Bluesky

[mangocrazy]

As I had zero interest in Twitter even before the Muskrat took it over, I doubt I will have any interset in Bluesky either.

[Cousin Jack]

Never used Twitter, have an account on Facebook but don't use it. Other stuff is about, but an unlikely to use any of them.

[ZRX61]

Just watch the videos and be brave enough to have your own opinions, no conspiracies if you don't won't to.

The beheadings are a tad graphic.

[Taipan]

If it’s the opposite of X then I suspect it’ll be wokefest of yoghurt weaving chai latte drinkers with no hurty words allowed stop the snowflakes melting. But then anyone saying hurty words will get a knock on the door from Starmers stasi anyway. Rarely use it anyway, but I think I’ll stick to X where free speech is still welcomed and championed!

[Mr. Dazzle]

If no hurty words allowed stop the snowflakes melting.

But they'll be allowed to show adverts with terrifying people in bright clothes without fear of causing heart attacks

[Taipan]

If no hurty words allowed stop the snowflakes melting.

But they'll be allowed to show adverts with terrifying people in bright clothes without fear of causing heart attacks

I thought they were the founding members?

[McNab]

I was on twitter for a while but then binned it off when I realised what a time sink it was and have never gone back.

From what I could see though, the Lefties were just as toxic as the Righties.

[Screwdriver]

I was on twitter for a while but then binned it off when I realised what a time sink it was and have never gone back.

From what I could see though, the Lefties were just as toxic as the Righties.

Oh yeah, it is Bedlam and both sides are as bad as each other.

Thing is though, you get to see BOTH SIDES.

Where else does that ever happen?

[Horse]

Apparently the people on BS are being endlessly trolled & reports of "nasty comments" on there have increased from 42,000 for the entire past year to around 35,000 a day.

There have to be users for there to be complaints.

200,000 in July 2023
6,000,000 July 2024
.


Edit: The Verge, showing a Blue sky post, is reporting 360,000 in 2023. They are attributing some of this increase in complaints to CSAM. Presumably you're ok with that being identified and removed swiftly?

[Taipan]

Left and right antagonists will deffo infiltrate each others platform and Bluesky will be X lite for a while before becoming the same. They'll be good and interesting content and comment on both but it'll just get harder and harder to find. If i were a betting man i'd stick my money on X for the win, as Musk likes free speech and i suspect Bluesky will become over censored and eventually pointless.

[Count Steer]

Wasn't Mastodon going to be 'the next big thing'?

(2 million active users last time I looked).

Definitely scope for a 'no ads' and sensible algorithms platform or two though I'd think.

PS Reddit has overtaken Twitter in the UK Top of the Pops social media sites. (YouTube and Facebook are tops. LinkedIn is up there too ).

[Rockburner]

Definitely scope for a 'no ads' and sensible algorithms platform or two though I'd think.

Who's going to pay for it?

The thing is that to provide even a relatively simple service for multiple millions of people is going to cost a pretty shiny penny in hosting costs. That money has to come from somewhere.

If the users pay, you only get users who are willing to pay (ie, only companies, or z-rated celebs), if the money comes from advertisement space sales, then you need to collect user data or the advertisers won't play ball (these days), and users don't like having their data collected (to a certain level it's accepted).

No-one is going to pay out of their back pocket to let the world abuse each other.

[Mr. Dazzle]

I can't remember the name of the BBC documentary I'm thinking of, but I need to find it again.

It was about social media and the internet, shown about 10 years ago. It was saying how studies have repeatedly shown that the internet effectively has less free speech than traditional media in reality. When anyone can say anything at any time, rather than everyone being heard what actually happens is that whoever shouts loudest gets heard exclusively. These days, that's just whoever has the biggest chequebook.

X is technically free speech, but in practice it's an echo chamber and increasingly the strongest echoes are right wing.

[Rockburner]

X is technically free speech, but in practice it's an echo chamber and increasingly the strongest echoes are right wing.

Especially when every user is supplied with content that is tailored to their curated preferences.

Whatever one person sees on virtually any of these systems is not what the next user sees, two users can be seeing completely different content dependant on all sorts of things including, eg on facebook, how long they paused their doomscrolling on each separate item in their feed... yes, fb tracks your usage to that extent, and I'd bet all the others do the same, along with all sorts of other criteria.


