this post was submitted on 18 Oct 2024
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Elon Musk’s latest changes for X are driving more users away – not exactly a surprise, granted – and many of them are flocking to rival social media outlet Bluesky. So many made the switch, in fact, it led to Bluesky briefly going down due to the volume of incoming new users.

The central move initiated by X that made the headlines for driving migration away from Musk’s platform is a change to the way the ‘Block’ button works. This was actually announced back in September, but is officially being implemented now (well, it’ll be in place ‘soon’ we’re told).

It means that going forward, X users who you have blocked will still be able to view your (public) posts – though they won’t be able to engage with them in any way (from replies to liking and so forth).

This is problematic for obvious reasons, in terms of enabling stalkers and trolls who will still be able to view the posts of an account that has blocked them, when previously this wasn’t the case. In the past, blocking meant that the blocked user couldn’t see any posts (or anything at all, save for a message telling them that they’ve been blocked), but soon, this will change.

Bluesky posted to say it had in excess of 100,000 new users inside 12 hours following the announcement by X, after the rival network highlighted the fact that its block function stops those who are blocked from viewing any posts.

In an update, Bluesky noted that it has now gained half a million new users in the past day.

There’s another reason that some folks are rapidly exiting from X stage left (and right, and indeed center, clambering over the audience, it would seem), and that’s a change to X’s privacy policy.

As TechCrunch reports, the new policy includes an update that allows third-party collaborators to use content on X to train their AI models – unless the user opts out. This is a notable extension of the reach of AI training on X, which has so far only been used to train Musk’s own Grok AI (unless users opt out, again).

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[–] yamanii@lemmy.world 9 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) (1 children)

I just go where the japanese artists go, and they are going to either blue sky or misskey, mostly blue sky since it has a bigger reach, misskey closed account creation for outsiders, and the way mastodon works I bet it's defederated from a lot of the popular instances like baraag.

[–] IdleSheep@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

Misskey is like mastodon so you can just go to another misskey instance.

But if you're talking about the misskey.io instance, it's not that defederated from my experience (the 3 instances I'm on aren't defederated from it).

The instance simply follows Japanese law so whatever Japan allows they allow and whatever Japan forbids they forbid (which is why censoring genitals is also mandatory in that instance lol). It's not like it's some nazi cesspool or anything like that.

[–] yamanii@lemmy.world 1 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

I don't know how to see how much an instance is defederated, I just concluded it must be in the same rate of baraag because both misskey.io and it allows loli art. I know that baraag is on some default block list for administrators for example.

[–] IdleSheep@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

Baraag is way more permissive than misskey.io and it gained a pretty bad reputation in the past because of that, plus it essentially advertises itself as a safe haven for lolicon art and primarily focuses on that, so that's why it's on many block lists.

misskey.io is just a generalist Japanese instance (which is why many Japanese artists easily hop on it). It's also the biggest misskey instance and is run by the main developer, so it's usually not blocked by default because most people use it.

Defederating from misskey.io would be like defederating from mastodon.social. Some will do it but it's not the default stance afaik.

[–] Voltage@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 14 hours ago

Japan is weird as fuck. I just saw a Japanese disc store collaborate with an incest sleep rape game.

[–] Nuke_the_whales@lemmy.world 22 points 1 day ago (5 children)

How do we know this bluesky isn't just the same shit run by different assholes?

[–] fantawurstwasser@feddit.org 10 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

We know that it is run by the same assholes. Bluesky is VC backed and Twitter was also. There is no way that Bluesky won't go the same route as every other VC backed social network. Sometime in the future they will start to meddle with your feed to push ads and sell your data to everyone.

[–] Asetru@feddit.org 6 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

This makes me wonder so hard why people don't switch to Mastodon instead. Like... You have literally seen this before! Why are you doing it again?

[–] rozodru@lemmy.world 1 points 12 hours ago

Because people "just want it to work".

from what I've read on bsky is that people don't like Mastodon due to the instances. They don't want to figure that out. Either because they're too lazy or because they've spent so many years utilizing apps that "just work" that it's beyond them.

That's the meat and potatoes as to why Mastodon isn't taking off, it's "too much work" to use Mastodon.

[–] Honytawk@lemmy.zip 20 points 1 day ago

We can't, but at least there is a chance it is not.

With Xitter, we know for certain.

[–] dog_@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago

I've been on the platform for about a year, it's more community driven than other sites.

[–] mm_maybe@sh.itjust.works 19 points 1 day ago (3 children)

We don't. It probably is. Mastodon is the way, but they need to fix a few things themselves.

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[–] sibachian@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

we already know bluesky is run by former twitter assholes. but it's the same with everything. people disappointed in new facebook policies move to band...

there are better alternatives, guaranteed not to turn into a heap of shit because of designed safeguards - but people don't like those things; they always opt for the devil they already know.

[–] T156@lemmy.world 2 points 22 hours ago (2 children)

Although it also helps that places like BlueSky have less of a barrier to entry.

Alternatives like Mastodon are a bit more confusing, compared to a centralised site, where everything is linked in through the one interface.

[–] sibachian@lemmy.ml 1 points 13 hours ago

i disagree. the only barrier of entry is when people are pushing the fediverse concept as a whole. for the vast majority of people; all they need to know is to go to mastodon.social and sign up, done. they'll get the wider picture on their own terms and at their own pace if left alone.

