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

> The use of algorithms to filter information has become the norm because chronologically presenting information from followers creates a confusing morass for the average user to process.

Can't disagree more. Call me old-fashioned but I hate any algorithms at all meddling with what I see. If I follow someone, I want to see their posts, all of them, without exceptions. If I don't follow someone, I only want to see their posts if they were knowingly reposted by someone who I do follow. If I want some posts filtered from my feed, I'll set up word filters myself, thank you very much.

It's a recurring theme in the modern IT industry that "the average user" can't be trusted to take their own responsibility. It's sometimes taken as an indisputable truth, even. Why does this keep happening? What can I do to put an end to this?

> chronologically presenting information from followers creates a confusing morass for the average user to process.

This was simply a lie press released by Facebook, and endlessly repeated uncritically. Facebook became Facebook with a chronological feed. It began to manipulate the feed because it was profitable and the government didn't object. That confused the hell out of people for years, when they couldn't figure out why their aunt posted something that never showed up.

And after that, social media transformed into something other than keeping track of your family and friends because of the paid injections of crap.

Social media apps need users, and they need users to return and re-engage. The data is clear that even very basic algorithmic feeds get better engagement, presumably by showing users better stuff than whatever happens to be newest.

You can't possibly do anything to "put an end to this."

Twitter and Bluesky both allow you to see a chronological feed, though you have to jump through some hoops to get to it. Just use that.

It's true, of course, that the "chronological timeline" is an obvious and straightforward default, but I think you are being unfair to the position you are critiquing.

Many (90%+ I would say but the exact proportion doesn't matter for this) people do not have the time to process every social media post from every person they are connected to. They are only going to see N "posts" (videos, texts, questions, etc) per time unit (day / week / bathroom break). It is 100% genuinely and obviously worse to, if someone only sees...3 posts on your social network for those posts to be [someone complaining about commute, breakfast photo, angry election post] as opposed to [wedding announcement, request for a resource the user has, a close friend sharing something exciting that the user hasn't seen]. Telling users that you are showing them less interesting stuff because "they happened in chronological order" is a bad answer.

Of course social media companies do a bad job at this! They push high-conflict high-engagement content into our feeds because it makes them more money. But I think the problem of "there is a lot going on and you would like a machine to help you prioritize how to process things" is genuinely one of the pressing problems of our age and I get so frustrated when people downplay it. There is more stuff happening in my social world than I have time to fully process - that's just true. I am not interesting in living such a small life that I have time to fully engage with every single happening - I would like a machine to help me.

I would like multiple knobs “must see > # likes”, “intermingle follows level” “limit to ## posts from one person in a day” and similar common sense settings. I don’t need AI algos picking for me

Letting users pick the algorithm seems like a good way to give them responsibility. And the article says Bluesky still has a simple subscription feed as the default.

I actually disagree. (I agree that engagement-driven algos are cancer though. And that they developed for money reasons, not to help users. So maybe I agree with you actually lol)

I never used Twitter back in the day. I’m trying out BlueSky and not sure what my account should be. I could post software stuff, eg a career related account. I could post pictures from around the city. I could post my personal political thoughts. Or maybe hobby-related, like board games.

But if I’m following someone who’s respected in the career, I’m expecting career content, not random political thoughts. If someone is following me, I want to be able to post more personal content, and more random stuff. Unless it’s a personal friend, I probably don't need to see everything they post!

So I don’t necessarily want a chronological timeline. Custom algos like BlueSky has are pretty interesting. “Here are all the developer posts” and “keep the political posts over here out of your main feed”

> I would like a machine to help me.

Cool. I would not. It would be nice to have that option.

I think the problem with social media is there is just a lot of noise, and generally had a discoverability issue. I would like to be recommended people that I want to follow (and have what I put out be recommended to people).

I mean do we really need to remember the Facebook posts that people were making 10ish years ago that really was pointless?

That being said, that's the power of having some choice in the matter. If you don't want it, you don't need to use it. Both can be perfectly valid ways to consume social media content.

There seem to be two different issues in your point here.

First is algorithms to select content for users.

This is often an issue because the algorithm is designed to maximize time on site, which results in content that pressed emotional buttons and engages the fight or flight reflex built into us.

The other issue is that users can’t be trusted to use a tool correctly.

I don’t think this last point is wrong, but I don’t think it links to your primary point.

> Many ... people do not have the time to process every social media post from every person they are connected to.

Then they are following too many people. Decades ago, a professor at school quipped "if you can't keep up with your news feed using 'more' to read the spool then you follow too many newsgroups"

It's pretty easy: if someone posts a lot of stuff you find uninteresting, stop following them.

Yep. I'm not on social media, but even with Youtube it can be frustrating that subscriptions are "personalized" by default; you otherwise have to click the notification button again and select "All" for all their videos to show in your subscriptions tab. I'm at least glad the option is there to not let it be determined by an algorithm.

