Bottom line: This analysis confirms for me that Bluesky is a more reliable platform for seeing the content you want, especially on climate topics. Its lack of algorithm means that engagement here depends on YOU! What’s it been like for you on these platforms? Does ⬆️ track with your experience? - ThreadSky

katharinehayhoe.com • 47 days ago

Bottom line: This analysis confirms for me that Bluesky is a more reliable platform for seeing the content you want, especially on climate topics. Its lack of algorithm means that engagement here depends on YOU!

What’s it been like for you on these platforms? Does ⬆️ track with your experience?

Comments

scowlingmonkey.bsky.social•46 days ago

From a very anecdotal POV, my FB educational posts on climate get almost no engagement. I post a pic of my dog being cute - tons of likes and comments.

Maybe this ties in with your analysis, but maybe folk who follow me are more interested in my dog. She is cuter than climate disruption after all.

bazcity.bsky.social•45 days ago

This is very helpful and insightful. Thank you!

doctorscience.bsky.social•47 days ago

Have you tried posting on Tumblr? @sarahmackattack.bsky.social has found MUCH higher engagement/follower there, really boggling--tho it's true that tumblr loves taking polls. But also ... higher %age humans.
https://bsky.app/profile/sarahmackattack.bsky.social/post/3leubit4azk2y

katharinehayhoe.com•47 days ago

that's very cool! No, I have not tried Tumblr at all. I will consider it.

laughingcricket.bsky.social•47 days ago

I left all meta platforms a while back. After they announced they would push reels, It seemed like they were suppressing art of all sorts, even those of us who were using reels.

I get way more natural engagement here.

kiricopper.bsky.social•47 days ago

Yes. On Threads, I got really tired of NOT seeing the people I follow.

I moved to Bluesky and am much happier. I don't have all day to sort through a crap-filled feed.

ackydommit.bsky.social•44 days ago

Agree with your description. It’s also had a positive effect on my mood and temper because you can have a civilised debate here without any shouting or abuse.

loneskum123.bsky.social•47 days ago

I seldom if ever saw any posts from you on X or FB, in spite of following you and other climate scientists. Much easier to see what I want hear on Bluesky.

empathysurplus.bsky.social•46 days ago

Yes. We’re a 501c3 member collective. We teach each other to apply science based communication of @georgelakoff.bsky.social with a mission to make empathy central to constant public discourse on human rights. Both Threads and Facebook won’t allow our branded shortened links like

empathysurplus.bsky.social•46 days ago

https://proempathy.us/care or https://proempathy.us/join, etc., saying they violate community standards. Nor will they allow any boosted posts with the words #HumanRights. It’s been going on for several years.

annejefferson.bsky.social•47 days ago

Not on Threads, but I never see your posts on Facebook. On LI, I see them fairly regularly. Here I'm not on much and follow a lot of folks, so I may be missing them. But glad to have them not be down-weighted, because your comms are amazing and engaging.

katharinehayhoe.com•47 days ago

Thank you! I have heard from many people that they never see my Facebook posts anymore. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that my account has been shadow banned. Glad you are here – I still remember the bonne maman advent calendar with joy.

renaissancedreamer.bsky.social•47 days ago

Does it all seem like technology misogyny? Social media company run by some man telling us all what we should or should not be engaging with? It’s like no no no noooo you don’t want to read THAT! And then everything you’d really prefer to read is then “culled”. Google isn’t even reliable anymore.

nancyrichmond.bsky.social•47 days ago

Interesting. Thanks for sharing.

blooming-burbs.bsky.social•47 days ago

It seems like the starter packs would have had quite a large impact on your follower numbers. I don't know one thing about Threads but assuming there are no starter packs?

katharinehayhoe.com•47 days ago

No, and there are no lists there either. However, Bluesky and Threads were neck in neck through the beginning of November.

atthenius.bsky.social•47 days ago

At the moment, I get about a dozen nsfw follows per day and maybe5-10 legit ones.

Engagement here is on par w mastodon

katharinehayhoe.com•47 days ago

here's an analysis that includes Mastodon!

and yes: the bots have been flooding Bluesky this last week. The admin are aware of it and apparently working on it.

