Also, holy shit, Bluesky sends real traffic. Will update this tomorrow with firm numbers but journalism is going to move here for sure. Twitter is a drop in the bucket. It's over, but we are so back, and so on and so forth
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I'm mixed on this. I like calling it X because a) emphasizes that it's Musk's site and preserving old Twitter. Once it's just Musk's social platform it has all the cred of Truth Social.
I understand your point, but there is something so delicious about giving his platform the same amount of respect he has given his transgendered child.
Works for me. I also use the British "the other place" as they refer to the house of lords. I know from various marketing efforts brands confuse users on name chances, they confuse users and it's a good chance brand will sink if it's not a knockout go to market.
Especially when you consider that he expected everyone to go along with the website rename while he himself refused to use the right name for his child.
Or whatever your caffinated beverage of choice might be! Honestly I appreciate that someone helped to clarify, I tend to get a tad labyrinthine at times.
I would prepare to fund Bluesky as rich people talk about buying out this platform.
It is about controlling the dialog, you know, censor what you don't want to hear.
twitter was all lies and disinformation that was amplified by broadcast networks. The 2024 election cycle was all news bullshit.
Another thing we can do is continue to promote and develop for the distributed part of this network. Nothing lasts forever, nor will BlueSky, but protocols tend to last longer than nearly anything else in tech. #atprotocol
As a developer-flavored person, this place is an absolute playground in the best way possible. It's particularly unique in how much personal defense you can do, as well.
Yeah but most people don't do that and the post is worthless to the millions of BS members who really don't need to be blindsided by a pay wall 4 out of 5 articles.
It's akin to a pop up toll booth. Annoying and time wasting.
Oh, I think that's a given now. Once he started f'ing with hiding likes, we saw where it was going.
"Views" figures are wholly made up. And the blue checks who are getting paid for engagement aren't meeting any metrics. Leon is just disbursing cash as he feels like it
It's the introduction of or tweaking of an otherwise inobtrusive algorithm that has ended my use of every social media site.
Just let me see what the people I want to see posted from latest to oldest.
super anecdotally: even tracking referral links on our game studio's account, several people from Bluesky have applied to recent roles we've posted and nobody from Twitter has. engagement is also better despite fewer followers. RIP Twitter
It's not even so much that the followers are fake as much as it's Twitter being such an old platform that a larger proportion of registered users are inactive now. Bluesky, being much newer, is more likely for accounts to be active.
I was looking for someone’s Twitter account and did a search on their name:
- 10 accounts
- 5 created in Sept or Oct 2024
- 2 dormant porn bots
- 2 locked accounts, low followers
- 1 actual account that posted this year.
Hi, I'm internet celebrity Hailey Welch, but you probably know me better as the "Hawk Tuah Girl." But seriously, if there's one 'thang' you should not spit on, it's the microblogging website Bluesky...
I'm skeptical about Bluesky's claims of sending "real traffic" and its potential to replace journalism. It's unclear how this platform will sustain a diverse and in-depth news ecosystem.
I've been here two weeks and was never on Twitter/X : this is real time reporting mixed with great variety from the Arts, AND actual discourse. The "block" option seems to work rather well, also.
Gotta pick a struggle, either open api, or closed (with the fear they might sell your data anyways)
The only way to win is to not play, and here you are so welcome to the losers table. Hope you enjoy your time with us
Im all ears for your suggestions.
I won't say i am a fullstack developer wiz kid, but unless we either use the honor system of just don't use these apps, there's always some risk.
Im sure people far smarter than me have been also brain storming too, but for now this is our best option.
It's not scary over here like Twitter is. Fucking Twitter is very scary. It has scary shit on there creeps on there rapist murderers. They're not here. Run them right now. Blue sky is where I am all the time.
I don't miss the unchecked abuse on Twitter. All the science denial, the racism, the rampant use of the R word, the subtle and not so subtle threats, the praise of H--tler. Seriously...in Nov I came across H--tler-praising and Holocaust-denying tweets. Reported them, Twitter said they were fine.
