To return to the OP…
Is it time yet?
Or are we holding out for another while?
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I think @Magnus’ sources haven’t moved yet in all probability. It will take quite a while more I reckon for critical mass to be achieved.
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I think we just allow for discretion. But it looks like alternatives are on their way.
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It is starting, but too early yet. But it is gradually happening. You may be surprised to know, I look forward to the day. And it will come sooner than Musk thinks.
But for now, it’s much, much too early, migration has only just started and Blue Sky is still very lacking in terms of information flow; for now. But it is improving monthly.
But this won’t take years. I will always be against banning X, but it will soonish die and it has started.
This is what must happen for the Bluesky to take truly over. The experts must move there in flock. Social Media like Twitter, Blue Sky or whatever, is useless if it’s not your gateway to expertise and fast information (well, at least for me, that was always the point with Twitter, it is not as it is a social platform where I interacted with friends).
There are also good reasons to stay on twitter and fight against disinformation though. It would be dangerous to allow it to become an uncontested Right Wing propaganda engine, which is what will happen if everyone with a critical filter and with sanity, leaves. So pro and cons there.
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Always has been alternatives.
Read Twitter content, or don’t.
Not rocket science.
Pun intended
Spoilers: even if people don’t leave, it will still be that.
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I think the exit from X will accelerate and I have mixed feelings. It is a good thing because it is a cesspit - disinformation and misinformation is rife and it is a mean place. So the less of that the better, and hopefully the platform will shrivel to irrelevance.
And yet.
A healthy society must have public spaces/online places, for the exchange of ideas and arguments, otherwise people will migrate to their own spaces and interaction with other viewpoints will become limited-to-nonexistent.
I suppose to do the latter successfully you have to have grown ups and good faith, and at least a somewhat informed citizenry, but unfortunately those things are in short supply.
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This was the argument made when things started get bad there around the 2016 election, back when Twitter understood there was probably a benefit from being better at moderation but just didnt really know how or have the real interest in putting the resources into getting it right. That was unpleasant to see how many conversations could so quickly devolve into someone losing their mind that a woman with a high profile could have the nerve to say something they disagreed with. But it was at least somewhat organic and represented who was out there.
This era of twitter is different though. The finger is on the scale in a multitude of ways that force feed you this stuff, much of which is foreign rage bait, in preference to the stuff you are there to engage with.
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I’ve now set up an account on Bluesky. Good to see some familiar accounts on there already.
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Well, for one I don’t think we need all the internet users in the same place. I’m pretty happy about TAN as it is and wouldn’t want to have all the LFC fans here.
So it’s ok to get back to more decentralized communities which their own rules and unique mix of people.
Moderation at scale has never succeeded and probably will never, being more decentralized also spread the load.
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This is a good point. Twitter/X isn’t the only gathering place. If other platforms gain momentum, and afford the opportunity for people with differing viewpoints to exchange their ideas, so much the better.
Your last point sums it up.
Its depressing to read comments on FB, Instagram…I don’t go on Twitter…
Someone mentions a death of a young person…the anti vaxxers have to comment on how the person died. No filters, no sympathy. The Algerian gold medalist gets mentioned and the anti trans crowd and homophobes go to town with comments…
There is no method of censorship, no desire to listen or engage in any positive dialogue.
Ireland has numerous far right bigots using social media to incite hatred.
Its great to be on here and have the odd spat or argument knowing it rarely leads to insult.
You say a healthy society.
We dont have one.
Ban X.
Fuck Musk.
The problem is the chodes dont want to talk to themselves. They have had several platforms launched with the promise of “free speech” that the MAGA crowd upset about being “censored” on twitter rush to only to soon lose interest because there arent libs there to troll. And that is the challenge twitter will face if there is a big exodus and the one BlueSky will as well if they end up the mainstream replacement.
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That’s what I’m concerned about. It will be a good test of whether it really was just the users or the algorithms that was horrible with the Xesspool.
There are tough product decisions to make because lots of the things that facilitate a good user experience also result in less engagement and visibility of content, which are typically key business metrics. At least so far BlueSky appear to be committing heavily to the user experience side of things. They have one great feature where you import someone else’s block list. So if they have done the work to identify a big connected bot army you can just with one click block potentially 1000s of nefarious accounts. And the great thing is as that user adds new accounts to their list, your account gets updated as well.
The problem is, this is where all the incentives are for BlueSky right now as a direct contrast to twitter. But what happens when it reaches critical mass and they think the network effect gives them room to start moving the dial back towards engagement? What happens when the bad actors start gaming those features? What if I set up an account positioned as an anti MAGA account and do the work of creating an extensive block list and it gets heavily used…and then months later start covertly adding influential anti-maga accounts to the list so their visibility plummets?
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Now that the election is done, DJT is no longer serving as a proxy election betting platform. With Twitter/X being an unrestrained cesspool, it doesn’t really have a niche and the share price seems to be in a slow, low-volume, downward drift.
It really will be the major challenge BlueSky faces if it is able to reach the status of a viable alternative.
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I googled it up a bit. A Public Benefit Corporation, designed for users not to be enclosed into one server with one type of community, no ads. At first glance, there’s a lot to like about it.
I’d be glad to receive some feed-back after a while, from you and other lads who have joined that platform.
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Ironic that those who’ve left X have moved to Bluesky. They’re certainly not right 