Blue Sky

[AndCoronets]

What do you make of it? I was all for a break from the cesspit that it is TwiX, but I'm getting dubious vibes. Set up my account, searched for a few of the accounts which I follow on Twitter, got to Kathleen Stock and all I found was transphobe, blah blah type posts. Depressing.

To me, and off the top of my head, Blue Sky, Threads, and Mastodon etc all seem suffer from the problem that Twitter used to have: they create echo chambers of people who all think the same away about the same things. In fact, in the case of Threads, which I honestly think Zuckerberg set up because he dislikes Musk intensely, the founding reason was for people to be able to avoid views and people they disliked.

TwitX is far from perfect but it's got some organic consensus-created rules that add to its development that the others lack AND, as much of weirdo as Musk can be, he has made some improvements to TwiX that seem to be promoting free speech.

I'm on Mastodon and there are many things I like about it, but at least for the accounts I follow there's a definite echo chamber effect on anything to do with rights or politics."Everyone" is either pro-trans, pro-Palestine, pro-all other orthodox "progressive" viewpoints, or they talk about other things.With better moderation, it presumably wouldn't have to be that way. But it would take huge amounts of effort to filter out TwitX-style trolls and allow evidence-based discussion. I can see that small bands of volunteer admins don't want to take that on.Still. A shame.

I think there's just a fundamental problem with the scrolling and networking apps, they exploit our psychology for profit and we are in a feedback loop with it that isn't healthy for any of us.

I gave up on Mastodon and Threads annoys me because I really like Instagram, the emphasis on the visual suits me, so the constant pushing of Threads is a nuisance.
I do think newspapers boycotting X is a mistake, The Guardian especially - this is how echo chambers are made.

Hi @AndCoronets I've been similarly exploring the possibility of bluesky and am similarly dubious but am willing to give it a go. There doesn't seem to be easy ways to find people to follow if they aren't already being followed by people you are already following, except the "discover" which just tells you what the groupthink is thinking. I'm sure it has potential.

My plan for today is to join Blue Sky. Lots of GC women I know have joined very recently.

GC women leaving twitter for Bluesky seems odd to me.

If it wasn't for Elon musk's free speech advocacy on twitter the GC view would never had got the public space it needed.

Are GC views going to be allowed on Bluesky?

Anyone tried saying a women can't have a penis yet?

Everyone I see leaving was in the camp of banning such views.

X is so awful though I had to come off it. So much racist and misogynistic rubbish. MN is OK but a gets dull and isn't political enough for me and need something more. Blue sky so far has been much better. I haven't seen anything pro or against trans yet which tbh is how I like it. I like finding out about policy and politics, not pile on and weird right wing anti abortion America First shite

I don't think a space like Twitter blue sky or threads is able to support a healthy debate on the subject. In fact I think it polarizes and embeds views already held.
MN is a much better sort of site for changing opinions over something like GC views.

An echochamber filled with TRAs?. Go for it!

Twix is disgusting.
The issue of them allowing the fact of female biology to be stated does not mean the rest of it is acceptable or bearable.
Hitler was a vegetarian and so I am but one good thing does not cancel out the other horrors.

I did think it would be a cracking wheeze to join with an anodyne name and a disposable email address, post some pro women, pro realism points and wait to see how long it would take to be banned.

But if there are only a few moderators I suppose one could be waiting some time.

Many people think stating female biology is not acceptable or bearable.

Many people don't get the principle of free speech.

Even GC feminists after all this it seems.

The win isn't to get to say the thing we weren't allowed to say but to still make sure things we think are bad can't be said.

If you can't see why that won't work...then Bluesky is probably the place for you.

I think there's a place for Bluesky and platforms with a particular slant and moderation.

And also a place for total free speech, wild west, no moderation.

Different people will opt for different places.

But when dangerous undemocratic policy gets forced down by governments and agencies everyone will be glad the other place exists.

The fact that GC women cannot see that as clear as day at this point, makes me roll my eyes back so far I fall over.

I can't see how Blue Sky is anything new, it looks and feels the same as Twix.

Comparing the number of active users, Twix has over 500 million compared to Blue Sky's 15 million and huge numbers won't defect from one to other if there's no new features or benefit from doing so.

@Thingybob isn't the benefit from doing so that on Twitter Elon Musk is using the algirthims to promote a far-right narrative and big up the audience for posts he agrees with whilst suppressing opposing views. It's not free speech it's stealth censorship by algorithm.

The thing that bluesky does differently is that you can be in control of your own algorithm if you want to code something to create a feed of posts you'll be interested in, or you can just see a chronological list of posts by the people you follow with no junk.

