Hard to describe as a journalist how grateful I am to have a text-based app that does not suppress hyperlinks. I don’t know if people realize exactly how hostile the corporate internet has gotten toward news.
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Having the skeet automatically embed links when they're pasted in, and then letting you delete the text to free up characters for writing, is really nice too. 😄
As an author, it's incredible. Back on Twitter, I could *tell* people about a new book or a new chapter, but if I tried to link it, the tweets would get buried.
And those books pay my rent, so it kinda really sucked.
We’re down to nonprofit news, some good small for-profits here in Oregon, and the major networks are now all butt kissing big money like never before. Hyperlink away, we need real verified, edited news by ethical, professional reporters, real bad, right now.
Yeah, nobody realises this. That's why circulation and sales are up and the only people dissatisfied with traditional media are trolls and bots. That's why your insights and experience are so valuable
Corpora internet also trained people not to use hyperlinks even when they are available. It’s maddening to get screenshots or copy/pasted stuff and I have to go hunt down the thing the messenger already had!
I'm hoping it does. I'm extremely excited that the journalists and news nerds I've been following for years at this point are at least starting to move over here in earnest.
People have to definitely interact and not expect to just post once a day or lurk. There's nothing to push content towards users for any reason. Once something is gone, it's less likely to resurface if there's not much interaction.
Honestly, even Reddit is a minefield of chaotic toxicity and stuff that's just not great for your mental health. This feels like the last bastion of a nice place to be online.
"Even Reddit? The thing was hosting "upskirts" subs and ones devoted to underage girls like 15 years ago. I know there are lots of fine subs, and I guess that's what you mean, but Reddit as a whole was a sewer from the get-go.
A lot of people hate some changes in the last few years w/ UI usability issues I agree with, but I love the crack down on sicko weirdo creepy awful and gore / violence, etc. It's a LOT better, and curating proper subs there's happy and cute stuff.
i like reddit but it has made systemic changes over the last ~2 years that make it hard to find links to articles there imo. is mostly promoting images, made design changes to discourage clicking through, and its newish front page algo is quite bad
Yes we as a nation have lost our appreciation for expertise. True journalism has been rotted by all of the talking head panels, pundits and political yakkers.
Can you weigh in on Canada's laws surrounding this? I'm very split between it *feeling* pro news, and how it functions in practice. Have you or any canadian journalists noticed this with Facebook, etc?
Not just news - humanity. And I’m not trying to be hyperbolic. Walled gardens, lock-in, appropriation of data for training, disinformation and misinformation, hostility to journalism is just part of that whole corporatist nexus.
I don't know if this is related, but am frustrated at postings on Threads that have some breathless announcement about something... but fail to provide who, what, where, when, or god forbid, why.
When I ask for details, I'm told to google it. It would be so easy to link to a source, but... no.
100% and small businesses too. I can share links to buy my art without having to worry about it being tossed into the trash. People can finally see everyone's posts and be able to decide to interact with it. Wild. x'D
you know what's nice about this site? not having it suddenly break in really evil ways where you end up seeing porn and people fist fighting one another, it's novel having a working social site really.
I hate that this link-suppression nonsense has come to LinkedIn now. They looked at Twitter and Facebook and really said “yes, nice healthy environments, we should do some of that here”.
Or what it means to small business owners, blog writers, and tech educators (like me). So many people, including the people who want to follow the conversation to the other destination. It was never a user centric policy.
So much better than “here’s the article I spent days writing and researching, let me vaguely talk about it and hope you go to my bio, find the link to the website, click through, search, and find the right article”
When news becomes the enemy, the next step feels like the lights. First our ears, next our eyes. If that hasn't already been done enough yet since news is now an eyes/ears medium. Scary times
I hope it thrives--and lasts. I have a section in my forthcoming media literacy graphic novel on how blogs and social media transformed corporate journalism for the better, briefly...
...until tech owners structurally destroyed the digital commons for $. (Cory Doctorow calls it "enshittification.")
Attacks on the press is one of the early stages of an autocracy. It doesn’t help that a lot of the news magnets are far right extremists now. I don’t even trust CNN anymore. politicians used to be called out for their lies and coverups. Remember Nixon? Now lies are news.