You're right, Abby. The flood of hate speech and misinformation on some platforms is ... troubling.
And it's not just annoying because it can harm mental health and spread dangerous ideas. We need better content moderation and user tools to create safer online spaces.
Allowing us to follow the journos and media outlets we want is a huge help. Not having a timeline that reconfigures itself the moment you see something you want to read also helps. Perhaps also just a general idea that you’re contributing to a culture of hot takes and bait.
I really hoped this would happen. It’s not so much an “echo chamber” as the leading social ability to make real connections, worldwide and push forward, together.
Report and block, always report and block. Feed the community driven policing and help the staff. One of the trolls in this thread already has actionable threats against the president on his account. Pull it up by the roots, don't just cover your ears.
Team Trump will post on TS. My guess is if you could categorize the accounts on X and TS, a large group are journalists who are there because they have to be. It’s the “press room”. Where news outlets will post content to us is here.
The reason many journalists won't move yet is path dependency. Mid tier journalists built massive audiences earlier on in twitter, and know theh won't enjoy the same here because they missed on their first mover advantage
I don't think rebuilding the audiences will be as hard as you think. Especially if they move in a wave like the one we're in. The European Federation of Journalists did it.
Quality, not quantity. And you have to remember those are Elon Numbers; a third+ of his followers are bots, and he claimed the Tucker Carlson pilot got over a billion views. Twitter is still substantially bigger, but not as much as people think.
Glad to see your getting the numbers. Been listening to your screeds about GenAI all year, nodding my head with an "Amen" like I was in church or something.
Bluesky rising like a phoenix while Twitter sips its decaf can’t wait to see those numbers. The journalism shift feels inevitable; let’s see how far this rocket goes!
And this site still only has 24 million users. So if journalists are doing numbers now, they are going to be in even better shape even just a few months from now.
Yeah. Which isn’t a bad thing because it gives the Bluesky team a little breather. And growth isn’t a sprint. There will be another even bigger wave once B-list celebrities and even more journalists make their way over here (there is a massive influx of European journalist about to happen soon)
You’re not wrong. Lots of people have nostalgia for the per-Elon Twitter days. But it was in decline and a dumpster fire long before then. My own guess is that rise of the bots probably really took off post ‘17 with the rise of the resist-lib grifters. I don’t think they’d have grown huge w/o bots
Thank goodness! If we can get news to come over here it will make things so much easier! News and content creators are why I joined the old bird in the first place, but I like the community of moots as well!
hey it is so nice
is it not ....
47 followers here vs 6 k twitter
you tube told me here did 10x the views vs twitter
now think i had 127 times more followers at twitter
this means 1270 times better
3 months later 335% more watch time
Good. Hopefully the journalism that moves here doesn't work to placate and drive traffic for their owners, editors, and producers, but actually works on educating and holding accountability. Otherwise it can stay on the bird app.
Makes sense. Bluesky is awash in left-leaning, politically active users these days, so publications popular with that audience should see traffic—plus Twitter actively deboosts links.
Bluesky now has 24M accounts. That's _all_ of X's market share. All that's left of X is Dear Leader and all his #MeToo accounts
despite Elon Musk's skills as an "entrepreneur," he didn't understand 20 engineers could produce a more robust Twitter clone and give everyone a way to escape from him
You have the distinction of being the first person that I followed on Bluesky that I hadn't previously heard of or followed when I previously used Twitter.
Must have been late 2023 or early 2024 when I started seeing your work.
Because there's actual people here who are interested in engaging with writers & journalists content, rather than gaggles of bots, clout-farmers, and racist trolls that make using the site a tedious exercise.