I hope they get a fix soon. I've subscribed to a few block lists already to get rid of a few categories of bot.

https://bsky.app/profile/katharinehayhoe.com/post/3lf46vtqalk2e

janousekwild.bsky.social•47 days ago

Thanks for doing this careful comparison! I have little of value to add, except to complain that Meta seems to ruin most of their platforms.

eltompkins.bsky.social•46 days ago

After Twitter became awful, I tried threads but lack of decent search& sort function was annoying. Facebook - i stopped using in 2018 when someone in China took over my a/c. Bluesky has been great -like a lovely marriage after 20 years… works well, everyone is happy and respectful, just works well!

debwing.bsky.social•7 days ago

The timing of these changes is interesting. If cats, holidays etc showed the same trend, I wonder if it was at least partly influenced by the migration of about 20million users to Bluesky after the US election? People who, stereotypically, might be more likely to engage with you? Very interesting!!!

antonios57.bsky.social•39 days ago

Social media companies should be pressed to make their algorithms transparent.

nifjnick.bsky.social•47 days ago

Anecdotally, a journal I work in admin for (environmental focus) is trying to find a better place than X for engagement, we’re getting more traffic on LinkedIn than anywhere else, but I think this is professional in nature rather than with the public

nifjnick.bsky.social•47 days ago

Does the proliferation of platforms means that you will develop (and curate) a checklist of places you need/want to share content to maximise the impact of your message, when you’d probably rather spend that time doing something else?

gretchenmiller.bsky.social•47 days ago

This is great to know. It certainly feels more engaging here. But I don't have your profile, just an observation. Can't be bothered with Threads - I mean seems no point having another Meta social media platform - just why?!

gregmotter.bsky.social•47 days ago

How did you account for Bluesky gaining critical mass and certain people just leaving Threads causing those same posts to just get less natural engagement from those who were around in October?

katharinehayhoe.com•47 days ago

I imagine you could do so by including stats on overall number of active users on each platform during each month. I didn't go that far - I was done after calculating the p-values of the trends 😅

Source: https://techcrunch.com/2024/11/19/bluesky-tops-20m-users-narrowing-gap-with-instagram-threads/

timlagor.bsky.social•47 days ago

I hadn't realised BSky dropped back below 1M.

heathryan16.bsky.social•47 days ago

Bottom bottom line: there are a lot of powerful forces who want to keep burning fossil fuels at any cost for their profit and power.

Keep posting and fighting for change.

sailebed.bsky.social•47 days ago

It's night & day. I think a lot of it has to do w/ the ability to personalize the app to focus on what I like as opposed to being forced to rely on an algorithm to do the heavy lifting. I can follow & interact with a wide variety of topics & people that I wouldn't have even seen on other platforms.

mojala.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy•46 days ago

@katharinehayhoe.com And for how long will Bsky keep on? A year? After they they enshittify, what then?

hwright.bsky.social•47 days ago

Thanks for this analysis! Having just returned from maternity leave, I am delighted to suddenly see all the new climate conversations on BlueSky... definitely seems like the place to be for climate topics. I'm looking forward to taking part!

katharinehayhoe.com•47 days ago

I'm so glad! Please do check out my starter packs (I have 18 of them on various climate-related topics) and be sure to pin the giant feed of scientists who do climate, now at 4400 members!

hwright.bsky.social•47 days ago

Amazing thank you! Seeing lots of familiar names there! Also I was surprised to have followers on here already, must mean there are lots of former contacts who moved from the other place after it became less active! :-)

charleyinma.bsky.social•47 days ago

Welcome back!

boatie.bsky.social•47 days ago

Great thread, thanks. I suspected as much but didn’t have the brains to prove it. Threads froze my account after I posted a bunch of climate related links with my own (harsh) commentary.

statstas.datascience.blue•47 days ago

Submit to AAPOR’s POQ journal as a Research brief.

katharinehayhoe.com•47 days ago

Really? I’m not familiar with that.

statstas.datascience.blue•47 days ago

Social science measurement, basically. Fair amount of social media although mostly with the political topics. Full disclosure, I am an AE, so want good papers in it :)

notyoursacredcow.bsky.social•41 days ago

Yes. Oh yessssss! And oh what a lovely brain you have. Thank you for sharing your cleverness with us. Explains so clearly what I've been experiencing. Being here is an infinitely more satisfying experience!

aussiastronomer.bsky.social•47 days ago

Thank you so much for all this hard data, Katharine! I'm giving a talk to early-career scientists this weekend about social media use - do you mean if I include some of your plots, with attribution? I think it's such useful information and so visually clear.

katharinehayhoe.com•47 days ago

absolutely! I'd be delighted.

