4 ms·

When I joined it, just as when I joined Mastodon, most of what I saw was just anti-Twitter and anti-Musk content, which I didn't really care to read about, eith

When I joined it, just as when I joined Mastodon, most of what I saw was just anti-Twitter and anti-Musk content, which I didn't really care to read about, either for or against both of them. It might just be who I was following but the people I followed were similar in both Twitter and Bluesky / Mastodon, mostly indie hackers and other small time SaaS founders, and even these people started posting a lot of anti-Twitter stuff, more than even talking about their own products. On Twitter, the same types of people just...didn't give a shit about any of the drama and I actually learned a lot about product building from their threads. It seems like if you start a platform mostly as a reaction to another platform, you're gonna get the same sort of social media bubble, only of the opposite variety. That's why I still use Twitter currently, I just don't see the same issue that other people seem to have, and that's likely because I don't engage in politics or respond to trolls on there.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
3adawi 2y ago
it's starting to change now - definitely give it another spin in a week or so - a lot of organic non-musk/twitter content there now
purplethinking 2y ago
It will take a lot to break the network effect of X, probably more so than many other platforms, because it's very detrimental to their reach (and income/revenue share) for people with a lot of followers to move. So the important people will mostly stay, and they will attract back the people who leave, we've seen this a couple of cycles. Contrast that to something like Facebook. It had large network effects too, but all it takes is a few of your best friends switching at the same time, and nobody is losing a lot of reach by leaving. So they keep posting to both, but that takes work to keep up.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > the important people will mostly stay, and they will attract back the people who leave Important people on the left (broadly, not just lefties) are starting to leave. I think Kara Swisher just deleted her Twitter and migrated to Threads.
  - elforce002 2y ago
    What I'm seeing here is lots of echo chambers getting created as we speak. Threads, bluesky, etc... I don't use Threads because I don't use Instagram that much. Everyone will have their safe space and the world will continue without any issues whatsoever. Heck, there are countries where Facebook is the "internet". Other than the left (US, UK, Canada?) posting on any of those platforms, nothing will change for the rest of the world and each one will capture what the other side said and post it on the platform.
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > lots of echo chambers getting created And X transforming into a right-wing one. > nothing will change for the rest of the world and each one will capture what the other side said and post it on the platform Network effects almost guarantee each country will choose one. My guess is Europe will migrate away from X, mostly, while South America mirrors our left/right split.
      - elforce002 2y ago
        This is interesting. We know twitter was left-wing all the way to the top and after Elon took and put both sides on equal footing, it suddenly became right-wing? C'mon man. Media is run by the left. The EU is increasingly trying to suppress dissenting voices on one side of the aisle. We'll see how long people will put off with that before things get out of control. South America is starting to divide itself between socialism (Venezuela, Bolivia, etc...) and center-right ideas (Argentina, El salvador). Time will tell.
        purplethinking 2y ago
- rsynnott 2y ago
  > because it's very detrimental to their reach (and income/revenue share) for people with a lot of followers to move That's a problem for, like, Twitter-celebrities, sure. What percentage of Twitter users are actually interested in these, tho? I don't think, back when I was on Twitter, that I followed anyone who made money via Twitter; the only Twitter celebrities I followed were dril and a cat, and I don't think either were making money on Twitter (at any event, both dril and the cat are now on Bluesky; the cat is also on Mastodon). I'm sure there are plenty of people selling, like, get-rich-quick schemes and so on who are dependent on Twitter, but, well, who cares about them?
