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> It feels like Twitter becoming a monoculture and others are having their monoculture somewhere else because Bluesky also doesn't feel diverse to me - more lik

by timmg 2y ago

> It feels like Twitter becoming a monoculture and others are having their monoculture somewhere else because Bluesky also doesn't feel diverse to me - more like the opposite of Twitter. Generally, it seems to me that a lot of people are saying, basically, "I don't want to engage in a social network that isn't and echo chamber of my beliefs." I find it incredibly sad. But it does feel like the direction society is moving toward.

enumjorge 2y ago
> Generally, it seems to me that a lot of people are saying, basically, "I don't want to engage in a social network that isn't and echo chamber of my beliefs." The issue with Twitter and a lot of social media is that you don't often encounter opposing views that are nuanced, thoughtful and constructive, but rather hot takes, rants and memes. Even when those share your same worldview they can be tiring, but when they don't, they can drain your mental energy quickly. Perhaps people do want to live in their own bubble, but I wouldn't say we can judge that based on Twitter just because of how toxic it can be.
- rainsford 2y ago
  I found Twitter to be much better on that front pre-Elon, but the changes he introduced have really incentivized and highlighted the hot takes, rants, and memes. Twitter used to be the kind of place where I could see an interesting comment and then look at the replies to see more interesting comments and maybe a new person to follow. In post-Elon Twitter, replies are inevitably a complete cesspool of boosted blue checks farming engagement or bots. It certainly wasn't perfect before, but it's absolutely become more toxic since Elon purchased it.
matsemann 2y ago
It's not that I want an echo chamber of my own beliefs. Twitter has been plenty challenging for years without an issue. I just want to post and interact with people without getting bombarded with wishes about my death for posting that I biked to work. There is no discourse there anymore, only loads of hate. Painting people that leave as people that enjoy echo chambers is just dishonest.
- Sol2Sol 2y ago
  This. I don't use twitter for political discourse and since new guy took charge and made his political inclinations clear I'm being bombarded with political content and "news"/"hot takes" that skew a certain way. If wanting to use the tool for topics that are of interest to me, is me being in an echo chamber, then so be it.
- timmg 2y ago
  > There is no discourse there anymore, only loads of hate. I guess we just follow different people.
  - matsemann 2y ago
    That's an easy way to dismiss all concerns, and backhanded also blame the ones complaining for "holding it wrong". It's not about who I follow. It's about the replies I get when I participate in discussions around my interests.
    - timmg 2y ago
      All I’m saying is, “There is no discourse there anymore, only loads of hate,” doesn’t reflect my experience. Apologies if I offended you.
    - hitekker 2y ago
      I think GP made a pretty neutral comment, and you interpreted it rather poorly. It's a bit of an overreaction which, ironically enough, is the kind of engagement Twitter thrives on.
  - thowawatp302 2y ago
    That doesn’t make sense with the given scenario. It’s followers that have visibility int your posts, not people you’re following
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
scarecrowbob 2y ago
"I find it incredibly sad. But it does feel like the direction society is moving toward." How would you feel about, multiple times a day, being required to defend your core beliefs that you find trivially true? Or even being constantly exposed to folks who you tangentially know presenting a constant barrage of ideas that you find stupid and mean in ways that explicitly target you and yours? After many years of being around that (I'm a queer/non-binary, an atheist, and politically far left) I stopped enjoying it and just started blocking folks. I still seek out contrary opinions- that is why I regularly look at HN. However, in my daily feed of stuff like "pictures of my nieces" and "birth/death announcements from my larger community" I don't really feel like I need to be confronted by folks who consider me to be literally demonic. And, for the record, I don't expect those same people to be constantly subjected to my own opinions. So it doesn't feel sad for me: if you consider places like "churches" or "chambers of commerce meetings" to be "safe spaces" for particular kinds of folks, then it just seems "normal".
- timmg 2y ago
  > How would you feel about, multiple times a day, being required to defend your core beliefs that you find trivially true? Do you have to defend, or can you just ignore. I assume those statements are still being made, even if you don’t read them. So why not just ignore and move on? FWIW, Twitter (not saying Twitter is the best or only site) allows you to have a feed of only people you follow. That probably approximates going to another site of only people who share your core beliefs.
  - bscphil 2y ago