Did you see this one too?

https://bsky.app/profile/katharinehayhoe.com/post/3lf46mu5o622p

aussiastronomer.bsky.social•47 days ago

Yes! Thank you - I think I started on that thread and then ended up on this thread. 😂

robmetters.bsky.social•47 days ago

Excellent. Somehow a “ cozier” platform. I am getting much more interaction from users than X . Almost never return to X .

markvmd.bsky.social•47 days ago

I see your posts more than I did over at that other place. N of one data set

jonathanblackmore.bsky.social•47 days ago

Facebook is constantly pushing nationalist, racist, denialist propaganda. Instagram is torturing creators, making them jump through hoops for any engagement & stealing their work for AI. Threads is an attempt to pollute the fediverse to counter Mastodon and compete with X. I am dumping Meta ASAP.

streamhugger.bsky.social•47 days ago

(1) I'm so glad that I found you here on Bluesky, Katharine. I quit the cesspool known as X about a year and a half ago. I gave up on X because of who bought it and because it was increasingly a conduit for sewage.

streamhugger.bsky.social•47 days ago

(2) I was using Threads for a couple of months in mid-2024, only because Instagram was trying really hard to get people to cross over from Instagram into Threads. But I started to get suspicious of some of the content.

streamhugger.bsky.social•47 days ago

(3) It felt like there was an inordinate amount of women on Threads saying that they feel ugly and please give me likes if you think I'm attractive. And these were not unattractive women. They were average too good looking women who are simply trying to look sad for the camera, IMO.

streamhugger.bsky.social•47 days ago

(4) I get enough spam from women wanting me to check out their Only Fans accounts. I don't want another social media platform for them to bug me. And for the record, I'm married & in my 60s. So I'm not looking for solicitations of amateur porn. I'm looking for political memes and climate science.

streamhugger.bsky.social•47 days ago

(5) I still use Facebook and Instagram. Instagram is mostly for entertainment, and I post political stuff and personal stuff on Facebook. I'm really enjoying Bluesky for the mostly respectful political discourse, and because I haven't encountered too many right-wing zealots. Never going back to X. 🌊

krystyntully.com•29 days ago

This a super interesting analysis. Thank you! One other / complementary explanation for the drop might be: social media companies have a practice of over-amplifying topics or influencers early to get them engaged with the platform. Then they chase that success, not realizing it was artificial.

krystyntully.com•29 days ago

There was a good article that I cannot find about how Tik Tok did this to lure influencers away from YouTube, then their popularity (and income) cratered with the whims of the algorithm.

Between the manipulation model and under-disseminating environmental/ equity posts, Threads is a waste of time.

pineapple-king.bsky.social•47 days ago

As an information freedom advocate, I am horrified by your findings. Thank you for sharing this!
Now I feel blessed, being able to find your posts here

scott-matthew.bsky.social•46 days ago

On Facebook, I've noticed the first comment shown under any climate science post is the most preposterous, most blatantly anti-science comment, because it gathers lots of responses to it, as well-intentioned folks try to correct the error. Facebook prioritizes falsehood for profit.

scott-matthew.bsky.social•46 days ago

I've also noticed climate science there is now absolutely flooded with negative comments, surely many of them bots - and this especially after they announced they were going to use AI to stir the pot.

Whereas on BlueSky, I can actually learn true facts.

h-christopher.bsky.social•47 days ago

Impressive and enlightening work, @katharinehayhoe.com! Thank you 💙

gregorrussell.bsky.social•13 days ago

Thanks for this Katharine- remarkable work, should be seen more widely- indeed, this sort of thing should be on school curricula, to equip people with the understanding that what they see through their window into the world is being chosen for them, and to understand the implications of that.

sustainable2050.bsky.social•47 days ago

For me, engagement on Bluesky is a lot higher than on Twitter now. Interestingly, engagement on Mastodon is even higher. A striking difference is the ratio of Boosts/Favorites there (typically 4:1) compared to Bluesksy (rather 1:4, as Twitter has these days): more sharing, less keeping to yourself.

skybrina.org•47 days ago

I wonder if the lower number of boosts on Bluesky is related to its lack of a way to hide boosts on a per-user basis? I know I rethink boosting more here because of that - don’t want to spam my followers.

malthusjohn.bsky.social•46 days ago

There is a post only (no reposts, or comments) feed here, if that's what you mean by hiding re-shares.

skybrina.org•46 days ago

Yes (Only Posts), but among other things that hides all boosts not just ones from particular users. Some sites (Mastodon, I think Twitter might too) let you turn it off by user. So you could follow Jane, Jack and John and only turn off John’s boosts.

malthusjohn.bsky.social•46 days ago

Ok, yeah I think you might be able to use lists for that, but it's not as convenient.