  - purplethinking 2y ago
    I think that just based on the properties of the network/graph, it's unlikely that enough important accounts will leave, and therefore people who are interested in them can't leave. Anyone who's built a good audience is unlikely to want the platform to die, that's a big risk to them. Some people are just famous in general, and they might have an easier time migrating to new platforms and have people following them, but still, why give up all your followers? You see people like Yann LeCun announcing his leaving. Then he comes back and posts "teasers" of his Threads posts, and he's retweeting posts showing that he's still active. And this guy works for a competing social network! Maybe this time is different, the left's hate for Musk runs deep now, but my bet is X will be fine in the end.
    - rsynnott 2y ago
      Hrm. Very little of my Twitter usage was following ultra-high-follower accounts, and of those I did follow, most of them ended up simul-posting on Mastodon and/or Bluesky. I'm not sure how typical a use pattern this was, mind you.
reallyeli 2y ago
I just joined -- contrary to this, my 'Discover' feed (equiv to Twitter's 'For You') is mostly dogs and nature photos, rather than anti-Musk content. Still not really what I'm after, but that's what the 'Following' tab is for.
- trealira 2y ago
  Same, except I mostly got cats and some stuff about video games and book quotes. There was another thread here the other day where someone was complaining that the first things they saw were furry drawings. It seems like there's a variety of first things people see on Bluesky.
- satvikpendem 2y ago
  Just posted another comment, I have 0 following and followers and I see political content as soon as I log in: https://imgur.com/a/XHmidRt https://imgur.com/a/XHmidRt
  - giraffe_lady 2y ago
    Maybe you should follow some people?
    - satvikpendem 2y ago
      My point is that it should not be that vitriolic as soon as someone joins. When I joined Twitter, I got actually interesting content, but of course that was way before Musk and "the algorithm" now. Sad to see that Bluesky is basically replicating the same thing that Twitter is doing currently, instead of how Twitter was in the beginning.
      - drcongo 2y ago
        That appears to be your "following" feed
        2y ago
mountainriver 2y ago
I joined recently and haven’t seen any of that. In fact it just feels like old Twitter where people are having fun instead of being pompous trolls
- unclad5968 2y ago
  I don't have an account and all I see on the front page is posts about how bluesky is better than Twitter and how trump is Satan. There was one digital art piece of the moon over a lake.
- runjake 2y ago
  Mine is like the old Twitter and is rife with political meltdowns and “own the libs” memes. I also basically only follow indie hackers and some “thought leader” types like Naval Ravikant. Every time I launch the X app on mobile, it automatically switches me to the algorithmic “For You” feed, so it’s hard to miss. This is apparently not configurable in the app. When I’m on desktop, the Control Panel for Twitter does a good job of getting rid of most of that. I tolerate X, I wouldn’t say I like it but I like reading and connecting with certain people and their only platform is X. I think that’s what keeps X going: network effect.
  - herdcall 2y ago
    You should be able to stay on Following, they made that change a while back. I.e., once you choose Following, you will keep going there till you change it.
    - runjake 2y ago
      That's not how it works on my iPhone or iPad, unfortunately -- and I just replaced and clean installed my iPad this week. It even happens when I quickly switch from and back to the X app. Maybe my user account isn't in that feature pool yet?
- satvikpendem 2y ago
  I just logged in again, I have 0 following and 0 followers and this is what I see [0], straight up political content, even on the Following tab, for some reason. I simply don't care to see political content right when I log in, and this phenomenon shows me that it has the exact same problems as Twitter, people posting ragebait to get engagement, just on the opposite of the spectrum. [0] https://imgur.com/a/XHmidRt https://imgur.com/a/XHmidRt
sureglymop 2y ago