When I was on Instagram, they introduced a chronological feed, but that view hid Stories for some reason. Tinfoil hat theory is that it's to show users prefer their personalized feeds full of ads when in reality they made the chronological view frustrating to use as people use stories more than regular posts these days.

I genuinely don't understand the desire to engage with so many folks on such a superficial level.

Like - if the only way you're going to know about someone's wedding is from a social feed... you aren't friends with that person, you're just acquaintances.

Most folks do a great job at informing you of the things that are relevant in your relationship with that person when you... talk to them.

> I am not interesting in living such a small life that I have time to fully engage with every single happening - I would like a machine to help me.

You think that life is small... but I think yours is utterly dehumanizing. You aren't interested in engaging with individuals, you seem to just want their life's highlights thrown at you repetitively until you've burned yourself out on them, like slamming the oxytocin button for your brain without actually doing anything nearly so drab as actually talking to someone.

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I think my reaction to your comment is driven by your idea that friendships and human interactions are formed over big events (like weddings or exciting happenings). I'd argue fairly strongly that they're driven instead by precisely the small, boring, daily things you're not at all interested in: Commutes. Meals. Emotional responses to small things (politics or not).

I find it distasteful to think you're friends with someone when you only give a shit about the big exciting news they have to share. That's not friendship, it's a weird twisted form of paparazzi/voyeurism. You don't want to know them, you just want their life's highlights presented to you...

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Emotional response aside - Hard disagree on

> It is 100% genuinely and obviously worse to, if someone only sees...3 posts on your social network for those posts to be [someone complaining about commute, breakfast photo, angry election post] as opposed to [wedding announcement, request for a resource the user has, a close friend sharing something exciting that the user hasn't seen]. Telling users that you are showing them less interesting stuff because "they happened in chronological order" is a bad answer.

The two problems with your approach are: 1) There is always some post you'd be interested in that you won't see because it's outside your social network. Different people have different preferences on how much of this they want to see. 2) When you follow someone, you're probably interested in some aspect of what they post and not others. For example, if there's a biologist who is also a big Pittsburg Steelers fan, you're probably not interested in both types of posts.

Meth producers need users, and they need users to return and re-engage. The data is clear that even a small amount of meth introduced into a community generates higher return on investment, presumably by giving its users a high that's better than not being high.

You can't possibly do anything to "put an end to this".

What's an example of being shown content from a pool that does not involve an algorithm?

>You think that life is small... but I think yours is utterly dehumanizing.

The person posted (barely) 3 paragraphs. Like, less than 10 sentences.

Seems pretty hasty to label their life "utterly dehumanizing" from that. Your whole next paragraph is drawing a lot of (frankly, quite rude) conclusions based on nothing. You've read so much into their short comment that you've created an entire fictional person, and then got angry at the fictional person you created.

Looking at their comment and your reply, I would say they have a healthier approach to socializing on the internet than you appear to.

The reason social media apps use more complex global discovery algorithms (over a chronological feed) is because chronological feeds always run out of content. That's literally the only reason. At some point, some team at some gigacorporation invented the "hours spent with us" KPI, and tasked their hundred reports to increase it. It turns out, it doesn't matter how many people complain, if the "hours spent with us" KPI keeps going up.

"But users prefer algorithmic feeds": There's no evidence of this. The KPI is measuring an increase in hours spent with the app; it is not scientific-method A/B testing a preference between two options. Even if an app could do this, what does "preference" mean? You could measure how many users pick one experience versus another, but I've never found an app that, if it offers both experiences, durably and reliably saves your choice for a chronological feed between re-launches. Also: Maybe I want both experiences, at will. Hours spent in one experience versus the other? This is not communicating a preference; if I choose spending an hour driving during my commute to one job, versus ten minutes walking to another, have I revealed a preference for a longer driving commute? Obviously not.

You can ask users directly: And users may actually reveal their preference that social media never existed at all because your company isn't actually delivering value to the world [1]. Oops. Uh, don't run that survey again, bury it, make sure shareholders don't find out.

All social media is trash, and should not be consumed by anyone who has even an ounce of self-respect. Honestly: HackerNews is in that bucket, but at least its not as bad as most platforms.

[1] https://fortune.com/well/article/nearly-half-of-gen-zers-wis...

Twitter’s (X) “following” feed is not a purely chronological feed. I will often see tweets from people I follow on “For You” that don’t show up in the other feed.

It also tries really hard to direct you over to the For You feed silently at any chance it can get.

Also among followers it will surface tweets that it thinks will drive engagement and show/not show retweets based on algorithm.

Eh - anger isn't the same as disgust or confusion. And it's not really pointed at the above poster explicitly, it's pointed at the culture that results from the attitude that human interactions should be prioritized on the scale of "entertain me" by a digital algorithm, and that that's a good thing.