I never have used platform algos to provide my content, I always use topic driven, lists, searches, etc.

Here, someone will make such a feed to subscribe to soon, I'm sure.

katharinehayhoe.com•47 days ago

hold your horses that analysis is coming right up next! here's a sneak peek

johnhatchard.bsky.social•47 days ago

The internet is worse than a brainwashing machine ...

bruce.grembowski.com•39 days ago

I stopped using Threads and Mastodon. Mastodon required too much effort to follow people, and Threads is just an extension of Meta.

I am finding a lot of new accounts following me lately, even though I'm a nobody. A lot of these accounts are suspect; most have no posts.

genericrussell.bsky.social•47 days ago

I had to leave Twitter when Leion bought it.
I tried Masterdon and didn't understand it.
Bookface is like junk mail.
Instagram and threads are equally intrusive.
Bluesky seems nice, but the young women who follow me and wanting to know how I'm going is annoying.

drewkeychange.bsky.social•43 days ago

I agree ...but a one click block button would be a big help.

katharinehayhoe.com•43 days ago

That exists! Check out some of the very helpful replies here. I subscribed to three of the recommended lists and it’s made a big difference

https://bsky.app/profile/katharinehayhoe.com/post/3leyyp4bpn22s

martinjhodson.bsky.social•47 days ago

Yes, it does! I used to run the JRI Facebook and Twitter accounts, and used to get lots of engagement. On Facebook we used promoted posts. Just a few pounds got lots of people. But then climate change and environment became a political issue (in the States!!) and they stopped us. Never the same...

drwhos.bsky.social•47 days ago

QED

farmsy.bsky.social•47 days ago

Very impressive.

merrypickle.bsky.social•47 days ago

Nicely played. Data outweighs anecdotal evidence but my experience is that Bluesky gives me the information I want to see but none of the Meta sources, let alone ex-Twitter, do.
Glad to see you here.

jardinera.bsky.social•47 days ago

Never found much use for threads… it’s good to find you here.

erikhoffner.bsky.social•46 days ago

Interesting! Tracks closely with my experience, Threads appeared to be a waste of time from the start so I focused here and it’s been great—now with Meta’s moderation changes coming, it’s going to be even better here

harrietrycroft.bsky.social•45 days ago

Yes Threads was never more than The School of Clickbait.

not2b.sfba.social.ap.brid.gy•46 days ago

@katharinehayhoe.com Bluesky looks good right now, but I'm not sure that it's sustainable. The issue is that at some point, they have to make money. Currently there are no ads or paid services, meaning that they are losing money to grow the platform. Perhaps they can find a way to address this […]

wearamask5.bsky.social•46 days ago

Honestly I‘d be happy to pay for a service that is transparent and lets me have full control over what I see.

katharinehayhoe.com•46 days ago

I’ve been wondering about exactly that

ckbhope.bsky.social•46 days ago

I “followed all” from a couple of your Starter Packs and thought it was very helpful until some of those folks did tons of reposts without building on context and some of that content I didn’t particularly want. So, I’ll need to tend to that.

cheesebiscuits.bsky.social•47 days ago

I have more threads followers than I do here. I get more engagement there but I suspect the algorithm doesn’t downrank my account specifically so I get some traction with “political” posts.

twothenumbertoo.bsky.social•47 days ago

The lack of algorithm on bluesky also means people who see your posts largely see them because they want to, which would also boost engagement % id think.

lauridonahue.bsky.social•47 days ago

I was never on Threads much, but Bluesky is infinitely better than TwiX (where I pretty much stopped posting after Election Day), Instagram, or Facebook in terms of both growth and engagement.

Also, it's so nice not to be forced to scroll past garbage ads/content.

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