    My guess is that as a queer person, scarecrowbob gets regularly exposed to opinions that rise far beyond a mere difference of belief, and looks more like perpetual small doses of unmoderateable hatred. People who are willing to say that queer people are "literally demonic", for example, are not really offering some kind of thoughtful argument that queer people need to be engaging. But this toxicity is often expressed in ways that platforms are unable, or unwilling, to stop.
    - 2y ago
n2d4 2y ago
What they're saying is rather, "I don't want to engage in a social network that is an echo chamber of someone else's beliefs."
- Aeolun 2y ago
  Not necessarily? Non-echo chamber is more interesting, but I’ll take one that echos my beliefs over one that doesn’t.
eweise 2y ago
I kind of want to engage on a platform that just shows me technical posts without being interspersed with dildo ads.
spankalee 2y ago
[flagged]
- pseudalopex 2y ago
  > He bought Twitter to be able to shape the platform to his image of the world, while claiming it was about freedom or some such thing. Musk tried to back out of buying Twitter. But this detail is not very relevant.
- zeroonetwothree 2y ago
  I don’t use Twitter myself but if having a “bad person” own a service disqualifies you from using it I have some bad news for you.
  - spankalee 2y ago
    There are different levels of how bad that is, and it's not just owning the thing, but buying it in order to prop up right-wing propaganda and trolls. I don't belong to Gab or Truth for a reason. I wouldn't participate in a Fox News run website either.
  - fsflover 2y ago
    Which bad news exactly? I already use decentralized/distributed systems whenever I can to avoid the enshittification.
code_runner 2y ago
I’m torn here. I would personally use whatever was fun and interesting. Threads was immediately political and I assume bluesky is too. It’s just a lot. Twitter will be awful. Bluesky will be a little over the top. I don’t know what’s happening in threads these days… People want to yell into the void and don’t want to think about more than 140 characters… and there really isn’t a place for just easy going goofy fun
- ashildr 2y ago
  > Threads was immediately political and I assume bluesky is too. Life is political. Believing that it’s not only means that someone who is also pretending that life is not political will make the rules.
  - dingaling 2y ago
    You only need to look at the 2024 US presidential election to see how many people disagree with that point. Out of 245 million eligible voters, only 65% voted. For many people politics is an abstract concept in a faraway place.
    - Nemo_bis 2y ago
      Abstaining is a political decision too.
andrew_ 2y ago
This is exactly my take as well. The people leaving and putting out the call for others to follow them are the same ones that lost their power when the platform changed hands and the ideologies of the people who run it changed.
derbOac 2y ago
Having watched the explosion of Bluesky over the last week, and being on Mastodon for years, I have a different take on it. It's sort of consistent with what you're saying but sort of not. The problem to me is more that whenever you have a centralized platform that's associated with a single owner, it inherits all the issues of that owner, good and bad. It's inevitable. I'm not sure it's an issue with people not wanting to hear other viewpoints, it's more so people have decided they have had enough of, say, Musk, and don't want to support him. With Facebook stuff came up about that. The other stuff, about feeling like they're drowning in abusive right-wing stuff is also part of it but I think if it were just, say, like the web, they'd say "well this is the web" like people say "this is the news". Once you can point to, say, Musk, and say "he made it this way" or "I don't want to support a person like this", regardless of whether or not it's true or whatever, if enough people feel that way, they're going to want an alternative. This won't really go away until there's a decentralized open system that's easy to use, and not associated with any given "owner". Mastodon/AP is close but things there are so closely associated with hosts that the host starts to become a dominant issue (see Threads), as does figuring out where to go, and transferability of accounts across servers. As for "why Bluesky"? Probably because it looks like Twitter and a lot of journalists and politics people were complaining about Threads rules prohibiting things they wanted to post. Not because it's left or right wing, but because of links and political content period. I don't know enough about Threads policies but independently lots of journalists on Bluesky were saying they just couldn't post content on Threads even if it was fairly neutral, or that it wouldn't get any visibility? Bluesky is easy to sign up for and fairly open. Once you get the journalists and news organizations on there, and a critical mass it grows. Personally from a technical standpoint I'd like to see Nostr take off but that community currently is very heavily crypto-focused. Network effects and feedback loops are a pain.
- dekervin 2y ago