It's not just news, it's about keeping you on the platform as much as possible. It's why a lot of live service games have a lot of monotony in them, it's about keeping users active to driver numbers higher to make it look like it's a healthy platform when investors start asking questions.
As a career technologist that has spent over 2 decades supporting business journalism rags, I feel nearly uniquely qualified to say that most Americans don't know, but more sadly, don't care. 😕
I think my main thing is posting links to relevant articles I've read when an interesting topic comes up. Like, I suck at posting clever quips but my memory for articles is pretty dang amazing.
This is great—so the people with poor memory for articles can add the quips, and then it’s a fair exchange of skilled labour. A “quip pro quo”, you might say.
+1 on "text-based." Instagram with its image-first default is so hard for me! I mean, I can post photos of my sourdough bread, but for real things....I need WORDS!
Same as a political scientist. It allows… providing evidence for claims, which is a good thing. Threads seems made (accidentally) to make sure the lowest-quality information gets around the fastest.
I'll be watching/reading.. seems like a worthwhile endeavor.. I have literally not watched ANY msm in Canada or US since the election.. just a bit angry😣.. I go to trusted news sites however it seems like a lot of important issues never see the light of day beyond sm..
and history too. youtube have taken amny videos down with historic events. example robert f kennedy´s speech to john when he was buried. but also many more .
someone is reporting it so YT takes it down.
my guess is russia or MAGA.
either way its bad for this world to erase history & news
There has been a noticeable increase in engagement when posting local news stories on Bluesky compared to X. Even with its supposedly larger user base. The difference is obvious.
Agreed. The despicable thing is that downrating posts with links reduces the chance people will fact check the statement made about the source, and the places that do it know it. They're just promoting rage-bait takes and will penalize them for citing their source.
a survey on social networks showed that most people only scroll 3 posts down on anyones profile.
i see this probably dont apply so much to bluesky as it did not exist while the survey was made. it was aminly directed at twitter and facebook at the time.
but here i do see ppl scroll. im glad 4 that
Honestly I do it so much more than I use to on Twitter. Apart of the obvious blue check rendering comments useless, it was pretty hard to follow discusssions in the comments.
So long as they're a journalist that only tells the truth with extensive research behind it, doesn't fear monger or gaslight viewers like the main news medias did all election, current and past ones, I welcome them. And no pay walls or super intrusive ads blocking us from viewing the full article
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And those books pay my rent, so it kinda really sucked.
except AI generated garbage.
Yet I'm thrilled, especially after 11/06, to learn of Bluesky's existence! Especially now. Much like a tonic.
Slightly akin to absinthe 🧚
Yet even MORE akin to empowerment.
But they did clean up the sewer part pretty well.
yes... there are dark and bad places. Not as bad as it was, but triggers all over, etc. curating wildly important.
😉
When I ask for details, I'm told to google it. It would be so easy to link to a source, but... no.
...until tech owners structurally destroyed the digital commons for $. (Cory Doctorow calls it "enshittification.")
/s
And I for one, appreciate every journalist who risks more than we know to keep us informed. 💕
Would love to see us all demand real journalism again instead of this pundit and opinion driven hellscape that exists in our media world these days.
Bluesky is great. But Forth is a project by journalists to be a newsfeed just for news. Everyone posting is a journalist, though anyone can read.
https://www.forth.news
We partner with journalists working for all different kinds of outlets, and some freelance/independent. They cover all sorts of topics.
and history too. youtube have taken amny videos down with historic events. example robert f kennedy´s speech to john when he was buried. but also many more .
someone is reporting it so YT takes it down.
my guess is russia or MAGA.
either way its bad for this world to erase history & news
i see this probably dont apply so much to bluesky as it did not exist while the survey was made. it was aminly directed at twitter and facebook at the time.
but here i do see ppl scroll. im glad 4 that
which stopped me sometimes from getting a message out because ppl kept asking the same things.
i dont see that happening so much here on bluesky.
thank you all for that.
The thread functionality here is so good for that