When I joined mastodon like a decade ago it was mostly "meta" content. People talking about mastodon and ActivityPub itself. It was honestly great and there were many interesting folks & nerds talking about interesting technological stuff. It was more like hacker news, unlike now. I am a bit sad that it got more popular but it's still quite good. So yeah, some people actually want "niche" content and not mainstream content.
raesene9 2y ago
I think as a site starts, you might see that, but as it matures it diversifies. Definitely on Blue Sky, which doesn't default to an algorithmic feed, what you see depends on who you follow and as more groups move there the diversity of content increases. You can see how that's going with the Blue Sky Starter pack directory https://blueskydirectory.com/starter-packs/all https://blueskydirectory.com/starter-packs/all which currently has over 12000 entries across a wide range of topics.
mingus88 2y ago
Twitter shows you what you want because you have been a long time user and have tuned the feed Any other platform you adopt will likewise need the same tuning, and it should be no surprise that if it knows nothing about you, you will see content that is widely appealing to the rest of the community (who just left xitter) I’m new to bluesky and am making liberal use of the “show me less of this” button as I try to discover people with reading. It will take some time until it reads less like the front page of Reddit and more like a feed I want to engage with.
- itsoktocry 2y ago
  >Twitter shows you what you want because you have been a long time user and have tuned the feed You have way too much faith in how fancy these algorithms are.
assimpleaspossi 2y ago
Agree. I don't understand why anyone cares. If you talk to Jack and Jill on Twitter, why does it matter if you now talk to Jack and Jill on <insert platform here>. It's not going to change your life or any situation you are in. Nobody outside of this circle is going to care or even notice. But that's true of all these online things, petitions, social drama, and so on. Everyday life goes on. I'm having a late breakfast. Then doing some important work.
- Beijinger 2y ago
  It feels more snappy to me than Twitter/X. This seems to be a USP: https://openrss.org/blog/bluesky-has-launched-rss-feeds https://openrss.org/blog/bluesky-has-launched-rss-feeds And no addictive cat videos please. Bonus points: install this for facebook: https://socialfixer.com/ https://socialfixer.com/ This is my hide posts section of socialfixer: Reels and short videos Join Follow Sponsored Reels
JustSkyfall 2y ago
I’d really recommend muting the words “Twitter”, “the bad place” and “the other place” - really makes your feed better
rsynnott 2y ago
> When I joined it, just as when I joined Mastodon, most of what I saw was just anti-Twitter and anti-Musk content Was this during one of the major outflow events from Twitter? If so, hardly surprising; most new arrivals would have just left Twitter and would be irritated about the whole situation. Over the last week I've noticed a good deal of that sort of content in my Discover tab, but it's largely eased off now (yesterday was probably peak leaving-Twitter day, until the next stupid Musk thing happens; today is the day that the new TOS goes into effect).
- satvikpendem 2y ago
  This was a while ago during their private beta, perhaps 6 months ago? Regardless, this is what I see on my Following tab when I just logged in now, even though I have no following or followers: https://imgur.com/a/XHmidRt https://imgur.com/a/XHmidRt
  - rsynnott 2y ago
    > even though I have no following or followers Ah, yeah, that might do it. You're probably just getting ~whatever's currently most popular, with no other guidance. These days, when you sign up, you apparently get asked for interests, and it pre-primes The Algorithm(TM), but yeah, that wasn't a thing during the closed beta.
    - satvikpendem 2y ago
      True, I joined during the beta. They really should have some default filtering of content for those who have not yet followed anyone, because seeing the homepage like I posted above made me not want to even interact with Bluesky anymore, which is likely how other people would feel as well.
slibhb 2y ago
Yeah, ditto. "1M people" seems great but it turns out that you don't really want people who joined due to the result of an election.
unsnap_biceps 2y ago
I joined yesterday and was overwhelmed by the same things, but I found the mute keyword feature and with a few muted keywords, it's a lot more useful for me. No need to mass mute/block the users, just mute twitter, musk, trump