  I find it weird those analysis that forget the obvious Brazil moment. It provided the coordination needed to execute the exodus. The momentary Banning of twitter in Brazil, provided the impetus for a large amount of normal people there to look for a close alternative. And BlueSky is a more normie friendly. Now a simple network analysis will show you that a lot of "tech-normie" people, but heavy user of social networks, in the US have an extended network that touches Brazil, especially for people of color and blacks. their social contact primed them for changing to Bluesky. In a sense it was the dry powder. Now came the election, where Elon Musk took a central role and where more than 80% of black voted against his prefered candidate. It just gave the sparkle inside an implicit network that was already playing with BlueSky.
techfeathers 2y ago
"I don't want to engage in a social network that isn't and echo chamber of my beliefs." I really don't. I know you mean this as an insult, but like, it gives this weird reverence to social media that I don't get. I am all sorts of interested in long form media that explores striking/dangerous/novel ideas that really expand my mind and help me to see the world in a whole new way, or interviews with people who have a set of beliefs that are different from mine. I am not interested in 140 character hot takes that just pounce at my amygdala, just like I wouldn't want my Thursday night football game to cut away to a five minute diatribe on the pros and cons of abortion access, or my video games to lecture me on free market economics. Engaging in as social network that isn't an echo chamber of my beliefs is like being interrupted every five minutes during dinner time to be yelled at by a different evangelist. Church is on Sunday, thanks.
hresvelgr 2y ago
Mono-cultures are forming because as a whole, we are becoming less tolerant. Tolerance is the ultimate challenger of belief because it is gentle. No extremist is going to change their ways because people keep yelling at them to change. It'll be because they see the people they revile living perfectly fine lives and willing to accept them as they are. "B-but they believe these morally reprehensible things!" So what? Have we not all hurt people and been the villain in someone else's life? People get lost along the way. Show them grace. We can't force people into different ways of living, but we can show them.
- paulgb 2y ago
  I don’t think of myself as less tolerant, but I’ve definitely become less patient with the qanon-level discourse that has come to dominate the reply section on twitter, which used to be a place for interesting conversation. Maybe somebody being patient with them will change their mind, but that’s not what I want to spend my time online doing.
  - account42 2y ago
    > I don’t think of myself as less tolerant Most people don't think of themselves as [insert negative trait].
- AtlasBarfed 2y ago
  Dude, we used to live in strictly segregated ghettos everywhere. If it wasn't ethnically divided, it was strictly segregated by class, and if that wasn't the division, it was religion. The internet for a while was a big melting pot, probably because there was an inherent IQ filter to using the early/medium web. But once the stupids came on, then came the stupid-manipulation companies chasing them, and everything went to hell. Usenet was kind of like this too, until tools made usenet more accessible. I've been too busy to look at Mastodon/Bluesky out of laziness. I never did Twitter. Mastodon may require some technical work to make use of, which may be a wonderful long term thing.
- eric_cc 2y ago
  > we are becoming less tolerant This is partly true. But also - life is too short. There isn’t enough time in the day to engage socially with people you don’t have a connection with.
epistasis 2y ago
The amount of antisemitism in the replies of any Jewish person on X, when the topic is the technical topics that I pay attention to, is revolting. If that pure noise, a litany of uninteresting ad hominem attacks at best, which drown out relevant conversation, is "diversity" that's required, what is gained? If not wanting to be subjected to uninteresting insults is an "echo chamber" is that so bad? Twitter was interesting because you could have on-topic conversations with world experts and random people. By protecting the uncivil, and even elevating it with for-purchase blue checks, people find better uses of their time. The destruction of value in the transition of Twitter to X is something to behold. The person who bought it had no clue about the value of what he bought and what drove the value. Social networks are about the people; Twitter in particular was about the specialists, the journalists, the exchange of ideas, far more than any other social network. And that was all destroyed so that more bots can spam people and so that personal attacks can be left up.
johnnyanmac 2y ago
I'd love a proper spectrum. But my spectrum pretty much stops when we start excusing unironic prejudice. I think "your body, my choice" was pretty much the tipping point for many people deciding to move ship. Fortunately I do have a few other smaller hubs for a more "diverse" (in the original sense of the word) conversation, while not allowing bigotry.
- eric_cc 2y ago
  > "your body, my choice" The sad thing is you could be referencing the left with Covid vaccines or the right with abortion.
  - jerojero 2y ago
