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.

Excellent.

My advice? Use an adblocker and set it to Following and Twix is what you make it.

The day the ads are unblockable is the day I leave.

I'm the same. I follow accounts from left, right and centre, and I don't get any "vile hate" pushed at me. If I see something I don't like, I click "not interested in this" and it goes away. At one point, the algo started showing me videos of muggings and school fights. I clicked not interested and haven't seen any since. Somehow, I survived. Because, you know, I'm a grown-up. I curate my feed by always clicking on and liking certain feelgood accounts about culture, animals and babies so they always show up for me.

I think that when people go on about vileness and filth and hate, they're using hyperbolic language to describe the shock of encountering the reality that not everyone has the same set of approved views as them. They have been conditioned to believe they are the majority. They're not. And I'll never understand wanting to hide from that. An awful lot of people thought saying Imane Khelif was a man was "vile" and "hateful".

And as adults, sorry, you should be able to cope with seeing words you find unpalatable. It's a worthwhile tradeoff for being able to speak and read the truth about cheats like Khelif and Semenya. One million percent I'd take full free speech, the good, the bad and the ugly, over yet another stifling echo chamber.

my academic community is moving wholesale to BlueSky at the moment. not much gender critical stuff there, but there is some. And I think it is fine to have a presence on more than one platform if that is what works.

I generally agree with you. I do read a lot of unpleasant comments on X, but they are comments and not the post which they stem from, so not attributable to algorithms. Just this morning reading a London News thread about the poor guy stabbed in London, the amount of racist bile in the comments was grim. This seems to be more prevalent on X. But then again I read about more wholesome pursuits on other platforms, so it's not a fair comparison.

Similar experience to ^ re Twix. I have a read-only account and only use 'Following'. The only thing that was 'pushed' was Musk's own account, which I have muted. I don't really see horrible stuff, and 15 mins a day on there is plenty. Won't be joining BlueSky or any of the other contenders because if Twix dies, I'll use it as a good reason to use that 15mins a day more constructively.

Can't bear the idea of Zuckerberg scraping my data so left FB and never been on IG. Yes, I don't see funky makers and sometimes miss local traffic news. There are other sources of creative inspiration and my car is quite good at traffic prediction.

All my favourite people in the world (IRL) are not on SoMe. I want to be like them.

I find the fact that FB is the go to for local information a bit frustrating. It was the main avenue of general communication at one child's school.
And as someone employed in a creative industry, the data scraping for AI and use of AI pisses me off no end.

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

But that's just not true! Social media is what the owners of social media make it, you the user is just there to be made money out of.

Social media was not invented in a bland vacuum by well-meaning folk who want to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony. In fact NO technological innovation was invented like that, no technology is purely neutral in origin or in aims and objectives.

More often than not, new technologies are developed to make somebody a shedload of money, and if there's a side order of social control, or maybe even a job alongside the new president of the USA, well that's great.

Clever humans can subvert intended uses, and make it a better or a worse thing [so how's that going?] but inevitably social media is what the tech bros made it, not what 'you' make it.

If people want to continue supporting Musk & Co, that's their business, but at least be clear-sighted about what you're buying into.

Spare a thought for the poor Clifton Suspension Bridge,

If all us nasty TERFS cross over to Blue Sky WHERE will the poor bridge find any meaningful engagement?

Nothing is free, so we pay a price for it. Obviously SM is not some kindly benign entity.

But I disagree with you to a certain extent. Yes, the tech company sets the parameters, but it is a symbiotic relationship. There are benefits. As someone who uses 3 SM platforms in different ways I can see how I very much influence the content that is shown to me. And I do choose other content.
In some ways X is ironically the least manipulative and manipulated because of the lack of censorship, but that could obviously change given Musk's political ambitions.
Edited for shit spelling.

Lol, the Clifton comments have been making me laugh.

Im 😳😳😵‍💫😵‍💫 that people think Twitter isn’t an echo chamber.

Or maybe it has been too visible to those who are GC because these are the type of ideas Musk is pushing.

And tbh, if the issue the OP has is that she could only find one GC person and all the others were trans allies, then the issue isn’t that it’s an echo chamber but that the GC people haven’t come on BS yet. So she can reconstitute her own each chamber of GC folks.

In some ways X is ironically the least manipulative and manipulated because of the lack of censorship, but that could obviously change given Musk's political ambitions.

I think you’ve missed the last 3~4 months development then. When Musk changed the parameters to ensure the content he wanted was seen on X.
And don’t be fooled. The lack of censorship only applies to ideas he likes (and GC happens to be one of them), not to the ones he doesn’t like.

When we talk of bots and manipulation I think it's interesting to say the least that I hadn't even heard of Blue Sky until 2 days ago and now everyone is migrating there.

Bots on both sides.

Like a lot of others, I started shifting when EM was stirring about the Southport murders. He's irresponsible.

Bluesky may be in comparison but the question may be which 16 million people are on it.

I'm sitting in a pub at the moment eavesdropping on other people's conversations. That's what SM is to me. It's quite enjoyable and I sometimes learn something. If too many of the conversations are shouting matches or threatening, I will leave.

You won't be banned but you will have a tidal wave of abuse by TRA's thrown at you if you posted that on BlueSky

Which is why I avoid social media.

Bluesky appears to be the tolerant, kind utopia only if you toe the line. It seems to be where a lot of the abusive TRAs have migrated to, and they are letting rip at anyone who thinks women should have rights, places and spaces free of males.

But it's not Musk making the echo chamber. If I was hellbent on following swathes of TRA content, then I would be fed more of it. It is our viewing content which is making the echo chamber, the algorithms are set to reinforce our own views, but the alternative results in complaints from the end user. Veggies don't want to be shown meat recipes, I don't really want to read India Willoughby's thoughts - which does tie into your last paragraph (Im the OP).
How much is Musk out for himself and how much is Musk just giving people what they ultimately want - a meeting place with like minded people, aka an echo chamber.
Also where do we draw the line with moderating online discussion, when does moderating tip over into censorship.

I'm not on any of them but I wouldn't join this one if I did want to be

I have to be honest I've been on X less than usual for a chunk of the presidential campaign, not really for any reason other than life taking priority. But I've been having a scroll today and it seems pretty much business as usual.

If you have issues like this, you just block them?
I mean clearky if they hurl abuse at you, they’re in fur a respectful debate so Notbthe people you want to engage with right?

Just like I have blocked all the MAGA accounts? (Which you can do on Twitter anymore)

You probably won't be banned but you will be labelled with Intolerance and your posts will be hidden.

This has put me off ever joining Blue sky

https://bsky.app/profile/goodlawproject.bsky.social/post/3lavo5vtxh22o

(I think it's possible to read without having an account)