Trending tabs are a double-edged sword because that is essentially how billionaire-run outlets framed public discourse, by adjusting what does and doesn't trend. It doesn't just function as a "hey what're people engaging with" timeline.
yeah, I use the top posts in last 3 hours / 7 days feeds to check if ive missed anyone I need to block. I also block major news outlets
instead I follow journalists directly. any big story will show up regardless, and journalists will link their own stories directly and without bs headlines
The thing that people who are still in Twitter mode really need to grasp is that the reason why they left was because of the middle man that they're now asking for
Kill the billionaire in your mind, the people will make the tools, just get settled in and the development will come
yes! bluesky figured out how to handle individual trash trolls, but still interacts with corporate run news accounts the same way as twitter. that deference has to be to some degree FOMO, which, lol
The main problem is that with sufficient money and bot accounts, it was very easy to manipulate... Maybe for bsky it could be different if, for instance, it takes into account if the posts and likes come from accounts with "good standing"? Like they're not on block lists and they're verified
one thing Bluesky has an advantage in: all the botfarmers got in late.They had established themselves on Twitter over a decade and a half, but Bluesky has no such history. People can far more easily detect a bot, and far more readily block them, because of the bad Twitter experience.
Can anyone @ cbs or abc? I’ve tried tagging them to call out different news stories & asking them if they’re going to cover actual news or just pander to Trump & his base, and now I can’t tag them anymore. Idk if I was blocked or they’re legit no longer on Bluesky.
I had tagged them a couple weeks ago in posts& then when I went to do it again earlier this week & abc wouldn’t show up, I tried cbs today & it didn’t show up. The same with msnbc main handle this handle @velshimsnbc.bsky.social & the weekend show @theweekendmsnbc.bsky.social are the only 2. Odd
Very true I hadn’t thought of the first option. Idk I suppose I just want to stay on top of it just to make sure mainstream media are being held to account. Lil ol me trying to stick it to em lol
I have already identified at least one publication I want to subscribe to as a result of finding reporters again on Bluesky. A lot of us cancelled WaPo recently and are looking for new news sources/subscriptions!
It took being able to actually read links I clicked on and it took reading positive, thought provoking comments to posts I agreed with to completely realize how much the other place was chipping away at my sanity!
The bad place does make you question reality. I go there first then realize the bots are making ne crazy. Then I meander over here. I ❤️ the pics of gardens, flowers and people living life.
The principle of free speech ought to encompass the capacity to engage earnestly in discourse with one another, unimpeded by efforts to subvert or undermine.
My Westie, Miss Lady, a retired show dog, adopted at 9, lived to 20; I met her daddy, Chalkie, when he was 22; he visited my home and met my cats. Had hoped to get a pic of the two of them. He lived to 25. They came from Brigadoon Kennels in New Brunswick, Canada.
I’m not a journalist but I rely heavily on honest journalism and social engagement. I have not left Twitter/X because vast majority of my news sources have not moved to Bluesky.
I've got that with news in general too. I'd rather pay for some good investigative reporting than getting an avalanche of aggregated news from a free website.
Twitter excelled in other areas: Breaking news going viral & people sharing what they were witnessing as the events unfolded.
I liked the OsInt side & interacting with world-renowned experts.
It was extremely important as a pro-democracy tool.
In-depth journalism doesn't really cover any of that.
I left twitter. Have you? Can you? Or does Elon have you needing to see his personal algorithm. Everyone needs to stop supporting Twitter. Delete it. It's like being part of Q. Don't.
watched a local news bit in tennessee and the reporter’s name had his bsky handle there. ive never seen that before and am so glad for whatever it replaced!
President St Elmo is going to issue one of his edicts, isn't he? "You shall use Xitter to break news! Anyone using BlueSky to break news will be immediately banned!"
This is definitely NOT true. Unless you mean the far left echo chamber in America will thrive here, then yeah. But that's not a good thing. People on the left will still use X for nothing else than to find something to be mad about. The right just finds this site boring and will taper off.