Is blue sky basically where all the extreme lefties have flounced off to?

My DH has flounced it's getting really annoying now he just won't listen to me. Constantly on Reddit and still reads guardian. I wish the guardian hadn't disappointed me as much as they did. They left me. He says he won't fund Musk. Okay, fine, but are you going to listen to science? I just want the adults back in the room now. Enough is enough.

Can't we just have a platform that allows reasonable debate? Or is that wishing too much. Human beings cannot change sex. This is not a controversial statement, it is scientific fact. Children being indoctrinated at school to believe that humans can change sex is not good for their mental wellbeing. People who feel this is true about themselves need kindness, support, love and gentle therapy to accept themselves for who they are. Middle aged men who get sexual kicks out of dressing up in women's clothes should not be given access to women's spaces, prisons, rape centres, DV refuges or changing rooms. They can still dress how they like but be reasonable. Autistic children and adults should be supported to understand facts and not lied to. Will I be banned if I join blue sky and say all of the above? That's the question. If the answer is yes, then that presents just as much of an issue as the raving alt right stuff on twitter/x.

To be honest I'm not sure your average social media user will have looked into algorithms who who controls them.

Yes it's probably important to the serious 5% of users but not to the vast majority.

I left Twitter because it's a total cesspool of hate. I left Facebook for many reasons years ago for the same reason. I'm on Threads, because it was a nice place to follow my interests, but recently there's been more bots and plagiarism on there. It's very left-wing, more so than sits right with me actually.

Another problem with Threads is if you have a private Instagram account (which I do) your Threads account is also private and that's maddening because you can't take full part in a discussion. I might leave soon.

I don't want to join BlueSky because not many people on there have the same vibe as me. The same hateful people, either left, centre or right of politics follow each other to platforms and continue to spread their vitriol wherever they go. Telegram, Mastadon, all of them are awful, actually.

I'm in my late 40s and unfortunately SM is beginning to pall for me. All these platforms peddle nonsense and tell you how to think, baiting you to feel outrage over something for phishing for information. The grass isn't necessarily greener on a new platform. I feel mentally better when not on them, tbh.

I might just stick with IG as a private account (IG is a fantasy world too, always trying to flog you something, or tell you your life is shit unless you DO THIS) because I share photos of things I'm doing with family members. It's my online photo album. The rest of IG is bollox, tbh.

I really don't understand why anyone is on any of them. What do people get out of it? Genuine question. I'm 41, was on social media from it's origins since age 16, but haven't ever bothered with Twitter, Instagram, or anything that came after. I have never seen the point of public discussion / statements into the void it and it enrages me that news stories seem to come from twitter. Utterly bizarre. Very much hoping to see the end of all of them.

This is a bit pathetic.

'If you’re not paying for the product, the product is you'.

These are all money-spinning enterprises, not altruistic platforms for speech, free or otherwise. Their MO is to keep as many users glued to their screen for a long as possible so they can sell the most advertising.

They will change strategies to achieve maximum ARPU [average revenue per user], if appearing to be shining examples of free speech brings in the big bucks, they'll do that, if giving free rein to racism, sexism etc etc looks more profitable, they'll do that. You are just an ARPU unit to these companies.

Personally I wouldn't donate a nanosecond of my attention span to these billionaire tech bros and their pet projects.

Instagram for photography, artists, crafts, small businesses promoting those things. New ideas and new products relevant to my interests. I actually have no problems with Instagram. The algorithms work for me.
My FB is mainly for keeping in contact with people as we've had frequent relocations, local info - road closures and such, local events. Generally it works for me, but I have to keep on top of it or the algorithms go off piste.
Twitter is a cess pit because it's where I read all the political stuff, I like US politics. But it's really the comments that are rank not the initial posts. I don't get pushed far right stuff, because I don't tend to read other far right stuff. I don't feel I am being pushed Musk's narrative and I appreciate that GC views aren't censored.

Your social media is what you make it. Unfortunately that can be a good or a bad thing.

'If you’re not paying for the product, the product is you'.

This is it in a nutshell. Nothing is free in life.

I'm on Bluesky. I follow a few people who have similar interests to me but nevertheless this was in my Discover feed. Meanwhile Naomi Cunningham (barrister) is tagged as Intolerance.

I'm constantly reading how TwiX is a cesspool of hate and vileness, but just not seeing it. Maybe those bad algorithms don't like me. Perhaps I should stop pausing at stuff like this https://x.com/HumansNoContext/status/1854907521812562347 (don't worry, that's not hateful, unless you can't stand Haribo).