[–] Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 1 points 18 hours ago

Most of the coolest places have barriers to entry

[–] billbasher@lemmy.world 28 points 1 day ago

Opt out is such a shitty practice. Especially for AI generation

[–] JovialMicrobial@lemm.ee 38 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Social media like Twitter preys on people's fear of missing out.

Manufactured Problem - not being up to date on internet bullshit. Marketed solution - be on twitter. Supply and demand died a long time ago. Now it's all about manufactured problems, and conveniently marketed solutions.

This sort of psychological manipulation in marketing works. It's why it's so hard to get people to leave websites like Twitter, reddit, fb ect. They've made their brands synonymous with media trends.

It took long enough, but I'm genuinely happy to see folks wising up and realizing they don't "need" Twitter. It's like watching a bunch of people break up with a toxic ex all at the same time.

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[–] sweetpotato@lemmy.ml 40 points 2 days ago (4 children)

These mfs will use literally anything except for open source, decentralised social meda

[–] LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com 22 points 1 day ago

The masses yearn for the corporate boot

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[–] Snapz@lemmy.world 49 points 2 days ago (9 children)

Just helpful to remember, as all this horseshit persists, Bluesky is Jack Dorsey. Dorsey is former head of Twitter and musk's good buddy.

It's all a losing proposition, whatever direction you move - except if you move... Away.

[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 2 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

im not sure people wont consider mastodon tbh.

[–] Snapz@lemmy.world 1 points 17 hours ago (1 children)
[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 1 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

i know. but its our responsability to understand why the corporate shitty options are always preferred by the layman public.

[–] Snapz@lemmy.world 1 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (1 children)

Because we are extremely simple and self obsessed animals on the whole. At the intersection of those two things, we regularly conflate base familiarity with earned trust. A bit of a narcissistic drive to tell ourselves that... if WE know about something, it MUST be good, otherwise we wouldn't have taken the time to first learn about it!

It's why your town is currently infested with candidate signs in every public space. It's also why incumbents have such large advantages in elections and why dead/convicted politicians (or Last-name sharing family members of those politicians) are often elected after the fact.

[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 0 points 11 hours ago
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[–] just_another_person@lemmy.world 171 points 2 days ago (13 children)

What a garbage dataset to train off. The majority of everything there is all bots and AI anyway lol

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[–] ayyy@sh.itjust.works 50 points 2 days ago (5 children)

Wait this whole article just baselessly assumes that 1 new bluesky account = 1 person leaving twitter. That is so obviously unrealistic. Sure some people were probably curious and wanted to check out something new but that doesn't mean they will immediately switch platforms.

You can’t just make fun of Those Guys for endlessly believing fake bullshit while unquestionably parroting this garbage.

[–] Istolla@lemmy.world 3 points 17 hours ago

Getting a 100000 new users when Twitter loses roughly the same amount is a pretty significant correlation.

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[–] LEDZeppelin@lemmy.world 118 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 children)

Dude, that’s gonna be one hell of a racist AI just based on the dataset it’s gonna receive

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[–] Lon3star@lemmy.world 143 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Come on over to Mastodon, the water's nice

[–] ruckblack@sh.itjust.works 86 points 2 days ago (29 children)

I've stopped recommending it. The discovery and trending post mechanisms are either garbage or non-existent, and it's really hard to get a feed that's remotely entertaining. Devs also seem ideologically opposed to adding any features like that. It'll just give normal people who aren't willing to deal with all this crap a bad taste in their mouth when it comes to the fediverse. I do recommend lemmy to people tho.

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[–] Suavevillain@lemmy.world 16 points 1 day ago (10 children)

Bluesky is pretty great once you learn how to use it. I plan to slowly back off twitter.

[–] woelkchen@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago

Bluesky is the promise of Mastodon with none of the failsafes of Mastodon.

[–] supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 41 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Bluesky is vc backed by investors, it is a false promise that I am sure a lot of people working on the project believe, but it is a false promise all the same.

Bluesky is in the part of its lifecycle where investors tolerate no return on their investment in favor of drawing more people in. That is the relevant difference between Bluesky and other social media.

There are cool parts to Bluesky but it is absolutely a false promise of a future the fediverse already provides (however imperfectly). It is also full of "liberal" sheep who tell themselves they think differently but are so locked into the mindset of the way things are that they NEED their social network to be owned and operated for a profit by people orders of magnitude more wealthy than them.

Bluesky will end up essentially the same as all investor backed for-profit social networks, it will grow into a toxic, centralized (or in this case pseudo-centralized because of the moderation system), shithole where only popular accounts get any engagement with their posts. Mark my words.

[–] Boiglenoight@lemmy.world 1 points 12 hours ago

But is it filled with the people that many want to follow and interact with? Twitter was popular for this reason, and people will tolerate being advertised to and sold on if it recreates that experience.

I had brief conversations on Twitter with Ice-T and John Carmack. Twitter’s nature enabled that remarkable connection. Could it happen on Mastodon? Absolutely, but those celebrities and geniuses need to embrace it. If it’s Bluesky, it’s better than X if only for a time.

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[–] Miphera@lemmy.world 22 points 2 days ago (3 children)
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[–] KAYDUBELL@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago

Pussy. Ass. Bitch.

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