    These are completely different issues. When people don't vaccinate themselves they become a walking vector that affects society as a whole. Yes, personally, they might be healthy. But there's people out there who can't take the vaccines and should they get sick of COVID they could die. There's people out there who, even after being vaccinated, are still at higher risk should they get the disease (the vaccine doesn't prevent you getting sick, rather it makes it more difficult for the virus to transmit and lowes it's effectiveness and how dangerous it is for you). So people not vaccinating puts the whole of society at risk. On the other hand, abortion is very much a familial issue. It affects the woman that is pregnant the most. The rest of the people around her are affected only tangentially, yes, the parents might want to become grandparents or the person that got her pregnant might also want to have a child. And those are inputs that are necessary when coming to the decision of performing an abortion or not. Now, where does "your body, my choice" come into play? Do abortions cause the societal harm that vaccines cause? I don't think there's any evidence to this, it's all moral standings. But we legislate for everyone, we don't legislate for a group of people that happen to have a particular religious view of the world. Now, these people have a lot of power and influence and that's why their view is imposed on most of society. Ultimately though, these issues are different and shouldn't be treated as mirrors of each others. I think that's a mistake.
    - 2y ago
dwaite 2y ago
But X for them is an echo chamber of opposite beliefs. The premium account system where comments are not sorted chronologically but where paid accounts post first (on top of a poorly moderated platform) leads to drive-by toxicity, not intelligent discourse.
root_axis 2y ago
> I find it incredibly sad Sounds great to me, if its true. Prior to social media, "echo chamber" was the status quo, and I think everyone can agree things were a lot more peaceful during that time.
honzabe 2y ago
> Generally, it seems to me that a lot of people are saying, basically, "I don't want to engage in a social network that isn't and echo chamber of my beliefs." > I find it incredibly sad. But it does feel like the direction society is moving toward. It's not that I don't want to engage. I just don't want to be submerged there all the time. I want to spend most of my time surrounded by 'my people' and only once in a while peek outside. Let me recommend an article by Noah Smith where he argues (IMO convincingly) why he thinks that the internet works better as a fragmented thing https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/the-internet-wants-to-be-fragmented https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/the-internet-wants-to-be-fragm...
AtlasBarfed 2y ago
Maybe the social networks promoting the most radical, outrageous, loud, and disturbing posts are the problem. If the political alignment of those posts resonates with you, it isn't as annoying. It's noteworthy that with AI, so far we will just get more / louder / more awful posts, rather than a potential for superior moderation and appreciation for nuance. After all, the busted metrics that AI will be aligned to are the same old flawed ones that reward sociopathy.
tarsinge 2y ago
There is a difference between a social network or forum that has different beliefs but interesting discussions, and one that is solely focused on attacking the other camp.
jimnotgym 2y ago
I don't want to engage in a social network where if I state my views, a horde of people who disagree can get me shaddowbanned. Now I state my views to an empty room.
pfisherman 2y ago
Have people not always been this way? It seems like people forgotten their Emily Post —that it is generally considered a faux pas to discuss controversial topics like religion or politicd outside of intimate social settings with close friends and family. Anyway, I don’t want an echo chamber for my beliefs. I just want to be able to discover and discuss scientific articles and watch sports highlight clips without being bombarded by a bunch of bullshit.
gethoht 2y ago
It’s not an echo chamber to refuse to accept hate speech and shitty right wing media. It’s an interesting but continuous claim that if you don’t accept far right and increasingly fascist viewpoints, you live in an echo chamber. This is a lie.
- an_guy 2y ago
  It is an echo chamber if you classify everything that's against your ideology as "hate speech" or "shitty X media".
  - consteval 2y ago
    Most of the time it's undebatable, it is just hate speech. I'm talking slurs and "you're destroying America" type rhetoric. It's so common on a lot of social media platforms, including Twitter. Nobody wants to put up with that, it's obnoxious and completely impossible to debate against. If people think I deserve AIDS what the hell am I supposed to do with that? That's not useful information, and I don't understand why you're demanding people have to put up with it. They can leave, and evidently, they are.
personalityson 2y ago
Saw a post on Twitter about how Bluesky autobans for posting "there are two genders". Went over to Bluesky's subreddit to ask how they feel about it -- got banned on their subreddit too
- wlonkly 2y ago
  That's trivially falsifiable. https://bsky.app/search?q=%22there+are+two+genders%22 https://bsky.app/search?q=%22there+are+two+genders%22
- consteval 2y ago
  I've never seen anyone on the Internet write "there are two genders" in good faith. 100% of the time it's rage bait, intended to boil down the conversation and to be as obnoxious as possible.

