Dear Jay Graber; This Is Why Bluesky Is Ultimately Bad
Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2025 2:33 pm
I'm sure most people are aware by now that someone signed up on Bluesky under the username @jd-vance-1.bsky.social, and that it was subsequently banned minutes after sign-up ... because the team thought it was an impersonation account. Usually, that would be the case, because, as we know, Bluesky's userbase leans heavily middle-liberal to hard-left, and lots of them love to impersonate political buffoons. But, once they (the Bluesky moderation team) found out it was real, they restored his account and sent an invite to Fox News welcoming him to the platform. Just as Jay said they would, back in May.
Full article here, if you must read it.
I want to preface this with: No, I'm not saying that ActivityPub and its associated apps, such as Mastodon, are perfect. The network has its issues, and we're still beating back the tide of indifferent, upper-middle-class tech workers. How can you help? By joining, and offering your voice as a breath of fresh air. Especially now.
But, there is a specific issue with Bluesky that has been the problem from the start.
Back in 2013, right as Gamergate was gearing up to make Twitter the worst social media platform in the world to exist upon, with it being basically the only online social space to exist and express yourself, there were, and still are people who believe that this was when Twitter was at its best. And that also seems to be the takeaway the Bluesky team had when they erected their alternative.
Obviously, Twitter was never really all that good. It was pretty unique and interesting in its original days, but the algorithm ruined that. In fact, algorithms are one of the biggest reasons why corporate social media is bad. And, no, Bluesky does not have an algorithm. But something that was built as a research project within Twitter, pioneered by Jack Dorsey, was always going to lead down a path of eventual destruction.
But, I keep getting side-tracked here. My point in writing this, as in, what I'm trying to convey here, is that building a social platform that is a mere one to one clone of Twitter, but the old days, isn't good. If you don't understand this, and your only reference point for badness is when a fascist billionaire buys up influence and an entire platform, you are constructing something that is meant to fail. You aren't taking away the right lesson, or, you aren't seeing the bigger picture.
Twitter has mostly always been a terrible place to exist, and Mastodon, Pleroma, Akkoma, Misskey, etc., were not created as an alternative to Twitter. They were created as a place for people to find decentralized, community-driven spaces, as an alternative to all mainstream social platforms. Which is the anti-thesis of an algorithm brained platform, and a paradise for people who hate corporate influence, and ads.
I know the Wiki mentions that users were seeking alternatives to Twitter, and found Mastodon, but that doesn't mean that it was specifically created to be an alt-Twitter.
That's what Bluesky was made to be.
And that's why they're taking money from crypto investors.
I know I've been beating this horse into a pulp, but all of these things are signs that the safety and fun you found during the lockdown days of Bluesky, are oases in the desert of doom, that are quickly drying up. And I've presented all of that here for you to see.
But I don't say this without acknowledging that, despite Bluesky trying to pretend they're the first at everything in decentralized social media, there have been things they've done that have inspired and made waves that aren't so bad.
Starter Packs took social media by storm. What a cool idea?! Putting people's accounts together in a "pack" that others can browse and mass-follow based on ideas and topics. It was such a cool idea, that someone made a website for starter pack creation, for Mastodon, that's specifically focused on developers.
And, despite issues with allowing random users to construct block and mute lists for other randoms to follow, this has been, at least, an interesting feature. But, you can't just say that without acknowledging that there are tons of bad faith blocklists, and that this was maybe never a good idea.
Some people are not meant to be community moderators, and should never have that kind of power.
What else was there that was actually good? Feeds. Feeds are pretty cool. On an app like Mastodon, you have the home feed, the local server feed, and the everywhere all at once feed, and that's pretty much it. You can construct lists of specific accounts in a use case where you'd like to see updates from a set of specific people, but Bluesky's integration of feeds to induct and kinda sorta create a user driven "algorithm" was pretty neat.
That's really it though. In the time I've personally spent on Bluesky, I've seen repeated harassment campaigns, quote-skeet dunking, dogpiling (wherein large accounts use their followers as weapons against people they don't like), high school clique behavior, and in-general? Way more toxicity than I've ever seen on the ActivityPub network, and even sometimes, more than I used to see even on Twitter, pre-Musk. But this is happening, because this is a symptom of a social network that's trying to be Twitter, sans Elon Musk.
And heck, I'm starting to think they would gladly invite him to the platform.
But, it really comes down to you, as a user, and what you're willing to put up with. Some people are newer to the internet. Fresh off of the iPad and into the adult world, ready to be traumatized by a platform that prioritizes the bottom-line, and platforming far right extremists all the way up to the government. The rest of us? We've seen this before. It doesn't end well.
Source: https://mkultra.monster/social-media/20 ... 9/hey-jay/
Full article here, if you must read it.
I want to preface this with: No, I'm not saying that ActivityPub and its associated apps, such as Mastodon, are perfect. The network has its issues, and we're still beating back the tide of indifferent, upper-middle-class tech workers. How can you help? By joining, and offering your voice as a breath of fresh air. Especially now.