And while you might wish it's fan fiction... it's the very real reason we see things like nation-wide social media bans by age. Calls to reduce or reform social media in general. And a huge number of negative social outcomes since the advent of that style of social media.

It's really, really hard to argue that form of media consumption is healthy. Or appropriate.

> Social media apps need users, and they need users to return and re-engage.

And this is where the goals of the platforms and their users are at odds with each other.

> Just use that.

The problem is that while I can "just use that", which of course I do, the mere presence of an algorithmic timeline, let alone as the default option, still substantially shapes the way people post and share.

People post differently when they expect interactions from outside of their usual network vs when they don't. I had my tweets get uncomfortably popular on several occasions, presumably because the algorithm decided so, and I didn't enjoy that.

Then there's also the problem that some people you follow will use the algorithmic feed and will repost things from there. Again, this wouldn't happen if it didn't exist, and it's not something I can influence with my choices.

What I want is for content to spread organically again. I want the platform to be a dumb pipe between me and the people I follow. I don't want it to have any agency whatsoever. And I don't want "influencers" to be possible.

I wholly and completely disagree with this and think it's an unethical belief to hold. If you are under the impression that you are perfectly up to date with every detail of every person in your life you are either deeply misguided or dismissive of the inner lives of folks around you.

Yah, 100% - I agree that the chronological timeline should be a default feed alogirthm on every service.

> I genuinely don't understand the desire to engage with so many folks on such a superficial level.

That's fine! I am not asking you to understand that desire. I'm asking you to understand it's a genuinely held desire that people actually want. We can (and will) have different preferences and live in the same society. That's a fine thing.

You have a totally fine and healthy preference for how you manage your own social life, but you are mistaking that preference for a universal standard about how everyone should best manage their social lives. That is the thing I am critiquing. You are allowed to do what you want and I support you! But so often people describe the fact that their preferences are not "the standard" and imply that the balance would be better for everyone - without considering that different people want different things.

Edit: We could also have a discussion about "what is the ideal social model for society" - but that is a different conversation with different claims than the one we are having now. If you are trying to talk about how you think our current society sucks by attacking my points about the benefits of how social media algorithms interact with us - I think you are coming at me in a confused way.

Even if a version of life where we all had smaller social circles and all had less information coming at us was healthier (totally possible!) - that's not the world I find myself living in. I would like tools to help me live in the world I find myself in and I find it distressing that so many fellow tech workers think that's immoral somehow.

P.s. I think you're being quite rude to me and I don't appreciate it.

> Many (90%+ I would say but the exact proportion doesn't matter for this) people do not have the time to process every social media post from every person they are connected to.

Correct, but really don't want to. I want to open the app and get the pulse of what is happening in that moment. Not 8 hours ago. Not 4 weeks ago. Right now.

>Eh - anger isn't the same as disgust or confusion.

Okay, you're disgusted or confused at the fictional person you created.

>And it's not really pointed at the above poster explicitly,

It certainly seems like it is very explicitly pointed at the poster you replied to considering you directly quote their opinion and then, based on that opinion, say that their life is "utterly dehumanizing".

>attitude that human interactions should be prioritized on the scale of "entertain me"

This is not what the parent poster said.

> And this is where the goals of the platforms and their users are at odds with each other.

They can be, but they usually mostly aren't. Showing people what they like is the best way to get them to come back.

I think you need to accept that what you want is different from what most people want.

> I want the platform to be a dumb pipe between me and the people I follow.

I guess your only hope would be to make it illegal, worldwide, to provide algorithmic feeds.

Hacker News uses an algorithmic feed, and that's why we're here talking. https://news.ycombinator.com/newest exists but it's not very good. You can also browse Reddit chronologically https://www.reddit.com/new/ but, seriously, don't bother.

So, as long as someone can do algorithmic feeds, someone will, and people will use it, even you, because algorithmic feeds are just better than chronological feeds.

> I don't want "influencers" to be possible.

This one is truly hopeless. We've had influencers at least as long as we've had the written word.

Isn't the point of the comment above to not even want to be up to date with every detail of people that are objectively not that important in your personal life? Not to decrease the social media usage because you feel you're up to date but to do it because it's unnatural and pointless?

You know people are lost in the woods when the they use terms like “100% genuine and obvious. Your personal preferences are not universal and people are not downplaying it the need for controlling feeds. They are frustrated that control of feeds are taken from them from paternalistic profit-driven product managers et al.

> Showing people what they like is the best way to get them to come back.

There are different usage scenarios of social media. You seem to imply that people use it for entertainment, and yes, the companies themselves sure make them optimized for that. But I want to use social media for staying up to date on my friends' lives and nothing else. Most existing platforms actively resist this use case because it doesn't grow metrics.