by timmg 2y ago

enumjorge 2y ago

> Generally, it seems to me that a lot of people are saying, basically, "I don't want to engage in a social network that isn't and echo chamber of my beliefs." The issue with Twitter and a lot of social media is that you don't often encounter opposing views that are nuanced, thoughtful and constructive, but rather hot takes, rants and memes. Even when those share your same worldview they can be tiring, but when they don't, they can drain your mental energy quickly. Perhaps people do want to live in their own bubble, but I wouldn't say we can judge that based on Twitter just because of how toxic it can be.

rainsford 2y ago
I found Twitter to be much better on that front pre-Elon, but the changes he introduced have really incentivized and highlighted the hot takes, rants, and memes. Twitter used to be the kind of place where I could see an interesting comment and then look at the replies to see more interesting comments and maybe a new person to follow. In post-Elon Twitter, replies are inevitably a complete cesspool of boosted blue checks farming engagement or bots. It certainly wasn't perfect before, but it's absolutely become more toxic since Elon purchased it.

matsemann 2y ago

It's not that I want an echo chamber of my own beliefs. Twitter has been plenty challenging for years without an issue. I just want to post and interact with people without getting bombarded with wishes about my death for posting that I biked to work. There is no discourse there anymore, only loads of hate. Painting people that leave as people that enjoy echo chambers is just dishonest.

Sol2Sol 2y ago
This. I don't use twitter for political discourse and since new guy took charge and made his political inclinations clear I'm being bombarded with political content and "news"/"hot takes" that skew a certain way. If wanting to use the tool for topics that are of interest to me, is me being in an echo chamber, then so be it.
timmg 2y ago
> There is no discourse there anymore, only loads of hate. I guess we just follow different people.
- matsemann 2y ago
  That's an easy way to dismiss all concerns, and backhanded also blame the ones complaining for "holding it wrong". It's not about who I follow. It's about the replies I get when I participate in discussions around my interests.
  - timmg 2y ago
    All I’m saying is, “There is no discourse there anymore, only loads of hate,” doesn’t reflect my experience. Apologies if I offended you.
  - hitekker 2y ago
    I think GP made a pretty neutral comment, and you interpreted it rather poorly. It's a bit of an overreaction which, ironically enough, is the kind of engagement Twitter thrives on.
- thowawatp302 2y ago
  That doesn’t make sense with the given scenario. It’s followers that have visibility int your posts, not people you’re following
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

scarecrowbob 2y ago

"I find it incredibly sad. But it does feel like the direction society is moving toward." How would you feel about, multiple times a day, being required to defend your core beliefs that you find trivially true? Or even being constantly exposed to folks who you tangentially know presenting a constant barrage of ideas that you find stupid and mean in ways that explicitly target you and yours? After many years of being around that (I'm a queer/non-binary, an atheist, and politically far left) I stopped enjoying it and just started blocking folks. I still seek out contrary opinions- that is why I regularly look at HN. However, in my daily feed of stuff like "pictures of my nieces" and "birth/death announcements from my larger community" I don't really feel like I need to be confronted by folks who consider me to be literally demonic. And, for the record, I don't expect those same people to be constantly subjected to my own opinions. So it doesn't feel sad for me: if you consider places like "churches" or "chambers of commerce meetings" to be "safe spaces" for particular kinds of folks, then it just seems "normal".

timmg 2y ago
> How would you feel about, multiple times a day, being required to defend your core beliefs that you find trivially true? Do you have to defend, or can you just ignore. I assume those statements are still being made, even if you don’t read them. So why not just ignore and move on? FWIW, Twitter (not saying Twitter is the best or only site) allows you to have a feed of only people you follow. That probably approximates going to another site of only people who share your core beliefs.
- bscphil 2y ago
  My guess is that as a queer person, scarecrowbob gets regularly exposed to opinions that rise far beyond a mere difference of belief, and looks more like perpetual small doses of unmoderateable hatred. People who are willing to say that queer people are "literally demonic", for example, are not really offering some kind of thoughtful argument that queer people need to be engaging. But this toxicity is often expressed in ways that platforms are unable, or unwilling, to stop.
  - 2y ago

n2d4 2y ago

What they're saying is rather, "I don't want to engage in a social network that is an echo chamber of someone else's beliefs."