But, there is a specific issue with Bluesky that has been the problem from the start.
Back in 2013, right as Gamergate was gearing up to make Twitter the worst social media platform in the world to exist upon, with it being basically the only online social space to exist and express yourself, there were, and still are people who believe that this was when Twitter was at its best. And that also seems to be the takeaway the Bluesky team had when they erected their alternative.
Obviously, Twitter was never really all that good. It was pretty unique and interesting in its original days, but the algorithm ruined that. In fact, algorithms are one of the biggest reasons why corporate social media is bad. And, no, Bluesky does not have an algorithm. But something that was built as a research project within Twitter, pioneered by Jack Dorsey, was always going to lead down a path of eventual destruction.
Side note: The problem with Bluesky's decentralized social leanings, is that actually running a full PDS, wherein your server ingests all of Bluesky, is that it becomes very expensive. Much more expensive than running a Mastodon server.Bluesky was created in 2019 as a research project within Twitter led by then-CEO Jack Dorsey. It eventually severed ties with Twitter and became an independent company following Musk’s acquisition. The goal with Bluesky was to build a decentralized standard for social media that Twitter could eventually adopt. In that way, Bluesky is comparable to Mastodon in that they both allow for the creation of different servers that interact, and users can move their data and network between servers.
But, I keep getting side-tracked here. My point in writing this, as in, what I'm trying to convey here, is that building a social platform that is a mere one to one clone of Twitter, but the old days, isn't good. If you don't understand this, and your only reference point for badness is when a fascist billionaire buys up influence and an entire platform, you are constructing something that is meant to fail. You aren't taking away the right lesson, or, you aren't seeing the bigger picture.
Twitter has mostly always been a terrible place to exist, and Mastodon, Pleroma, Akkoma, Misskey, etc., were not created as an alternative to Twitter. They were created as a place for people to find decentralized, community-driven spaces, as an alternative to all mainstream social platforms. Which is the anti-thesis of an algorithm brained platform, and a paradise for people who hate corporate influence, and ads.
Via the Mastodon Wiki page.First released in 2016 by Eugen Rochko, Mastodon has positioned itself as an alternative to mainstream social media, particularly for users seeking decentralized, community-driven spaces. The platform has experienced multiple surges in adoption, most notably following the Twitter acquisition by Elon Musk in 2022, as users sought alternatives to Twitter. It is part of a broader shift toward decentralized social networks, including Bluesky and Lemmy.
I know the Wiki mentions that users were seeking alternatives to Twitter, and found Mastodon, but that doesn't mean that it was specifically created to be an alt-Twitter.
That's what Bluesky was made to be.
And that's why they're taking money from crypto investors.
I know I've been beating this horse into a pulp, but all of these things are signs that the safety and fun you found during the lockdown days of Bluesky, are oases in the desert of doom, that are quickly drying up. And I've presented all of that here for you to see.
But I don't say this without acknowledging that, despite Bluesky trying to pretend they're the first at everything in decentralized social media, there have been things they've done that have inspired and made waves that aren't so bad.
Starter Packs took social media by storm. What a cool idea?! Putting people's accounts together in a "pack" that others can browse and mass-follow based on ideas and topics. It was such a cool idea, that someone made a website for starter pack creation, for Mastodon, that's specifically focused on developers.
And, despite issues with allowing random users to construct block and mute lists for other randoms to follow, this has been, at least, an interesting feature. But, you can't just say that without acknowledging that there are tons of bad faith blocklists, and that this was maybe never a good idea.
Some people are not meant to be community moderators, and should never have that kind of power.
What else was there that was actually good? Feeds. Feeds are pretty cool. On an app like Mastodon, you have the home feed, the local server feed, and the everywhere all at once feed, and that's pretty much it. You can construct lists of specific accounts in a use case where you'd like to see updates from a set of specific people, but Bluesky's integration of feeds to induct and kinda sorta create a user driven "algorithm" was pretty neat.
That's really it though. In the time I've personally spent on Bluesky, I've seen repeated harassment campaigns, quote-skeet dunking, dogpiling (wherein large accounts use their followers as weapons against people they don't like), high school clique behavior, and in-general? Way more toxicity than I've ever seen on the ActivityPub network, and even sometimes, more than I used to see even on Twitter, pre-Musk. But this is happening, because this is a symptom of a social network that's trying to be Twitter, sans Elon Musk.
And heck, I'm starting to think they would gladly invite him to the platform.
But, it really comes down to you, as a user, and what you're willing to put up with. Some people are newer to the internet. Fresh off of the iPad and into the adult world, ready to be traumatized by a platform that prioritizes the bottom-line, and platforming far right extremists all the way up to the government. The rest of us? We've seen this before. It doesn't end well.
Source: https://mkultra.monster/social-media/20 ... 9/hey-jay/