Lol journalism is still obsessed with twitter and reporting on anything twitter related. The right time for journalists to have left twitter was when other journalists got suspended for reporting facts on twitter.
The second best time was probably when they saw accounts being reinstated that had previously been suspended. The third best time was maybe when they removed verification. I guess we are probably at the 1000th best time by now but hey I'm sure sometime soon will be the right time for them.
Oh and there was that time he throttled access to news sites and they all reported on it by posting on twitter.
Also of course many news sites still push traffic to that platform with embedded share buttons, posts and profile links embedded on their sites too. Lol.
Eventually it'll be cartoonishly obvious but it's certainly X is on it's way there. Bots bickering with bots because there are so few meat targets left.
The last thing I want is to have Trump's Fox News pollute this space with their State News fascist garbage trying to convince the rest of us that authoritarianism is good and Trump is the best dictator of them all even better than Putin.
Well, visibility here is behind reposts and if my friends aren't very eager to repost Fox News, I wouldn't be seeing it anyway. The beauty here is that Elon can't stuff that crap down our throats at all. I think it's going to be just fine, at least I have reason to hope so!
Facebook and Twitter both reduce the effectiveness of posts with links in them. Posts with links in them were shown to less people. Bluesky does not do this!
If this means anything - l I clicked on the link because I have as much trust in you as I can any stranger on the internet and wanted to see your content. I'm terrified to click on anything on Twitter.
Stop trying to turn this site into the last one. Nobody wants fucking journalism over here, nobody wants debate over here, people just want some peace and quiet but you cunts keep insisting on fucking breaking it with your career ambitions and other assorted fucking nonsenses.
I want journalism here. I want science here. I dont mind debating if it is smart and respectful. I think keeping people informed, educated and open minded is the only way to fight disinformation, hatred and attacks against our democracies.
Social media is literally the death of "our democracies". This place was nice a year ago but it's already turned back into 2018 twitter thanks to the assorted scum that followed all the journalists across here. Now I'm seeing bigotry every fucking day on here.
i am genuinly hoping this app creates a massive space for indepedent journalists. Id love nothing more than for news stations like fox and cnn, msnbc, etc to be a thing of the past. billionaires shouldnt be creating and controlling the narrative anymore
You can create and share a feed on BS of keywords or posters you follow and share it with others. You could create it from BS accounts of Independent journalists, you essentially create the feed 'space' and share it.
Look forward to seeing the stats @edzitron.com . The algo here definitely seems like it doesn’t mind external links in posts, as opposed to the “wait til the first comment” nonsense other platforms encourage
Don't forget to remind your fellow journalists that account verification on Bluesky is easy and FREE! They can use their professional domain, or their own personal domain!
Just find some sources you like and follow them and you will quickly find more. Most countries probably have their own hashtags now. For me it's #speirgorm #IrishBluesky The Irish election coverage was great on Bluesky #GE24.
I followed you after you were a guest on Adam Conover's podcast, completely forgot that I had* because I was just never served your posts, and now I'm consistently able to see yours and other journalist's posts even with me following 4x the amount of people on here.
“A new feed”? News feed that is that is shown in the @bsky.app feed section is very general and high-level with an assortment of topics. It’s not clear how that would’ve gotten to all the South Korea detail that people were saying they found. On the other site, we would’ve followed a hashtag. #help
Yeah, new account here and got connected in a hurry. Search "South Korea" then follow the non-garbage posts to isolate the good stuff. Several users offered Korean "starter packs" that helped to further eliminate dross.
It's not what I want. It's what needs to happen. Actually, people are watching local and national news at same low levels. Journalists need to work to connect with people at their level, in their own communities, not just be talking heads or posting pundits--young journalists fanning out across US.
Perhaps part of it is the role of journalism in US society.
In the early days of broadcast the licence insisted they supply quality news at regular intervals. There was no profit required from that service. So they had the evening news. It was paid for by other programs.
Now that “news” has to pay for itself, it has to be entertaining, sticky, attractive.
