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190 points amichail | 76 comments | | HN request time: 2.413s | source | bottom
1. hntempacct99 ◴[] No.42194606[source]
From what I have seen using Bluesky this isn't true at all. It's brutally censored, even more than Twitter was in 2021. Or are there other relays and appviews I can use that aren't? Is there a comprehensive list of Bluesky infrastructure that isn't run by Bluesky themselves (excluding a PDS)? Or is it totally centralized for now?
replies(10): >>42194628 #>>42194642 #>>42194671 #>>42194682 #>>42194690 #>>42194767 #>>42194774 #>>42195031 #>>42195409 #>>42195473 #
2. nick_ ◴[] No.42194628[source]
What brutal censorship have you observed?
replies(2): >>42194662 #>>42194761 #
3. happytoexplain ◴[] No.42194642[source]
Wow, "brutally censored"? This is the first I've heard. What are you referring to? (I don't use Bluesky).
replies(1): >>42194808 #
4. okeuro49 ◴[] No.42194662[source]
https://bsky.app/profile/realbabylonbee.bsky.social
replies(8): >>42194681 #>>42194707 #>>42194710 #>>42194713 #>>42194775 #>>42194928 #>>42195006 #>>42195012 #
5. PittleyDunkin ◴[] No.42194671[source]
> It's brutally censored, even more than Twitter was in 2021

??? You can literally post porn on twitter. You could in 2021, too. Pretending it was censoring people seems asinine.

replies(1): >>42197470 #
6. PittleyDunkin ◴[] No.42194681{3}[source]
It looks like you can just click through the content warning.
replies(1): >>42194816 #
7. spacephysics ◴[] No.42194682[source]
They had a massive amount of reports that they can hardly keep up with. Their “safety” team will be costly and grow very large!

https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/17/24298790/bluesky-moves-d...

replies(1): >>42194751 #
8. seneca ◴[] No.42194690[source]
Agreed. I spent about 10 minutes on bsky before deciding it was a blatant, seemingly intentional, echo chamber and abandoned any interest.
replies(2): >>42194759 #>>42194886 #
9. vehemenz ◴[] No.42194707{3}[source]
Censorship and moderation aren't the same thing. Cmon folks, this comes up once a month on HN.
replies(3): >>42194940 #>>42195277 #>>42198082 #
10. anderber ◴[] No.42194710{3}[source]
You can still see the content, right? So it's just a label, it seems.
11. gr__or ◴[] No.42194713{3}[source]
There is a cultural divide on where you stand wrt transphobia. The default appview is indeed not down with it, where Twitter is ofc very down with it.

The protocol is ambivalent towards it, so if you seek hate, you could host your own. I'm very fine (happy even) with the bsky team not being invested in that side of history.

replies(2): >>42194953 #>>42196175 #
12. josefresco ◴[] No.42194751[source]
> Bluesky Safety team posted Friday that it received 42,000 moderation reports in the preceding 24 hours (versus 360,000 in all of 2023).

This sounds more like an attack then a byproduct of a growth bump.

replies(1): >>42195602 #
13. happytoexplain ◴[] No.42194759[source]
10 minutes?? That sounds like only enough time to see "too many" opinions you disagree with and "not enough" that you agree with, which is the shallow definition of "echo chamber" (and probably the de facto definition at this point, unfortunately).
14. throwaboutbsky5 ◴[] No.42194761[source]
https://bsky.app/profile/sallgrover.bsky.social

https://x.com/salltweets/status/1857595757882188086

Sall Grover is the creator of a woman-only social app in Australia that was taken to court over that sex exclusivity. Posted a few controversial statements to test the atmosphere and this is the result.