Hell: thanks to the way that FB's databases and request-response systems are fragmented, I can refresh my feed every 30 seconds for 5 minutes and get completely different content each time.

[Count Steer]

Definitely scope for a 'no ads' and sensible algorithms platform or two though I'd think.

Who's going to pay for it?

The thing is that to provide even a relatively simple service for multiple millions of people is going to cost a pretty shiny penny in hosting costs. That money has to come from somewhere.

If the users pay, you only get users who are willing to pay (ie, only companies, or z-rated celebs), if the money comes from advertisement space sales, then you need to collect user data or the advertisers won't play ball (these days), and users don't like having their data collected (to a certain level it's accepted).

No-one is going to pay out of their back pocket to let the world abuse each other.

There are a few possible models. The obvs one is people pile in while something is in 'build user base' mode and migrate to the next one when the enshitification starts*. Sooner or later though nobody will bother starting a platform.

Fragmentation - smaller, more specific interest/geographic groups - maybe cooperating in some way.

Key thing is value. If something is worth paying for, people will pay. Wikipedia works (I know it's not social media). I pay/donate to a few things that I find useful - but I could access them for £0. That hybrid seems OK.

Can't remember if Reddit and Quora have ads or where they are in the cycle but they're surviving and don't seem like the 'chimps throwing shit at the zoo visitors' that Twitter has become. (Yet?)

It's going to take something significant to break the 'sucker 'em in then squeeze it until the pips fly' model though.

* eg Instagram. I joined, it was fine, now it's meh so I count as a user but not an active one. I have a LinkedIn account that has cobwebs on it too.

[Mr Moofo]

^ I just don’t understand how Instagram works
As for LinkedIn - it has always been there for people to eulogise about themselves. And in total tosh. However recently it has turned into employment FaceBook - with people posting about their kids degrees, weddings, engagements, and hospital visits as well and Facebook memes and stuff.
It like one upmanship top trumps for those with an over inflated view of how interesting they are

[Noggin]

I used to quite like Instagram but now I only ever seem to see stuff I should 'follow' rather than stuff posted by people I actually do follow

A bit annoying really so I find myself using it less and less

[DefTrap]

^ I just don’t understand how Instagram works
As for LinkedIn - it has always been there for people to eulogise about themselves. And in total tosh. However recently it has turned into employment FaceBook - with people posting about their kids degrees, weddings, engagements, and hospital visits as well and Facebook memes and stuff.
It like one upmanship top trumps for those with an over inflated view of how interesting they are

An ex-boss proudly posted a true-life "inspirational story" from his past to his LinkedIn feed, to explain a key driving-factor behind his rise to success. The story went that, as children of 11, his Mother poisoned him and his twin brother, and they both woke up from their comatose state to find they were on the railroad tracks, with a train coming. His message was "Never give up". That's it. If it wasn't such awful bollocks, and with no relatable message as to how this might inspire anyone, I might have asked him some follow up questions ...

[MrLongbeard]

I used to quite like Instagram but now I only ever seem to see stuff I should 'follow' rather than stuff posted by people I actually do follow

A bit annoying really so I find myself using it less and less

It works the same as X and Bluesky, you set it to only show those you are following rather than suggestions from them.
It's one of the reasons I don't get people having a mard towards a social platform, set it up to work how you want it to work and you see no negative shit at all, unless you go looking for it.

[Screwdriver]

The genius of Musk was to introduce Community Notes to X. That is a self regulating fact checking notation (by the users).

Somebody makes an extraordinary claim in front of 600 million (monthly) users, it will be seen by a LOT of people.

Statistically of those 600 million users, twenty thousand of them will have an IQ of 160 plus. In other words, twenty thousand super smart individuals from all walks of life, from all over the planet will be double checking and placing community notes against fraudulent, incorrect data, lies, misinformation etc. Every month.

Most of the time community notes will expand on someones opinion by placing their comments in context. Context is everything because you can make a comparison. So if someone implies wrongdoing, like, he/she has a "massive" carbon footprint of 20 tons of CO2 per year due to their travel a community note might remind you that is literally the average for an individual in the USA (for info in the UK it's more like 4 tons, global, average 8 tons)**.

Similarly when one of the worst human beings on the planet Bill Gates is telling us all to lower our carbon footprint by handing over more money to the energy companies; a community note might observe his carbon footprint is closer to eight to ten thousand tons. Just for him.


**numbers vary wildly but these are within an order of magnitude of "the truth".