The quality motive is gone and the profit motive replaced it.
They don’t care about quality
Also, most if not all “local” news is owned by national and intnl. conglomerates pressing their agendas.
My point is, it’s not the journalists. It’s the news corporations who call the shots. Which is why I say that if you want local news like what you describe it’s up to you to find them and follow and support them. Don’t blame the journos for the corporations actions.
haha, they couldn't drive one before he went far right because electric cars were seen as a liberal thing. but now they'll drive them to show they're far right. my, how things have changed 😵💫
I hope you are right. The American people need an unbiased, neutral approach that is fact based and fact checked (mercilessly), above all else. Truth matters now more than ever.
Same with the Syrian information. I’ve been following that as well and it’s far better than Twitter for accuracy (Twitter was posting up straight up bullshit, never happened trash).
by using Google, for god´s sake
there are 180 000 various StarterPack contact lists
-not only persons from a country,but only scientists or only policemen,politicians,journalists
have you noticed there is search Field in this website?
So as in all other, and also in Google https://blueskydirectory.com/
There are 180 000 Starterpacks from various fields of interest,countries,politicians,scientists and so on
I liked when the editor of the verge was getting blasted at a bar and had to rush to the parliament building at 1130pm to give coverage on what was happening. Actual journalism.
Not even two minutes ago I read someone (on another social media) decry Bluesky as a "woke safe space" run by government money that Elon should buy to destroy.
Elon can try to buy Bluesky if he has some extra money to spare. But there is one minor detail. Bluesky is an open decentralized platform that can be run from anywhere. Good luck trying to destroy it. 🙂
Comments
I'm not so sure about this platform.
Yesterday, after rejecting Elon Musk's attempt to follow me, all of my followers mysteriously disappeared, so way fewer people 'see' me.
That's what he was doing at Twitter.
Could Blue Sky be a Trojan Horse?
(asking for a friend)
Admin won't respond.
https://bsky.app/profile/nomadswandering.bsky.social/post/3lci7vaa3222i
It is about controlling the dialog, you know, censor what you don't want to hear.
twitter was all lies and disinformation that was amplified by broadcast networks. The 2024 election cycle was all news bullshit.
https://atproto.com/
https://docs.bsky.app/
https://github.com/bluesky-social
As a developer-flavored person, this place is an absolute playground in the best way possible. It's particularly unique in how much personal defense you can do, as well.
Thank you so much! 👍🙏
Would be nice if BSky algorithm could determine pay wall links and notify you like they do muted words.
It's akin to a pop up toll booth. Annoying and time wasting.
"Views" figures are wholly made up. And the blue checks who are getting paid for engagement aren't meeting any metrics. Leon is just disbursing cash as he feels like it
Just let me see what the people I want to see posted from latest to oldest.
(Probably not as many as you thought...)
- 10 accounts
- 5 created in Sept or Oct 2024
- 2 dormant porn bots
- 2 locked accounts, low followers
- 1 actual account that posted this year.
Maybe an outlier but…
It's not a thing that Twitter wants you to think though.
It's hard to sell ads to dead bots.
[narrator shouting]: “where’s your ed at???”
[ed zitron pops on screen]: “bluesky!”
Social v2.0 (Bluesky & AT Protocol) is much needed and hopefully will be extremely disruptive to current dominate players in the social marketplace.
The only way to win is to not play, and here you are so welcome to the losers table. Hope you enjoy your time with us
I won't say i am a fullstack developer wiz kid, but unless we either use the honor system of just don't use these apps, there's always some risk.
Im sure people far smarter than me have been also brain storming too, but for now this is our best option.
What's been your experience with engagement there compared to Twitter?
And it's not just annoying because it can harm mental health and spread dangerous ideas. We need better content moderation and user tools to create safer online spaces.
I mean I like #CatPictures as much as the next guy but seriously...
Blocks tally against these accounts and allow some of us to score them to create automated blocklists.