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

3adawi 2y ago

it's starting to change now - definitely give it another spin in a week or so - a lot of organic non-musk/twitter content there now

purplethinking 2y ago

It will take a lot to break the network effect of X, probably more so than many other platforms, because it's very detrimental to their reach (and income/revenue share) for people with a lot of followers to move. So the important people will mostly stay, and they will attract back the people who leave, we've seen this a couple of cycles. Contrast that to something like Facebook. It had large network effects too, but all it takes is a few of your best friends switching at the same time, and nobody is losing a lot of reach by leaving. So they keep posting to both, but that takes work to keep up.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> the important people will mostly stay, and they will attract back the people who leave Important people on the left (broadly, not just lefties) are starting to leave. I think Kara Swisher just deleted her Twitter and migrated to Threads.
- elforce002 2y ago
  What I'm seeing here is lots of echo chambers getting created as we speak. Threads, bluesky, etc... I don't use Threads because I don't use Instagram that much. Everyone will have their safe space and the world will continue without any issues whatsoever. Heck, there are countries where Facebook is the "internet". Other than the left (US, UK, Canada?) posting on any of those platforms, nothing will change for the rest of the world and each one will capture what the other side said and post it on the platform.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > lots of echo chambers getting created And X transforming into a right-wing one. > nothing will change for the rest of the world and each one will capture what the other side said and post it on the platform Network effects almost guarantee each country will choose one. My guess is Europe will migrate away from X, mostly, while South America mirrors our left/right split.
    - elforce002 2y ago
      This is interesting. We know twitter was left-wing all the way to the top and after Elon took and put both sides on equal footing, it suddenly became right-wing? C'mon man. Media is run by the left. The EU is increasingly trying to suppress dissenting voices on one side of the aisle. We'll see how long people will put off with that before things get out of control. South America is starting to divide itself between socialism (Venezuela, Bolivia, etc...) and center-right ideas (Argentina, El salvador). Time will tell.
      - purplethinking 2y ago
rsynnott 2y ago
> because it's very detrimental to their reach (and income/revenue share) for people with a lot of followers to move That's a problem for, like, Twitter-celebrities, sure. What percentage of Twitter users are actually interested in these, tho? I don't think, back when I was on Twitter, that I followed anyone who made money via Twitter; the only Twitter celebrities I followed were dril and a cat, and I don't think either were making money on Twitter (at any event, both dril and the cat are now on Bluesky; the cat is also on Mastodon). I'm sure there are plenty of people selling, like, get-rich-quick schemes and so on who are dependent on Twitter, but, well, who cares about them?
- purplethinking 2y ago
  I think that just based on the properties of the network/graph, it's unlikely that enough important accounts will leave, and therefore people who are interested in them can't leave. Anyone who's built a good audience is unlikely to want the platform to die, that's a big risk to them. Some people are just famous in general, and they might have an easier time migrating to new platforms and have people following them, but still, why give up all your followers? You see people like Yann LeCun announcing his leaving. Then he comes back and posts "teasers" of his Threads posts, and he's retweeting posts showing that he's still active. And this guy works for a competing social network! Maybe this time is different, the left's hate for Musk runs deep now, but my bet is X will be fine in the end.
  - rsynnott 2y ago
    Hrm. Very little of my Twitter usage was following ultra-high-follower accounts, and of those I did follow, most of them ended up simul-posting on Mastodon and/or Bluesky. I'm not sure how typical a use pattern this was, mind you.

reallyeli 2y ago

I just joined -- contrary to this, my 'Discover' feed (equiv to Twitter's 'For You') is mostly dogs and nature photos, rather than anti-Musk content. Still not really what I'm after, but that's what the 'Following' tab is for.

trealira 2y ago
Same, except I mostly got cats and some stuff about video games and book quotes. There was another thread here the other day where someone was complaining that the first things they saw were furry drawings. It seems like there's a variety of first things people see on Bluesky.
satvikpendem 2y ago
Just posted another comment, I have 0 following and followers and I see political content as soon as I log in: https://imgur.com/a/XHmidRt https://imgur.com/a/XHmidRt
- giraffe_lady 2y ago
  Maybe you should follow some people?
  - satvikpendem 2y ago
    My point is that it should not be that vitriolic as soon as someone joins. When I joined Twitter, I got actually interesting content, but of course that was way before Musk and "the algorithm" now. Sad to see that Bluesky is basically replicating the same thing that Twitter is doing currently, instead of how Twitter was in the beginning.
    - drcongo 2y ago
      That appears to be your "following" feed
      - 2y ago

mountainriver 2y ago

I joined recently and haven’t seen any of that. In fact it just feels like old Twitter where people are having fun instead of being pompous trolls

unclad5968 2y ago
I don't have an account and all I see on the front page is posts about how bluesky is better than Twitter and how trump is Satan. There was one digital art piece of the moon over a lake.
runjake 2y ago
Mine is like the old Twitter and is rife with political meltdowns and “own the libs” memes. I also basically only follow indie hackers and some “thought leader” types like Naval Ravikant. Every time I launch the X app on mobile, it automatically switches me to the algorithmic “For You” feed, so it’s hard to miss. This is apparently not configurable in the app. When I’m on desktop, the Control Panel for Twitter does a good job of getting rid of most of that. I tolerate X, I wouldn’t say I like it but I like reading and connecting with certain people and their only platform is X. I think that’s what keeps X going: network effect.
- herdcall 2y ago
  You should be able to stay on Following, they made that change a while back. I.e., once you choose Following, you will keep going there till you change it.
  - runjake 2y ago
    That's not how it works on my iPhone or iPad, unfortunately -- and I just replaced and clean installed my iPad this week. It even happens when I quickly switch from and back to the X app. Maybe my user account isn't in that feature pool yet?
satvikpendem 2y ago
I just logged in again, I have 0 following and 0 followers and this is what I see [0], straight up political content, even on the Following tab, for some reason. I simply don't care to see political content right when I log in, and this phenomenon shows me that it has the exact same problems as Twitter, people posting ragebait to get engagement, just on the opposite of the spectrum. [0] https://imgur.com/a/XHmidRt https://imgur.com/a/XHmidRt

