Bluesky is ushering in a pick-your-own algorithm era of social media

I hope this will become true; it's the reason I made an account as soon as possible (not the one that matches my name), have followed hashtag-based feeds with mixed success, and donated to my favourite client (tokimeki.blue). I want to follow topics, in the fashion of Usenet or Reddit, not people. If I'm interested in dandelions, I want to read Jay Expert's posts about dandelions, not their posts about their breakfast (unless it's dandelions) or favourite TV show (unless it's about dandelions).

I fear the recent US election is going to kill it, though.

> I fear the recent US election is going to kill it, though.

How? Aren’t there a lot more people migrating to Bluesky now in light of Musk’s antics on X?

Musk has the president-elect in his pocket and Musk hates BlueSky. The goal is to be the only source of propaganda and let right-wing conspiracies fly unchecked on social media.

Market power and a compliant government / political party.

That sort of ultra-rapid growth can be difficult to absorb, though so far it seems to be going fairly well.

Trump talked continuously about weaponizing the government, how it was done to him ("They are investigating/prosecuting my crimes and I am a politician now! Disgraceful!"), and how he was going to do it good and hard to those who opposed him. Now Musk is the de facto vice president, so anyone who annoys Musk or gets in the way of his amassing more wealth and power is a potential target. You don't have to have any case. Just drown the startup in legal bills.

Look at some of the comments here. If Bluesky has the reputation of being centered around US politics, it won't be the choice of those with other interests.

Lol who told you that? X is vibrant and big ad companies are coming back. I personally created an account on Bluesky not to support it but to ensure leftists cannot create an echo chamber.

What do you mean by “cannot create an echo chamber?” The whole pitch of the site is build-your-own-filter functionality.

I've got my wors filters set up so that I never see an ounce of US politics. It's wonderful.

That’s a bit reductive. What says that Bluesky doesn’t have their flavor of propaganda that suits their preferences? That is, what makes the Bluesky perspective more valid other than just being on a platform that hates Twitter?

About anything that is currently legal and permitted on Twitter seems to be specifically prohibited by design (and can’t be opted out of wrt moderation) in Bluesky. If the Mastodon case is any guide, there will be a great effort to ensure that nothing wrt software can conflict with it.

> What says that Bluesky doesn’t have their flavor of propaganda that suits their preferences?

Nothing. They probably do.

> That is, what makes the Bluesky perspective more valid other than just being on a platform that hates Twitter?

Nothing. It probably isn't.

> About anything that is currently legal and permitted on Twitter seems to be specifically prohibited by design

Trump's FCC chief has signaled he would like to remove Section 230 which would make these things that are prohibited a downside for BlueSky and open them up to litigation and I doubt they have the wallet to litigate like Musk does.

Bluesky talks a lot about "speech vs reach,": https://atproto.com/guides/overview#speech-reach-and-moderat...

The underlying protocol is the "anything legal is fine" layer, the bluesky app is the "we will engage in moderation" layer.

Seconded. I haven't more than glanced at national news since November 6. I still get a few rumblings on Bluesky ("Trump nominated who?!" or whatever) but for the most part it's sea worms, cats 'n mushrooms, comics (need more!) and local news. The sea worms were a happy accident and I'm not gonna undo it.

Yes, vibrant with hate speech and now Musk is deleting accounts of people he doesn't like. Free speech my ass.