This is the same way we deal with email spam. You see some, you flag it. You don't see it all because other people flag too.
X
Checking out your work now, feel free to follow if you like mine.
Never thought I’d see such a rise in independent journalism, but I’m here for it!
Bring it on! All my favorite people are ready to take the First Amendment for a test-drive!
Also, there's another wave coming in January.
X has about 250 million users / day and about 600 million members.
"A drop in the bucket" ?
is it not ....
47 followers here vs 6 k twitter
you tube told me here did 10x the views vs twitter
now think i had 127 times more followers at twitter
this means 1270 times better
3 months later 335% more watch time
These products and services…
despite Elon Musk's skills as an "entrepreneur," he didn't understand 20 engineers could produce a more robust Twitter clone and give everyone a way to escape from him
Must have been late 2023 or early 2024 when I started seeing your work.
I have muscle memory button mis-taps. 🫠
https://bsky.app/search?q=whats+hot
https://github.com/bluesky-social/atproto/discussions/2000
I just copy the link to the post and put it in a Google Keep note. There are extensions for browsers, I haven't tested any.
Feeds designed by users are where this is going
instead I follow journalists directly. any big story will show up regardless, and journalists will link their own stories directly and without bs headlines
Kill the billionaire in your mind, the people will make the tools, just get settled in and the development will come
they should be blocked like any other engagement farmer imo
I completely agree with you, and would recommend it to anyone.
The more general “Trending/US” tab was kinda awful and really depressing, tbh.
I hope the migration here becomes total and complete very soon.
My Westie, Miss Lady, a retired show dog, adopted at 9, lived to 20; I met her daddy, Chalkie, when he was 22; he visited my home and met my cats. Had hoped to get a pic of the two of them. He lived to 25. They came from Brigadoon Kennels in New Brunswick, Canada.
Back then I wasn't willing to pay for it, because I wasn't aware of how badly a new owner could wreck it.
After he took over, I would have paid to roll back the changes.
Now I will ABSOLUTELY subscribe to support 🦋.
I liked the OsInt side & interacting with world-renowned experts.
It was extremely important as a pro-democracy tool.
In-depth journalism doesn't really cover any of that.
Dare you to say something nice.
Don't go alone
😜
(I quit the day he bought Xitter... so I'm not sure how I could be banned, either! But I'm sure he'd try.)
we choose people for sure.
it made me really question how much folks cared about their work being perceived as true or real
Also of course many news sites still push traffic to that platform with embedded share buttons, posts and profile links embedded on their sites too. Lol.
And I'll start thinking about buying the popular theory that Twitter is a real world example of the Dead Internet theory
https://bsky.app/profile/skyemorley.bsky.social/post/3lchzh2nzu222
Facebook and Twitter both reduce the effectiveness of posts with links in them. Posts with links in them were shown to less people. Bluesky does not do this!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4ghgVq9z4M
But welcome, happy to have y'all.
https://bsky.app/profile/norskygirlsky.bsky.social/post/3lc72knhxoc2o
He took it so well
Not difficult at all.
Might I suggest you approach your local journalists directly on social media if you want that local connection.
In the early days of broadcast the licence insisted they supply quality news at regular intervals. There was no profit required from that service. So they had the evening news. It was paid for by other programs.
The quality motive is gone and the profit motive replaced it.
They don’t care about quality
Also, most if not all “local” news is owned by national and intnl. conglomerates pressing their agendas.
I remember when people listened to the radio
It's still there but it's in demographic freefall & is pretty much a vestigial organ at this point, that's mass media's horizon line
people want someone they trust
there are 180 000 various StarterPack contact lists
-not only persons from a country,but only scientists or only policemen,politicians,journalists
https://blueskydirectory.com/
So as in all other, and also in Google
https://blueskydirectory.com/
There are 180 000 Starterpacks from various fields of interest,countries,politicians,scientists and so on