Aeolun 2y ago
Not necessarily? Non-echo chamber is more interesting, but I’ll take one that echos my beliefs over one that doesn’t.

eweise 2y ago

I kind of want to engage on a platform that just shows me technical posts without being interspersed with dildo ads.

spankalee 2y ago

[flagged]

pseudalopex 2y ago
> He bought Twitter to be able to shape the platform to his image of the world, while claiming it was about freedom or some such thing. Musk tried to back out of buying Twitter. But this detail is not very relevant.
zeroonetwothree 2y ago
I don’t use Twitter myself but if having a “bad person” own a service disqualifies you from using it I have some bad news for you.
- spankalee 2y ago
  There are different levels of how bad that is, and it's not just owning the thing, but buying it in order to prop up right-wing propaganda and trolls. I don't belong to Gab or Truth for a reason. I wouldn't participate in a Fox News run website either.
- fsflover 2y ago
  Which bad news exactly? I already use decentralized/distributed systems whenever I can to avoid the enshittification.

code_runner 2y ago

I’m torn here. I would personally use whatever was fun and interesting. Threads was immediately political and I assume bluesky is too. It’s just a lot. Twitter will be awful. Bluesky will be a little over the top. I don’t know what’s happening in threads these days… People want to yell into the void and don’t want to think about more than 140 characters… and there really isn’t a place for just easy going goofy fun

ashildr 2y ago
> Threads was immediately political and I assume bluesky is too. Life is political. Believing that it’s not only means that someone who is also pretending that life is not political will make the rules.
- dingaling 2y ago
  You only need to look at the 2024 US presidential election to see how many people disagree with that point. Out of 245 million eligible voters, only 65% voted. For many people politics is an abstract concept in a faraway place.
  - Nemo_bis 2y ago
    Abstaining is a political decision too.

andrew_ 2y ago

This is exactly my take as well. The people leaving and putting out the call for others to follow them are the same ones that lost their power when the platform changed hands and the ideologies of the people who run it changed.

derbOac 2y ago

Having watched the explosion of Bluesky over the last week, and being on Mastodon for years, I have a different take on it. It's sort of consistent with what you're saying but sort of not. The problem to me is more that whenever you have a centralized platform that's associated with a single owner, it inherits all the issues of that owner, good and bad. It's inevitable. I'm not sure it's an issue with people not wanting to hear other viewpoints, it's more so people have decided they have had enough of, say, Musk, and don't want to support him. With Facebook stuff came up about that. The other stuff, about feeling like they're drowning in abusive right-wing stuff is also part of it but I think if it were just, say, like the web, they'd say "well this is the web" like people say "this is the news". Once you can point to, say, Musk, and say "he made it this way" or "I don't want to support a person like this", regardless of whether or not it's true or whatever, if enough people feel that way, they're going to want an alternative. This won't really go away until there's a decentralized open system that's easy to use, and not associated with any given "owner". Mastodon/AP is close but things there are so closely associated with hosts that the host starts to become a dominant issue (see Threads), as does figuring out where to go, and transferability of accounts across servers. As for "why Bluesky"? Probably because it looks like Twitter and a lot of journalists and politics people were complaining about Threads rules prohibiting things they wanted to post. Not because it's left or right wing, but because of links and political content period. I don't know enough about Threads policies but independently lots of journalists on Bluesky were saying they just couldn't post content on Threads even if it was fairly neutral, or that it wouldn't get any visibility? Bluesky is easy to sign up for and fairly open. Once you get the journalists and news organizations on there, and a critical mass it grows. Personally from a technical standpoint I'd like to see Nostr take off but that community currently is very heavily crypto-focused. Network effects and feedback loops are a pain.

dekervin 2y ago
I find it weird those analysis that forget the obvious Brazil moment. It provided the coordination needed to execute the exodus. The momentary Banning of twitter in Brazil, provided the impetus for a large amount of normal people there to look for a close alternative. And BlueSky is a more normie friendly. Now a simple network analysis will show you that a lot of "tech-normie" people, but heavy user of social networks, in the US have an extended network that touches Brazil, especially for people of color and blacks. their social contact primed them for changing to Bluesky. In a sense it was the dry powder. Now came the election, where Elon Musk took a central role and where more than 80% of black voted against his prefered candidate. It just gave the sparkle inside an implicit network that was already playing with BlueSky.

