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461 points GavinAnderegg | 12 comments | | HN request time: 0.825s | source | bottom
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PaulHoule ◴[] No.42151244[source]
My take is that Bluesky is a nicer place than Mastodon.

Personally I think politics are terrible on microblogging platforms for the reason that you can't say very much in 140 characters or even 1400 characters.

A common kind of profile on that kind of platform is: "There are good people and bad people and I'm one of the good people"

It is very easy to other people and share memes that build group cohesion while driving other people away. Really making progress requires in politics a lot of "I agree with you about 90% but there is 10% that I don't" or "Well, I negotiated something in the backroom that you'd really hate but headed off a situation you would have thought was catastrophic but you won't appreciate that I did it so you and I are both better off if I don't tell you" and other sorts of nuance, you don't want to see how the sausage is made, etc.

To stand Mastodon (where you would have thought fascists were taking over the world a year ago if you believed what you read) I have to have about 20 or so block rules.

I see some people with the same kind of profiles on Bluesky but see a lot less othering in my feed because the "Discover" feed on Bluesky filters out a lot of angry content. My rough estimate is that it removes about 75% of the divisive political junk. That

(1) Immediately improves my feed, but also

(2) Reduces the amount of re-posted angry political content (it's like adding some boron to the coolant in a nuclear reactor) and

(3) Since angry political memes don't work anymore people find a different game to play

My guess is the X-odus folks are less agreeable than average for the same reason why people who "left California" to go to Colorado or someplace else are less agreeable. Those who go are less agreeable than those who stay. On the other hand, a certain amount of suppression of negativity could stop it from spreading and might not even be noticed as "censorship".

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ASalazarMX ◴[] No.42151611[source]
The most crucial decision when joining Mastodon is choosing the most friendly instance. I have a strong interest in interacting with cybersecurity professionals, so infosec.exchange was perfect for me, either browsing subscribed or local posts. Browsing all is something I do only when I'm bored, because many posts are not what I'd like to see. You can always migrate your account if you want.

https://instances.social/

That being said, BlueSky is simpler and easier because there's no real federation yet, and even if they have a "Discovery" algorithm, you get many options to control what you want to see. It's feels great, like Twitter before their 2012(ish?) IPO.

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1. Terr_ ◴[] No.42151706[source]
> The most crucial decision when joining Mastodon is choosing the most friendly instance.

I was very disappointed to find out that whatever instance you choose can essentially hold your identity and content hostage.

I'd been hoping for something where my identity comes from a private key that I could take elsewhere.

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2. hugs ◴[] No.42152404[source]
"something where my identity comes from a private key that I could take elsewhere" is a literal technical description of how Nostr works. Relays/servers are basically dumb pipes. You own your data and can repost to different relays (and encouraged to do so.) Problem is if your key is lost or stolen, you're kinda screwed.
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3. Terr_ ◴[] No.42152421[source]
I looked into running my own instance, but.... It was non-trivial.
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4. jghn ◴[] No.42152492[source]
But not really. I only ever want to see people I follow in my feed. And I can follow people from wherever, not just my instance. So the decision of what instance I chose was inconsequential.
5. hugs ◴[] No.42152591{3}[source]
Yeah, self-hosting the whole stack can be a lot (like Mastodon). I only signed up via the Primal mobile app and left it at that. Private key stays local.
6. ASalazarMX ◴[] No.42152621[source]
Mastodon allows you move instances with minimal effort. You can redirect your old profile to the new one in another instance, or permanently move it keeping your follows and followers.

No one there wants to hold your information hostage, you can always export it, and while it doesn't support importing, you can repost it through their API if you really want to.

https://docs.joinmastodon.org/user/moving/

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7. ASalazarMX ◴[] No.42152797[source]
Except Nostr is mainly populated by crypto bros, that's not something I'd like to read on a daily basis.
8. chc4 ◴[] No.42153858[source]
Good news! You just described how Bluesky works
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9. lolinder ◴[] No.42154332[source]
Except for that, as discussed in TFA, Bluesky isn't actually decentralized (yet).
10. Terr_ ◴[] No.42154613[source]
I may have been misremembering Lemmy instead.

> You can redirect your old profile to the new one

Is that true even when the reason for the change is because the instance operator wants to silence you? If you can't put up a metaphorical "Go Here Instead" sign, could they also stop you from "proving" that your new home is legitimate and that you're the same author as before?

11. rglullis ◴[] No.42155944[source]
> You can redirect your old profile to the new one in another instance, or permanently move it keeping your follows and followers

But you lose all the posts and interactions. Most importantly, you are not keeping your identity, but merely creating a new account with a copy of your follower/following collections.

> No one there wants to hold your information hostage,

Tell that to a friend of mine who got banned from their instance for committing the crime of being an Ethereum developer. The admin suspended his account and didn't let him go back or initiate the migration process.

12. Dylan16807 ◴[] No.42162089[source]
A redirect is a pale imitation of a real move.