What do you compare this userbase to? Twitter? Facebook? Reddit? HN? All of these places have similar or worse userbase and worse filtering/blocking options than bsky.
If they want to remain a niche echo-chamber platform rather than become a major social network, that would be an appropriate strategy. However, I expect they have higher ambitions.
What they should also do is redesign (or remove) the "nuclear block" feature. In its current state, it helps perpetuate a hostile and exclusionary atmosphere to new users, which isn't going to help Bluesky grow an active and diverse userbase.
Also, unlike ActivityPub, it's actually useful for building features that normal people expect from social apps — for example, algorithmic feeds and search, and a single interlinked world (rather than fragmented "servers").
Eh, AP has its own sets of problems (underspecified protocol, split-brained on discoverability, new developments are met with hostility in the community)
With the new CEO in place, are there any plans to deal with the obnoxious userbase of Bluesky, and perhaps try to expand it out to reach people who don't exhibit such high levels of toxicity?
Yes, in the case of Twitter/X. A considerably wider range of expressed preference&opinion is permitted there before platform moderators will aggressively ban or users start flag/report brigades.
As one of the first 10k beta users, who was fairly active, then moved back to twitter, I agree with this. The userbase is extremely off putting from the get go- it's not the fault of Graber or anyone else- but they should allow people to turn off the turbo redditor type people with a few settings.
> As one of the first 10k beta users, who was fairly active, then moved back to twitter, I agree with this. The userbase is extremely off putting from the get go
Very surprised to hear this... the few times I've visited Twitter in the last year I've been met with a deluge of racist, homophobic, transphobic, and misogynistic comments. Like there's practically no moderation on there. People saying "Hitler was right the whole time" and shit like that.
I don't use Bluesky much either but I definitely wouldn't have considered it worse than Twitter
Twitter still attracts top quality initial posts from prominent people, even though the replies are garbage, or worse. Honestly, it doesn't compute to me how people can justify continuing to contribute there.
Its not worse than twitter. It's not close in compared to toxicity; though i've personally noticed a high-minded snobbishness toxicity that shuts down discussion on it.
The response was to someone commenting the discourse on Bluesky was "off putting" so they went back to Twitter.
I wasn't touching on freedom of speech, just the relative quality of speech in both platforms.
As a centralized service operating in Canada and the EU though, I do believe Twitter is legally required to remove certain kinds of hate speech. The qualification for removal might be debatable (e.g. "the Austrian painter was right" is another thing people say which is a dogwhistle, but probably not explicit enough for companies to be compelled to remove it) but the requirement is there.
> but I'm sure you hold dear the right to say whatever you want, whether others agree with it or not
You know, reflecting back on my youth, I wish certain things I said (and might have posted on social media had it been so present) were immediately stricken from the record. Banning hate speech which incites violence against a minority group is a slippery slope, but I think it's for the better. At the same time, of course it can be abused, such as with the IHRA definition of antisemitism used in many jurisdictions, under which many valid criticisms of Israel would be deemed "antisemitic"
Spewing stuff like what? Robert Maxwell, Ghislane Maxwell's father (a proud Zionist and Mossad agent) was the co-founder of McGraw Hill, the second largest textbook publishing company in the US. Are you trying to tell me a proud Zionist who is publishing textbooks is making it his priority to ensure they paint an objective picture of history in relationship to Israel? My textbooks (whether in High School or University) certainly didn't talk about the Sabbateans or Jacob Frank / Frankism - yet understanding their history is critical to anything approaching objectivity.
What I expect is for all narratives to be able to be questioned, and not for there to be one that is unquestionable. When narratives can't be questioned, it's a pretty good indicator that something is being lied about.
> This is a perfect example of when I think freedom of speech restrictions (such as laws criminalizing Holocaust denial) are a net positive.
Of course you think that, because you don't want to have an objective conversation about the events that took place, you want a single narrative to prevail unquestioningly.
> My grandparents were holocaust survivors, so I know directly from them what they went through, and I know about my family members who were killed.
I'm sure they were. Just like I'm sure the number of survivors keeps increasing as the years go on. Wild how that happens.
> I have no sympathy for people who publicly spread lies and misinformation to deny or downplay the severity of any genocide.
Convenient when you can brush off what Israel is doing by claiming it's not a genocide.
> Sorry not sorry.
I typically don't expect pathological liars and pathological victims to be sorry about much.
You basically can, can't you, with it's robust blocking features and feeds?
Personally, I've found bsky has a far healthier culture than Twitter, even before Musk turned it into his own personal megaphone/therapist and neo-nazi safe-space (and I follow a lot of political accounts)
The lack of payouts for engaging posts and the robust blocking really does change the incentive structure over there. That twitter-style toxic engagement-bait type posting doesn't get rewarded as much.
There are some far-left groups there who are very toxic and will harass some people, but they are easy to block. Most of them seem to block people at the drop of a hat anyways, and so end up in their own isolated bubbles.
I personally believe it's because they replicated the same incentive structure as Twitter. Being provocative generates engagement, which gets you reach and creates the perception of relevance.
At first, people were just happy to be at an alternative to Elon Twitter. But good vibes only get you so far when the incentives point the other direction.
It's insufferable, yes. Even though I'm a left-liberal, it feels foreign to me. Twitter is worse at the limit (endless neo-Nazis and Maoists) but at least I feel some diversity while I'm there. Bluesky is so uniform in the annoyingness of its community.
What Bluesky should do now is focus on expanding their userbase away from this particular group of insufferables.
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