replies(3): >>42194802 #>>42194959 #>>42195029 #
15. kubb ◴[] No.42194767[source]
For anyone wondering, the "brutal censorship" is that a post making fun of a trans person is hidden (but can be clicked on and viewed) and flagged as intolerance.
16. iamdbtoo ◴[] No.42194775{3}[source]
So the victim here is the Babylon Bee and not the trans person they are mocking?
replies(1): >>42195456 #
17. hntempacct99 ◴[] No.42194808[source]
Check what the default moderation service is flagging. I understand that the standard Bluesky site moderates however they want, and that's fine, but this is a decentralized network right? So a productive discussion is to discuss what other relays and appviews are currently running where the users can pick and choose that algorithm, as content exclusion is perhaps the single most important part of any content algorithm, and the defaults on standard Bluesky are pretty locked down.
replies(1): >>42195439 #
18. wulfstan ◴[] No.42194816{4}[source]
You can also just turn it off globally by turning off the "Intolerance" setting on the Bluesky Moderation account - visit @moderation.bsky.app and set it up how you want.
replies(1): >>42194960 #
19. vehemenz ◴[] No.42194886[source]
It was in the beginning, but it's gotten better as more people have joined. Of course, some people just claim "echo chamber" when there's not enough political extremism, which seems like a false equivalence.
20. ◴[] No.42194928{3}[source]
21. steveoscaro ◴[] No.42194940{4}[source]
This is such a weird logical hoop that that so many people are eager to jump through.
replies(1): >>42195057 #
22. unclad5968 ◴[] No.42194947{4}[source]
"censorship is fine as long as it's happening to people I don't agree with"
replies(2): >>42195060 #>>42195519 #
23. gigatree ◴[] No.42194953{4}[source]
And what if you just espouse the normal view that all of history & 97% of people currently on earth hold?
replies(3): >>42195137 #>>42195202 #>>42195376 #
24. happytoexplain ◴[] No.42194959{3}[source]
This is just the common case where it's a thing one could express a morally honest opinion about, even if it's emotional or negative, but is instead expressed curtly for the purpose of encouraging hatred broadly. I.e. it's the exact definition of trolling (and specifically, group-hatred by intrinsic qualities like sexual feelings, race, etc, which is understandably the most commonly moderated type of trolling). I'm not going to go so far as to say that all platforms must moderate that type of content, but it is of course a decision that falls within the realm of reason for any given platform. So, it seems dishonest to spit on it as "censorship" (ever more, "brutal censorship"), assuming you are agreeing with the GP.
replies(1): >>42197214 #
25. jayd16 ◴[] No.42194960{5}[source]
Yeah, I just made an account to test this very thing. As a brand new user it was easy to find. Makes you wonder how earnest the complaints are.
26. ◴[] No.42195006{3}[source]
27. kps ◴[] No.42195012{3}[source]
I think that's in line with pick-your-own — Bluesky has the concept of ‘labelling service’ (with Bluesky as a/the default labeller) and client actions based on those labels (hide/warn/show).

If that's all that's happening, the really bad part is contributing to the perception that Bluesky is just a left-Gab (and if that's what you want, there are perfectly good Mastodon cliques already).

There used to be a US-politics labeller, of value to non-Americans, but it seems to have fallen over.

28. kspacewalk2 ◴[] No.42195029{3}[source]
Judging purely from those Tweets, Sall is a troll who was correctly booted off a platform that is trying to improve the quality of discussions.
replies(1): >>42197208 #
29. hnpolicestate ◴[] No.42195031[source]
Bluesky is just another r/politics. Irrelevant to everyone but an extreme fringe minority of Western liberals. I'm surprised how much I see posts about it on HN.
replies(1): >>42195546 #
30. happytoexplain ◴[] No.42195057{5}[source]
It's a pretty understandable semantic argument, where tons of people are going to be irrationally biased in whichever of the two directions suits them on a given example.

I.e. it's not really "weird", is my point.

replies(1): >>42195201 #
31. tedajax ◴[] No.42195060{5}[source]
Generally speaking, in real life, people tend to get kicked out of places for being bigots.
replies(1): >>42197222 #
32. dpkonofa ◴[] No.42195137{5}[source]
Which view is that? I highly doubt that there's any view that fits the criteria you just posited.
33. PittleyDunkin ◴[] No.42195201{6}[source]
Sorry, which two directions? Surely you can have more than two distinct opinions on how to best handle moderation. Which is a fatal flaw to the twitter "community notes" feature, too.
34. happytoexplain ◴[] No.42195202{5}[source]
Whatever you mean, you can probably write about it without encouraging hatred for groups of people based on qualities that, by themselves, are harmless, like whether they feel male or female, are biologically male or female, are gay or straight, white or black, etc etc.
replies(2): >>42195434 #>>42196679 #
35. ilikehurdles ◴[] No.42195277{4}[source]
This is just a thought-terminating cliche.
replies(1): >>42195340 #
36. vehemenz ◴[] No.42195340{5}[source]
It seems like it doesn't take much to terminate thought for you.