techfeathers 2y ago

"I don't want to engage in a social network that isn't and echo chamber of my beliefs." I really don't. I know you mean this as an insult, but like, it gives this weird reverence to social media that I don't get. I am all sorts of interested in long form media that explores striking/dangerous/novel ideas that really expand my mind and help me to see the world in a whole new way, or interviews with people who have a set of beliefs that are different from mine. I am not interested in 140 character hot takes that just pounce at my amygdala, just like I wouldn't want my Thursday night football game to cut away to a five minute diatribe on the pros and cons of abortion access, or my video games to lecture me on free market economics. Engaging in as social network that isn't an echo chamber of my beliefs is like being interrupted every five minutes during dinner time to be yelled at by a different evangelist. Church is on Sunday, thanks.

hresvelgr 2y ago

Mono-cultures are forming because as a whole, we are becoming less tolerant. Tolerance is the ultimate challenger of belief because it is gentle. No extremist is going to change their ways because people keep yelling at them to change. It'll be because they see the people they revile living perfectly fine lives and willing to accept them as they are. "B-but they believe these morally reprehensible things!" So what? Have we not all hurt people and been the villain in someone else's life? People get lost along the way. Show them grace. We can't force people into different ways of living, but we can show them.

paulgb 2y ago
I don’t think of myself as less tolerant, but I’ve definitely become less patient with the qanon-level discourse that has come to dominate the reply section on twitter, which used to be a place for interesting conversation. Maybe somebody being patient with them will change their mind, but that’s not what I want to spend my time online doing.
- account42 2y ago
  > I don’t think of myself as less tolerant Most people don't think of themselves as [insert negative trait].
AtlasBarfed 2y ago
Dude, we used to live in strictly segregated ghettos everywhere. If it wasn't ethnically divided, it was strictly segregated by class, and if that wasn't the division, it was religion. The internet for a while was a big melting pot, probably because there was an inherent IQ filter to using the early/medium web. But once the stupids came on, then came the stupid-manipulation companies chasing them, and everything went to hell. Usenet was kind of like this too, until tools made usenet more accessible. I've been too busy to look at Mastodon/Bluesky out of laziness. I never did Twitter. Mastodon may require some technical work to make use of, which may be a wonderful long term thing.
eric_cc 2y ago
> we are becoming less tolerant This is partly true. But also - life is too short. There isn’t enough time in the day to engage socially with people you don’t have a connection with.

epistasis 2y ago

The amount of antisemitism in the replies of any Jewish person on X, when the topic is the technical topics that I pay attention to, is revolting. If that pure noise, a litany of uninteresting ad hominem attacks at best, which drown out relevant conversation, is "diversity" that's required, what is gained? If not wanting to be subjected to uninteresting insults is an "echo chamber" is that so bad? Twitter was interesting because you could have on-topic conversations with world experts and random people. By protecting the uncivil, and even elevating it with for-purchase blue checks, people find better uses of their time. The destruction of value in the transition of Twitter to X is something to behold. The person who bought it had no clue about the value of what he bought and what drove the value. Social networks are about the people; Twitter in particular was about the specialists, the journalists, the exchange of ideas, far more than any other social network. And that was all destroyed so that more bots can spam people and so that personal attacks can be left up.

johnnyanmac 2y ago

I'd love a proper spectrum. But my spectrum pretty much stops when we start excusing unironic prejudice. I think "your body, my choice" was pretty much the tipping point for many people deciding to move ship. Fortunately I do have a few other smaller hubs for a more "diverse" (in the original sense of the word) conversation, while not allowing bigotry.

