Bluesky wants you to stop calling it a Twitter alternative

[BumRushDaShow]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by Omaha Steve (a host of the Latest Breaking News forum).

Source: The Independent

Thursday 26 December 2024 15:35 GMT


Every day on the site formerly known as Twitter, people post long goodbyes to their followers and instructions on how to find them in “the other place”. They are referring, of course, to Bluesky. But although their fortunes are intertwined, Bluesky’s chief operating officer, Rose Wang, bristles at the constant comparisons.

“People just think that we’re some sort of Twitter alternative, but we’re very much not,” she tells The Independent. “It’d be like calling 1950s TV the same thing as YouTube.”

The similarities are hard to avoid, however. Bluesky started as a project within Twitter in 2019 and was spun out into a separate company by founder Jack Dorsey two years later. The look and feel of the site is nearly the same as X. Squint and you’d be forgiven for mistaking them. For an increasing number of users, though, there is one crucial difference: Bluesky is not run by a megalomaniac billionaire intent on bending the world to his will.

Since Elon Musk purchased Twitter in 2022, millions of longtime users have abandoned the site in anger over its rightward lurch and an increasingly poor user experience. Musk fired some 80 percent of staff, amplified right-wing viewpoints, removed safeguards that protected against hate speech and misinformation, reinstated the accounts of extremists and neo-Nazis (and Trump), and banned critical journalists.

Read more: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/bluesky-twitter-elon-musk-alternative-b2665364.html

[bucolic_frolic]

1. Twitter is legacy social media. X is a distortion of that. Bluesky has seized the moment. /nt

[Cirsium]

2. Not very informative

There really isn't anything in the article that supports the claim in the headline.

There is this absurd statement:

"If X is the town square, where the loudest voices drown out everyone else, then Bluesky is a party that you have chosen to attend with guests similar to you."

X serves you up "guests similar to you." Bluesky is like the town square where dangerous and abusive people are arrested.

[BumRushDaShow]

3. You didn't cite the actual paragraphs of context around those quotes that include these -

Wang believes the reason that Bluesky is rising while others are stalling comes down to control. Bluesky doesn’t have an overriding algorithm that controls what people see. If X is the town square, where the loudest voices drown out everyone else, then Bluesky is a party that you have chosen to attend with guests similar to you.

Users can create lists of people to follow based on subject or interest, block accounts and certain types of posts, and adopt custom timeline filters. All of these controls are aimed at creating a more social, less toxic, environment.

“It’s actually lending itself to much more pro-social behavior,” Wang says.“We’re used to being trapped in one algorithm controlled by a small group of people. That’s no longer the case, and our users have built over 50,000 different feeds, like different cat feeds or Taylor Swift feeds, or F1 feeds. And these feeds basically provide cozier corners for people with other similar interests to meet each other.”

I.e., they are indicating that Bluesky allows the user to control the feed algorithm rather than be force-fed some unsolicited AI bullshit "selection" of content.

[Cirsium]

5. Hmmm

So, it is an alternative to X, then? The headline suggests that it isn't.

I understand that "Bluesky allows the user to control the feed algorithm rather than be force-fed some unsolicited AI bullshit 'selection' of content." That is why I thought the sentence that I quoted was so bad.

[BumRushDaShow]

6. "So, it is an alternative to X, then? The headline suggests that it isn't. "

The 3rd OP excerpt paragraph has this as an explanation -

The similarities are hard to avoid, however. Bluesky started as a project within Twitter in 2019 and was spun out into a separate company by founder Jack Dorsey two years later.

I.e., it was built from what was once Twitter BEFORE Twitter was bought, reconfigured, and renamed to "X".

IOW, "X" has become it's own toxic rewrite of what had been spearheaded by Dorsey as "Twitter", and it is basically no longer "Twitter", whereas Bluesky is probably closer to the old "Twitter" (vs being an "alternative to Twitter" ).

And as a caveat - I know back in the day, many DUers trashed Jack Dorsey unmercifully.

[Cirsium]

10. Thanks

I appreciate you trying to explain it.

It is still not clear to me why Bluesky is not an alternative to X ("Twitter" whatever), per the headline - "Bluesky wants you to stop calling it a Twitter alternative." Aren't people leaving Twitter (or X whatever) and going to Bluesky because it is an alternative to Twitter?

[BumRushDaShow]

12. What it sounds like is that they are trying to distinguish "Twitter" from "X"

and mainly because you still see the media reference "X" as "formerly Twitter". But with almost all of the vestiges of the Twitter branding and functionality having been removed or altered in what is now called "X", then they don't seem to want to acknowledge X as having anything to do with (what was once) Twitter, because Bluesky is probably the closest to "being Twitter" (at least what it used to be but supposedly "improved", without calling it "Twitter" ).

As a messaging/social media app, it is different from "Mastodon" and somewhat different from "Threads", so if anything, it might be something that could be called "an alternative to Threads" (which right now has more users than Bluesky and could be considered a close competitor - particularly when not counting junk like "Truth Social" ), where as I understand it, Threads is tied in with Instagram (Meta stuff).

[ificandream]

4. Bluesky is being political and bypassing the technical.

Even if the algorithms are different and whether they want to admit it or not, Bluesky is an alternative. That's not a bad thing. Both have strong similarities. I don't think the differences outweigh them.

[BumRushDaShow]

7. I think what they are saying

is that Bluesky is closer to the ORIGINAL "Twitter" (since it was "born" from Twitter as a subproject) and "X" took what was "Twitter" and completely reconfigured it to be almost unrecognizable.

It's like they would want to call Bluesky "Twitter" again (but an "improved" version) but obviously can't.

[Cirsium]

11. That makes sense

"Don't confuse us with Musk?"

[BumRushDaShow]

13. Basically

[LeftInTX]

8. Although I have a twitter account, I rarely use it. (Don't need BlueSky account to read posts because they're "open")

I'm pretty active on FB, and have a cousin who has worked in media and know a few others.

When Trump was president (or maybe when he was running in 2016) some crazy thing came up.
My cousin posted on FB: "When things like this happen, I go to twitter! FB can't keep up!

So anyway, I hope all the MSM, NWS etc get on BlueSky! The media really likes the "byte-size" coverage that twitter/x affords them. Also BlueSky is an open platform that anyone can read. Once again, that's something the media should appreciate. (Unlike Mastadon and Threads) The NWS does a pretty good job with alerts on twitter.

(Never really had a habit of scrolling on twitter, so the algorithms weren't an issue for me )

[SKKY]

9. So, to make a comparison, Twitter is what Kimberly Guilfoyle used to look like...

...X is what she looks like now.

[Omaha Steve]

14. AFTER a review by forum hosts LOCKING

NOT important news of national interest only.

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