If you want to suggest that moderation and censorship are the same—two concepts with obviously differing senses in English—take a stab at making the argument instead of just asserting it in, ironically, a cliche.

37. zb3 ◴[] No.42195347{4}[source]
Yes, I want to decide what I want to read, and I don't care what you call "transphobia", especially since facts are often labeled as such.
38. Quinner ◴[] No.42195376{5}[source]
You can stay on twitter.
39. rsynnott ◴[] No.42195409[source]
> From what I have seen using Bluesky this isn't true at all. It's brutally censored, even more than Twitter was in 2021.

Where are you getting that from? Do you mean blocklists? Like, you are not required to use blocklists. They are not even the default; you have to affirmatively use them.

40. zb3 ◴[] No.42195434{6}[source]
Seems that if I write that "X that feels Y is X and not Y", then I'm apparently encouraging hate. But the real point is that I feel descriptions should belong to the person describing, not the person described.. How is this hate?
41. happytoexplain ◴[] No.42195439{3}[source]
This? https://bsky.app/profile/moderation.bsky.app

These looks like reasonable defaults - frankly I'm a bit delighted they are configurable. A lot of these are things most social platforms would outright ban without an opt-out. I think it makes sense to start medium-narrow and let users broaden it (not to mention it's kind to new users - though I understand that kindness is a bit dead in our culture currently, since it's been falsely accused of being mutually incompatible with having hard, real conversations). And I do get the pros and cons - I get the argument about starting broad and making the user narrow it down. But, specifically, I think "brutally censored" is pretty dramatic.

42. zb3 ◴[] No.42195456{4}[source]
The victim of censorship is the Babylon Bee, I don't see that trans person being censored.
replies(1): >>42198876 #
43. tootie ◴[] No.42195473[source]
Personally, I'm 100% on board with heavy moderation. I think it's a complete myth that unfettered free speech will make for a useful platform. Spam, abuse, disinformation, hate speech. They all make the platform less valuable.
replies(1): >>42195508 #
44. zb3 ◴[] No.42195508[source]
*as long as it fits my views
replies(1): >>42195682 #
45. intended ◴[] No.42195519{5}[source]
Yeah I’m done with this dishonesty. Perhaps you aren’t being dishonest, but this argument is the tip of the spear to justify harm of others.

I’ve been a mod. I hate the fact that my only option is to silence.

But by all that is holy I’m going to use all that I can when someone is using dishonest, malicious, malformed and malign arguments.

I have seen what happens when trolls run unchallenged.

——-

The great thing is that no two moderators will come to the same decision on a case, because context matters.

There is almost certainly a community where X type of content is welcome.

Why not go there ?

replies(1): >>42199971 #
46. jazzyjackson ◴[] No.42195546[source]
> an extreme fringe minority of Western liberals

We're on a silicon valley forum my guy, it's as western as it gets before wrapping around and becoming east again!

47. pessimizer ◴[] No.42195602{3}[source]
It's mass reporting. It worked on old twitter, and it works on new old twitter.
48. tootie ◴[] No.42195682{3}[source]
I think this isn't as hard to solve as you may think. There is definitely gray area to all of them, but there's plenty of stuff that is obviously unacceptable. On X right now, it is common to find straight up Nazi propaganda flourishing. That is within the bounds of free speech per the first amendment, but it's almost universally (excluding the actual nazis) derided as hate speech. I don't think banning Nazis is an impossible task nor is it a slippery slope. Getting it exactly right is impossible, but there's plenty you can do without controversy and a robust appeal process could mitigate any gray areas.

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/x-twitter-elon-mus...

replies(1): >>42196071 #
49. zb3 ◴[] No.42196071{4}[source]
It is a slippery slope because there's a disagreement as to who qualifies as one. We might agree on a given definition, but then it might turn out that the person doing the moderation would regard majority of the population as Nazi, which would be ridiculous and'd actually obscure the actual tragedies that happened...
replies(1): >>42205006 #
50. aighto ◴[] No.42196175{4}[source]
Yes, and much of it comes down to sexism.

Anyone who looks at Levine and thinks something along the lines of wearing a dress, must be a woman rather than that is obviously a man in a dress has deeply sexist ideas about how women should present themselves.