eric_cc 2y ago
> "your body, my choice" The sad thing is you could be referencing the left with Covid vaccines or the right with abortion.
- jerojero 2y ago
  These are completely different issues. When people don't vaccinate themselves they become a walking vector that affects society as a whole. Yes, personally, they might be healthy. But there's people out there who can't take the vaccines and should they get sick of COVID they could die. There's people out there who, even after being vaccinated, are still at higher risk should they get the disease (the vaccine doesn't prevent you getting sick, rather it makes it more difficult for the virus to transmit and lowes it's effectiveness and how dangerous it is for you). So people not vaccinating puts the whole of society at risk. On the other hand, abortion is very much a familial issue. It affects the woman that is pregnant the most. The rest of the people around her are affected only tangentially, yes, the parents might want to become grandparents or the person that got her pregnant might also want to have a child. And those are inputs that are necessary when coming to the decision of performing an abortion or not. Now, where does "your body, my choice" come into play? Do abortions cause the societal harm that vaccines cause? I don't think there's any evidence to this, it's all moral standings. But we legislate for everyone, we don't legislate for a group of people that happen to have a particular religious view of the world. Now, these people have a lot of power and influence and that's why their view is imposed on most of society. Ultimately though, these issues are different and shouldn't be treated as mirrors of each others. I think that's a mistake.
  - 2y ago

dwaite 2y ago

But X for them is an echo chamber of opposite beliefs. The premium account system where comments are not sorted chronologically but where paid accounts post first (on top of a poorly moderated platform) leads to drive-by toxicity, not intelligent discourse.

root_axis 2y ago

> I find it incredibly sad Sounds great to me, if its true. Prior to social media, "echo chamber" was the status quo, and I think everyone can agree things were a lot more peaceful during that time.

honzabe 2y ago

> Generally, it seems to me that a lot of people are saying, basically, "I don't want to engage in a social network that isn't and echo chamber of my beliefs." > I find it incredibly sad. But it does feel like the direction society is moving toward. It's not that I don't want to engage. I just don't want to be submerged there all the time. I want to spend most of my time surrounded by 'my people' and only once in a while peek outside. Let me recommend an article by Noah Smith where he argues (IMO convincingly) why he thinks that the internet works better as a fragmented thing https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/the-internet-wants-to-be-fragmented https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/the-internet-wants-to-be-fragm...

AtlasBarfed 2y ago

Maybe the social networks promoting the most radical, outrageous, loud, and disturbing posts are the problem. If the political alignment of those posts resonates with you, it isn't as annoying. It's noteworthy that with AI, so far we will just get more / louder / more awful posts, rather than a potential for superior moderation and appreciation for nuance. After all, the busted metrics that AI will be aligned to are the same old flawed ones that reward sociopathy.

tarsinge 2y ago

There is a difference between a social network or forum that has different beliefs but interesting discussions, and one that is solely focused on attacking the other camp.

jimnotgym 2y ago

I don't want to engage in a social network where if I state my views, a horde of people who disagree can get me shaddowbanned. Now I state my views to an empty room.

pfisherman 2y ago

Have people not always been this way? It seems like people forgotten their Emily Post —that it is generally considered a faux pas to discuss controversial topics like religion or politicd outside of intimate social settings with close friends and family. Anyway, I don’t want an echo chamber for my beliefs. I just want to be able to discover and discuss scientific articles and watch sports highlight clips without being bombarded by a bunch of bullshit.

gethoht 2y ago

It’s not an echo chamber to refuse to accept hate speech and shitty right wing media. It’s an interesting but continuous claim that if you don’t accept far right and increasingly fascist viewpoints, you live in an echo chamber. This is a lie.

an_guy 2y ago
It is an echo chamber if you classify everything that's against your ideology as "hate speech" or "shitty X media".
- consteval 2y ago
  Most of the time it's undebatable, it is just hate speech. I'm talking slurs and "you're destroying America" type rhetoric. It's so common on a lot of social media platforms, including Twitter. Nobody wants to put up with that, it's obnoxious and completely impossible to debate against. If people think I deserve AIDS what the hell am I supposed to do with that? That's not useful information, and I don't understand why you're demanding people have to put up with it. They can leave, and evidently, they are.

personalityson 2y ago

Saw a post on Twitter about how Bluesky autobans for posting "there are two genders". Went over to Bluesky's subreddit to ask how they feel about it -- got banned on their subreddit too

wlonkly 2y ago
That's trivially falsifiable. https://bsky.app/search?q=%22there+are+two+genders%22 https://bsky.app/search?q=%22there+are+two+genders%22
consteval 2y ago
I've never seen anyone on the Internet write "there are two genders" in good faith. 100% of the time it's rage bait, intended to boil down the conversation and to be as obnoxious as possible.