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...also who "took" all the progressives & put them anywhere? Nobody wanted to swim in shark-chummed waters, to add to the chum. All the argument was driving an algo-twisted hate engine. I just didn't want add to the N*zi training data set, & 4 mental health avoid seeing racism as the "top comment".

argh. He did not call it a "net negative," period. There are more words in the sentence! Also, do you think that Dave would disagree with the sentence "Elon's Twitter has also been a net negative for US politics"? I say he would. In fact I would bet a substantial amount of money that he would!

Yeah, it seems weird because the option besides Bluesky for people who don't want to constantly read racist screeds isn't "go back to pre-2022 twitter", it's mainly "stop going on text-based social media".

Because of how I learned a bunch of new stuff at that time, I redesigned my community college level online descriptive astronomy course to use all public domain and primary source materials. And I ended up winning an exemplary course award from Blackboard three years later.

The level of effort with which people dissect Will fucking [laudatory] Stancil’s every linguistic turn is psychotic

How can Bluesky be "part of the problem" if X/Twitter is simply unavailable to us for the purpose of influence? It's like saying Taiwan is "the problem" for the KMT, as opposed to the solution to the problem of "losing the Chinese Civil War"

No one is forcing you to use Bluesky or social media

It really isn't Right wing ownership of social media is the problem The only recourse is to #boycott because they need push back to make £$, to have a target for their bile Blue sky is a reminder that I am not alone, that there's millions of us decent people out there Blue sky=hope not hate

Are you saying that Bluesky is part of the problem because it's not enough of a solution? Do you think that things would be better if Bluesky didn't exist?

Will, it's not my job or anyone else here's job to make a billionaire fascist richer by subjecting ourselves to actual abuse through using their platform. Shitter is largely right-wing influencers, bigotted bots, and the US Government. If you want more engagement there, have at it.

Twitler certainly doesn't matter. It's a Nazi site owned and operated by a Nazi.

Yes I do. Every time I look at facebook comments, every right wing fuck in town going off. Their “discursive universe” entails screaming terrible shit at me & others. There’s no discourse possible.

What makes you think that 1 MAGAs on x were in any way persuadable 2 Non MAGAs would see Lefty x posts 3 Having a Lefty place to exchange ideas has no value ? IMO the contrary is true. Thanks for sparking discussion. BSKY still has plenty of Russian bots, fwiw.

I don't see any reason to extrapolate your experience here to the experience as a whole.

i don't see how you arrive at that conclusion inre the people on bluesky....unless you're getting a ton of people posting that on your feed...i've not had anyone post anything like on my feed or replies, nor when i read the Discover or Follow feeds do i see that.

If we're talking about micro-blogging... it doesn't? What is the evidence that *either* Bluesky or X matter? Right wingers have X locked down which means they have the eyes of "real people", right? So, uhhh, why is The Daily Wire and every other rightwing outlet tanking to shit?

But I'm not exiled, I used Twitter for a brief period in 2020, didn't care for it, and didn't touch it again until I deleted my account. I don't want algorithmic social media.

It isn't that we think it doesn't matter; it's that talking to Maga is like punching yourself in the face. Repeatedly. To no outcome of any positive nature. There's no changing the mind of a cultist. They just dig in harder. If there was a way to reach them, then, sure, let's do it. It's masochistic

This does not match my experience on BlueSky. If anything, we bemoan that Twitter remains relevant at all. It should be the fringe of the fringe, but it isn’t. We do not discount or underestimate the power of the other place.

Bluesky is fine for people who actually read the news and interact with other media,”social” or otherwise. But making Bluesky (or any other website) a full time hobby/job is not acceptable unless you are constantly telling really good jokes

And yet here you are.

They matter…they’re just out of their fucking minds and you can’t change their minds because they belong to a cult and are impervious to facts and rational thought much less reasoned debate.

The far right has systemically dismantled our ability to engage in the discourse. They own all the major social media sites, and they're halfway through a hostile takeover of cable news. It's incredibly frustrating, but I don't know how we're supposed to fight back at this point

This betrays a complete lack of understanding about how ideas explode out into the internet overall.

Don’t use it then

I agree with you to the extent that people do need to be aware that we are not representative of the larger even majority, much less the populace and should not get lulled into the sense we will be ok. This happened here before the 2024 election for sure..

I get blocked here for pointing out the most simple things. I think some people here have built themselves a little online SM Commune by blocking out any minor disagreement. I did leave twitter for a reason but do miss sports coverage and more news voices. Happy I don't get Kevin Sorbo tweets tho

The rest of the universe doesn't matter objectively. Wait until the volcano explodes. Most of X is robots. You guys are underestimating the number of robots among us. No one really uses X anymore. It is not even possible to use it unless you have a hard on for Musk. So, like 4chan and grifters.

Maybe we’re convinced this is a useful part of the discursive universe, not the be-all and end-all of all political interaction. I’ve long been convinced there’s no point in talking or listening to the right. Getting banned from X was a real gift to me.

No, the rest of the universe is either too busy trapped in capitalist enslavement, or just too goddamn stupid.

Wish I felt there was something "discursive" in the alternatives. And the "solipsism" you're referencing is alive and well in the alternatives, too.

For example, the rabid hate bluesky has for anything AI means they are all about 20 years (in AI dog years) out of date. Everyone still thinks models hallucinate and can't code. They have no idea how quickly the models have advanced and what people are using them for.

This is where I think we needs statistics and not just vibes to reach a conclusion. Could be the case but I am not convinced! Since everyone has their own very subjective experiences here due to follows and interactions differing, hard to draw general conclusions.

You really shouldn't generalize. I'm not exiled, nor am I convinced. Fucksake.

Well then maybe there is a genuine area of disagreement. I think there are problems with Bluesky but I don’t think it’s a clear part of the problem being discussed (the decline of liberal influence on media). Anyway maybe we are now in some agreement as to how that so-called “reading in” occurred?

Where should people on the left go, then?

Use tires, a major contributor to plastics in the environment. What do you want? For reality to somehow be different entirely? I’m missing the value of this critique. “It’s an echo chamber, but don’t feel the need to return to x because it really is horrible and it wouldn’t help anyway.” We know.

And he does say in a subsequent discussion “I got over my skis on that one” so I think the mistake is acknowledged!

It’s definitely not calling Bluesky the problem. It’s calling the overall media landscape that has resulted in this situation the problem. More lamenting the lack of a broader exodus from X than anything

That is the most eloquent description so far! Thanks 💚