sureglymop 2y ago

When I joined mastodon like a decade ago it was mostly "meta" content. People talking about mastodon and ActivityPub itself. It was honestly great and there were many interesting folks & nerds talking about interesting technological stuff. It was more like hacker news, unlike now. I am a bit sad that it got more popular but it's still quite good. So yeah, some people actually want "niche" content and not mainstream content.

raesene9 2y ago

I think as a site starts, you might see that, but as it matures it diversifies. Definitely on Blue Sky, which doesn't default to an algorithmic feed, what you see depends on who you follow and as more groups move there the diversity of content increases. You can see how that's going with the Blue Sky Starter pack directory https://blueskydirectory.com/starter-packs/all https://blueskydirectory.com/starter-packs/all which currently has over 12000 entries across a wide range of topics.

mingus88 2y ago

Twitter shows you what you want because you have been a long time user and have tuned the feed Any other platform you adopt will likewise need the same tuning, and it should be no surprise that if it knows nothing about you, you will see content that is widely appealing to the rest of the community (who just left xitter) I’m new to bluesky and am making liberal use of the “show me less of this” button as I try to discover people with reading. It will take some time until it reads less like the front page of Reddit and more like a feed I want to engage with.

itsoktocry 2y ago
>Twitter shows you what you want because you have been a long time user and have tuned the feed You have way too much faith in how fancy these algorithms are.

assimpleaspossi 2y ago

Agree. I don't understand why anyone cares. If you talk to Jack and Jill on Twitter, why does it matter if you now talk to Jack and Jill on <insert platform here>. It's not going to change your life or any situation you are in. Nobody outside of this circle is going to care or even notice. But that's true of all these online things, petitions, social drama, and so on. Everyday life goes on. I'm having a late breakfast. Then doing some important work.

Beijinger 2y ago
It feels more snappy to me than Twitter/X. This seems to be a USP: https://openrss.org/blog/bluesky-has-launched-rss-feeds https://openrss.org/blog/bluesky-has-launched-rss-feeds And no addictive cat videos please. Bonus points: install this for facebook: https://socialfixer.com/ https://socialfixer.com/ This is my hide posts section of socialfixer: Reels and short videos Join Follow Sponsored Reels

JustSkyfall 2y ago

I’d really recommend muting the words “Twitter”, “the bad place” and “the other place” - really makes your feed better

rsynnott 2y ago

> When I joined it, just as when I joined Mastodon, most of what I saw was just anti-Twitter and anti-Musk content Was this during one of the major outflow events from Twitter? If so, hardly surprising; most new arrivals would have just left Twitter and would be irritated about the whole situation. Over the last week I've noticed a good deal of that sort of content in my Discover tab, but it's largely eased off now (yesterday was probably peak leaving-Twitter day, until the next stupid Musk thing happens; today is the day that the new TOS goes into effect).

satvikpendem 2y ago
This was a while ago during their private beta, perhaps 6 months ago? Regardless, this is what I see on my Following tab when I just logged in now, even though I have no following or followers: https://imgur.com/a/XHmidRt https://imgur.com/a/XHmidRt
- rsynnott 2y ago
  > even though I have no following or followers Ah, yeah, that might do it. You're probably just getting ~whatever's currently most popular, with no other guidance. These days, when you sign up, you apparently get asked for interests, and it pre-primes The Algorithm(TM), but yeah, that wasn't a thing during the closed beta.
  - satvikpendem 2y ago
    True, I joined during the beta. They really should have some default filtering of content for those who have not yet followed anyone, because seeing the homepage like I posted above made me not want to even interact with Bluesky anymore, which is likely how other people would feel as well.

slibhb 2y ago

Yeah, ditto. "1M people" seems great but it turns out that you don't really want people who joined due to the result of an election.

unsnap_biceps 2y ago

I joined yesterday and was overwhelmed by the same things, but I found the mute keyword feature and with a few muted keywords, it's a lot more useful for me. No need to mass mute/block the users, just mute twitter, musk, trump