You can label this as "transphobia" if you like but that's just a tacit acknowledgement that the "trans" belief system is built upon sexist principles.

51. gigatree ◴[] No.42196679{6}[source]
The problem is that an overwhelming amount of the left label statements not meant to be hateful as hateful, specifically: “there are two genders”.

Everything has been reduced to “hate”, to the point that it actively muddies the waters wrt actual hatred.

replies(1): >>42196997 #
52. jhp123 ◴[] No.42196997{7}[source]
why would you say "there are two genders"? You haven't heard of nonbinary gender?[0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-binary_gender

replies(1): >>42197144 #
53. civvis ◴[] No.42197144{8}[source]
That depends on your beliefs.

Some people believe that whether you're a man or a woman is based on thoughts in your head, rather than the material biological reality of your sex. They also believe that these thoughts mean you can be neither woman or man, which they call 'non-binary'.

Of course to everyone else this is a rather absurd thing to believe. Like the healing power of crystals or some nonsense like that.

replies(2): >>42197428 #>>42200435 #
54. plapplap ◴[] No.42197208{4}[source]
She posted a factual statement to test the waters and was instantly censored for it.
replies(2): >>42198683 #>>42199562 #
55. plapplap ◴[] No.42197214{4}[source]
It's not hatred to point out that a man is a man. What a daft exaggeration.
replies(1): >>42199667 #
56. plapplap ◴[] No.42197222{6}[source]
There's nothing at all bigoted about pointing out that a man is a man. You just don't like this fact, so you've decided to label it as bigotry.
replies(1): >>42199385 #
57. jhp123 ◴[] No.42197428{9}[source]
I disagree. Words have meaning, you can't just use your own personal definitions. The modern definition of "gender" is based on the concept of gender identity and includes more than two genders [0][1]. If you want to make your point understood by most people, you should say "there are two biological sexes", although that is also not correct[2].

[0] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gender#Noun [1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gender#dictionary... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex

replies(1): >>42201588 #
58. rsynnott ◴[] No.42197470[source]
For that matter, you can post porn on Bluesky. There’s lots of porn. Such censorship, very brutal.
replies(1): >>42197804 #
59. smy20011 ◴[] No.42197804{3}[source]
Mind share the list? Asking for a friend.
60. hintymad ◴[] No.42198082{4}[source]
Agreed. I think it is indeed moderation. It's just the moderation that shows how intolerant and how hysterical the left has become.
61. r00fus ◴[] No.42198683{5}[source]
Doesn't seem factual to me. Smells like a troll or flamebait. Deserves to be moderated into the ground.
replies(1): >>42203003 #
62. iamdbtoo ◴[] No.42198876{5}[source]
They aren't censored, though. You can still read their intolerant posts they are just labeled as such.

What people really have a problem with here is that they are called out for the intolerance because it reflects upon them.

replies(1): >>42203069 #
63. nick_ ◴[] No.42199385{7}[source]
Do you think that there are only two combinations of chromosomes in humans? XX and XY?
replies(2): >>42202737 #>>42202763 #
64. happytoexplain ◴[] No.42199562{5}[source]
This is a very common form of dishonesty on this topic.

First, even if we give you the benefit of the doubt and say it is factual, you do not need to lie in order to spread hatred, or at the very least provoke/troll people. "But it's true" is a childish defense in that context. If you were being honest, you would defend the practice of provoking/trolling people regarding gender identity (rather than merely defending the generic concept of saying something factually true, which is akin to the classic "I'm not touching you" game of provocation). And to be clear: I am not arguing against that theoretical argument in this comment - I am just saying that you should make that argument, since clearly you believe it but are being oblique about it.

Secondarily (and I do mean secondarily - it's entirely subservient to the first point and basically just an exercise in argument): The statement isn't factual, since it's just disagreeing with a context in which a word is used. It's literally a semantic argument, which is always more or less subjective.

replies(1): >>42202937 #
65. happytoexplain ◴[] No.42199667{5}[source]
I don't think it's an exaggeration, and I don't think it's daft - I think the point of the common quips of the general format "trans 'women' are men", without more context, are almost always (and obviously in this case) simple provocations, intended to disparage and humiliate, in addition to serving as slogans that implicitly support an unstated argument. However, we have no way of knowing which arguments they are supporting, aside from a broad and unnecessarily bitter rejection of the concept of people who feel mentally like a different gender from their biological gender.