> I guess your only hope would be to make it illegal, worldwide, to provide algorithmic feeds.

Well, at least I'm working on two fediverse projects. There are no algorithms on the fediverse. You see posts from the people you follow, in the order in which they were posted, and nothing else.

> We've had influencers at least as long as we've had the written word.

That's different. Those "influencers" always became such organically, because people voluntarily spread their "content". This is vastly different from the platform itself stepping in and non-consensually shoving this content into millions of faces because its black-box algorithm said so.

I don't want there to be any pools of content. I want to see the posts made by people I follow, in the order in which they were posted, and nothing else at all.

I do think the approach of "engaging only in what you can fully take in" is really healthy and sensible and something people should consider. The thing I think is immoral is suggesting that is...the best approach for everyone in all situations. Many people in society simply are not in a position to do that. The president cannot "only engage in what they can fully take in". It's wrong to say that should be the standard applied to everyone - imo.

"the posts made by people I follow" is a pool (regardless of what you want to claim) and "that subset in the order in which they were posted" is an algorithm (regardless of what you want to claim). Presenting a subset of content (the people you follow vs. literally all the content) in any particular order requires an algorithm. It's not a particularly advanced algorithm, but an algorithm nonetheless.

Consider even that most people would throw a fit if what you just asked for was the case and the only case. Most people probably want "most recently posted" given no other options, which is a different algorithm and the reverse order that you say you want.

I'm with the GP here. I don't use social media (currently Mastodon) to check the pulse of something or anything. I just want to see what the people I follow are up to. The last update can be two weeks ago, IDC.

I think at the end of the day, people will flock to the place they love, and that's OK.

What prevents Bluesky from slighyly and slowly manipulating these feeds for their gain in the mid-term?

Bluesky is not like Mastodon. You control own your data, but traffic chokes at a central point, and the firehose is still controlled, AFAIK, so you can't just federate, and run your own algorithm on your instance and call it a day?

I know they aren't universal! I also do not like those product managers. I think you may be mis-reading what I am saying.

To my understanding - in BlueSky (and Mastodon) this is possible (you can pick the reverse chronological feed) but in Twitter or Threads this is not possible.

“On your instance” doesn’t make sense because the way that the parts are split up isn’t the same as mastodon.

If you write a custom feed, you control what’s in it. If you use a feed by someone else, they control what’s in it.

In theory Bluesky could secretly change their client to mess with the feed subtly, but if you aren’t using their client, then they can’t.

Feeds are on top of the firehose, not below it.

"creates a confusing morass"

How can something that is not disclosed, e.g., a secret algorithm to support an online advertising business, be more confusing than something that is well-known, e.g., chronological ordering.

There is a simple way to find out what the "average user" prefers. Provide an option to select chronological ordering instead of the so-called "tech" company algorithm to support advertising. No "default". Ask the user to make a selection.

What happened when Apple gave iOS users the option to avoid tracking by Facebook. Zuckerberg hissy fit.

"You're holding it wrong"

Mastodon doesn't have a non-chronological feed to begin with.

Threads does have a chronological feed but it's very well hidden. In the mobile app, you have to tap the logo to reveal the selector. On desktop you click the arrow button next to "for you".

> if you aren’t using their client, then they can’t.

This is my point. How many people won't use "their" client, sans the knowledgeable people?

Mastodon is much more fragmented than Bluesky, so an intentional feed manipulation is only visible to the users of that instance.

The "algorithm" in social media discussions contexts on HN refers to an algorithm that is optimized to keep your eyeballs on the site. It does not refer to a dumb algorithm that is showing all posts in chronological order.

The notable difference is that no one considers the latter harmful. Undesirable, maybe, but not actively harmful.

On Mastodon you can follow hashtags and/or people. Following hashtags means you see posts with hashtags you are following in your feed, even from people you are not following, instead of seeing a few relevant posts and lots of irrelevant posts when you are following people. For me, following hashtags greatly increases my signal to noise ratio. There are a few people I follow but I mostly follow hashtags. If someone misuses a hashtag, I can simply mute their account and never see them again. If I get tired of a hashtag, I can stop following it and if I see a post with a hashtag I want to follow, I can with two clicks.

With Mastodon you can also follow hashtags. This way I see any post with a hashtag I'm following and no posts without them. This gives a much higher signal to noise ratio than following people who post on a variety of topics, when I'm probably only interested in one of the many topics they post on.

With Mastodon you can follow hashtags. I primarily do this instead of following people's accounts because most people post on a variety of topics when I'm only interested in probably one of the topics they post on. This gives me a very high signal to noise ratio and I get to see any post with hashtags I am interested in instead of just the ones by people I'm following. If someone misuses a hashtag, I can simply mute their account and never see their posts again.