So, purely as a random example: One of those unstated arguments is often the "don't let trans women into women's bathrooms" debate. I sympathize greatly with women who don't feel comfortable sharing a bathroom with trans women, and don't think anybody should be put through that (and I also sympathize with the trans woman's side of that problem, and have no good solution to offer to either side, but that's beside the point I'm making), but despite sharing that sympathy, I don't pretend to be unable to recognize hateful versions of that "sympathy" - that would be petty ideology.

replies(1): >>42202826 #
66. unclad5968 ◴[] No.42199971{6}[source]
If someone decided you weren't allowed to participate in this community for using "schizoid" in a derogatory fashion I'd call it censorship all the same.
replies(1): >>42202225 #
67. slater ◴[] No.42200435{9}[source]
Still trying that whole "bigoted anti-trans posts from new hn account" thing, ey?
68. civvvis ◴[] No.42201588{10}[source]
The dictionary pages you linked to illustrate that there are multiple senses for the word 'gender' in modern use, and that its use as a shorthand for 'gender identity' is not the only one.

Also, as the Wikipedia article you linked discusses, 'intersex' is not a type of sex additional to female and male. It's a word used to group various disorders of sexual development.

69. intended ◴[] No.42202225{7}[source]
I’m kinda flattered my post history was even looked at.

Your position conflate the limited power mode have with tan ideological harm.

The surest tonic for this is to volunteer as a mod. Please try. I got into it because I felt I had to put my money where my mouth. Most mod teams need volunteers, and normal people to share their experiences.

By your criteria police are simply violent. Judges are simply judgemental. Heck everyone with a gun is a violent person.

70. Jensson ◴[] No.42202737{8}[source]
I think they are happy if all XY are classified as men and all XX are classified as women, can do whatever you want with the rest.
71. plapplap ◴[] No.42202763{8}[source]
I have studied sex chromosome aneuploidies in humans, so no, I don't think that.

Why do you ask?

72. plapplap ◴[] No.42202826{6}[source]
But this is strong disagreement you are talking about, not hatred.

And if you look at the history of what Sall Grover has had to endure regarding this issue - being harassed, threatened, dragged through the legal system - it's very obvious why she strongly disagrees with the idea that some men are women, and why she is so very outspoken in drawing a line in the sand on this.

73. plapplap ◴[] No.42202937{6}[source]
Let's say she was testing the moderation system on a different topic. For example she'd posted the statement "Jesus was nothing more than a man", which resulted in her post being instantly censored and her profile slapped with a content warning.

Would you still be making the claim that she is "spreading hatred"?

I would still say she was making a factual statement that she was censored for. As we have evidence that this person was a historical figure and not just some figment of fiction. Only those with a particular ideological belief, i.e. most Christians, think there's more to it.

Fortunately that's not what happened, and such ideologues are not in charge of imposing those beliefs on others via Bluesky's moderation system. But it's clear that those who assert that some men are women are imposing their beliefs. Which is exactly what Sall demonstrated.

74. plapplap ◴[] No.42203003{6}[source]
Why doesn't it seem factual to you?
75. plapplap ◴[] No.42203069{6}[source]
The article they posted was a satire on USA Today naming Levine, a man, as one of their Women Of The Year.

This quote from their article highlights the absurdity:

"Levine is the U.S. assistant secretary for health for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, where he serves proudly as the first man in that position to dress like a western cultural stereotype of a woman."

Really the only "intolerance" here is from those who can't stand their ideological beliefs being made fun of, and decide to retaliate via the platform's moderation system.

76. tootie ◴[] No.42205006{5}[source]
Ultimately it's the platform's choice where to draw the line and it should be a function of their ethos and the observed value to users. It seems pretty clear that Twitter functioned extremely well with a robust moderation team of highly professional experts with clear guidance. Switching to a "free speech" model + community notes has resulted in the platform losing it's appeal. Conversely, BlueSky's model has been rapidly attracting users with their moderation policy. So, active moderation is better than none. QED.

Idk if it's because HN is populated with engineers who can't wrap their head around a non-deterministic solution, but a team of humans with a set of goals are capable of dealing with a problem that doesn't have a concretely defined algorithm.