Interesting. Reddit by contrast is moderation decentralized system centralized.
User ban controversy reveals Bluesky’s decentralized aspiration isn’t reality
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Re: User ban controversy reveals Bluesky’s decentralized aspiration isn’t reality
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
Could you link to some of those analyses? I'm sure that Hacker News would love to delve into the arguments instead of trying to downvote or flag your posts into non-visibility because they disagree with you.
The most comprehensive “Singal does bad journalism” montages come from the left-wing media outlets and leftist bloggers that he’s targeted over the years. The typical HN commenter is going to immediately gloss those accounts as partisan hyperbole. And why not? It’s purely academic for some of them, and internally worldview-challenging for others. But if you really are honestly curious and unbiased, M. K. Anderson wro…
> But if you really are honestly curious and unbiased, M. K. Anderson wrote a well-researched article for Protean in 2022.
He misrepresents Singal's writing, uses guilt-by-association smears, and focuses more on personal vilification of Singal than substantive critique.
For example his claim that Singal's writing "endangers trans lives" is hyperbolic and unsupported.
This is nothing more than a hit piece penned to destroy the heretic.
Re: User ban controversy reveals Bluesky’s decentralized aspiration isn’t reality
#93The technology powering Bluesky is “inspired by” but never interoperable with existing standards or similar reference architectures. This is one’s first queue that the direction is not being open. And beyond the technical details, how can a corporation commit to transparency and non-bias when their very funding depends on it? Google already provided us with the most popular example of how this is not possible (“don’t…
Bluesky is a PBC, which isn't a corporation exactly. Or rather it's one designed to respond to the fears of people who think corporations are required to maximize profits.
Re: User ban controversy reveals Bluesky’s decentralized aspiration isn’t reality
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's worse than that, as the linked TC article links to an explanation of his ban-worthy views that, if applied to everyone, would lean to a ban of probably 85% of the US. (Purposefully not referencing them here. The question is not whether those views are right, it's whether those are mainstream.) Bluesky has a problem of its user base demanding purity, and it will 100% be the death of it.
Even better: the only “evidence” of Singal’s “anti-trans” views are that his work has been quoted by anti-trans politicians and activists. This is an absolute ridiculous bar to have. Anyone who follows him would be hard-pressed to describe him as “anti-trans” unless you think anything less than a full throated endorsement of self ID and medical transition interventions for minors is “anti-trans”.
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Re: User ban controversy reveals Bluesky’s decentralized aspiration isn’t reality
#95[flagged]
Well said. Very much agree with your edit too.
Re: User ban controversy reveals Bluesky’s decentralized aspiration isn’t reality
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
The most comprehensive “Singal does bad journalism” montages come from the left-wing media outlets and leftist bloggers that he’s targeted over the years. The typical HN commenter is going to immediately gloss those accounts as partisan hyperbole. And why not? It’s purely academic for some of them, and internally worldview-challenging for others. But if you really are honestly curious and unbiased, M. K. Anderson wro…
> But if you really are honestly curious and unbiased, M. K. Anderson wrote a well-researched article for Protean in 2022. He misrepresents Singal's writing, uses guilt-by-association smears, and focuses more on personal vilification of Singal than substantive critique. For example his claim that Singal's writing "endangers trans lives" is hyperbolic and unsupported. This is nothing more than a hit piece penned to de…
> For example his claim that Singal's writing "endangers trans lives" is hyperbolic and unsupported.
Partially due to Singal’s sensationalist journalism, trans people in the United States are about to lose access to some forms of healthcare—treatments that will remain accessible to cis people, like hormone replacement therapy.
So I think history has vindicated this particular claim. I don’t expect you to agree, however.
I am honored that you made an account just to respond to this! Welcome to HN.
Re: User ban controversy reveals Bluesky’s decentralized aspiration isn’t reality
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah they changed the policy on off-site behavior to specifically allow his posts. For another example he routinely posted screenshots of posts from people that had blocked him. Block evasion is/was against the ToS as applied to most users other than Jesse Singal. People mix up “users wanting him banned for having abhorrent views” (which is the opinion of some people) with “users wanting him banned for the same stuff…
> he routinely posted screenshots of posts from people that had blocked him I don't like platforms that try to keep me ignorant of what others are publicly saying, keeping me in a non-consensual information bubble. It is basically deception.
> I don't like platforms that try to keep me ignorant of what others are publicly saying
That’s neither here nor there. The nuclear block is a big part of how Bluesky works, and abiding by it/was part of the rules for users other than Jesse Singal.
The point I made is that other users that share your disagreement with the nuclear block would get suspended or banned for evading it, whereas Jesse Singal would not/does not. The message to other users was “if you don’t like it, tough”
I say is/was because I don’t read his posts. I stopped paying close attention to all that some time after it became clear that retroactive changes to the ToS to justify (lack of) actions is the baseline for how Jay and Aaron run the site.
Re: User ban controversy reveals Bluesky’s decentralized aspiration isn’t reality
#98The founder has been posting through it, Elon-style and with as much cringe. It's disappointing because I've mostly been able to replicate my Twitter experience there. It's better actually, because more funny people moved and fewer journalists so it's less of a doomscroll.
"Posting through it" is a fairly nonsensical concept. It implies you're required to agree with people yelling at you, which you aren't.
Bluesky in particular has this problem because it inherited a kind of leftist crustpunk poster from 2016 Twitter. They had a weird affect where they hated "nerds" for some reason and pretended to be those jock bully characters from 80s high school movies.
The modern Bluesky form has evolved into being terrified of "AI" and screaming at anyone who uses it or has ever heard of it that it doesn't work and will never work but is also using up all the water and steals everyone's art and is going to make everyone unemployed and also you're a STEMlord who needs to take humanities classes to learn to be ethical.
They're currently working on inventing new slurs for AI chatbots which are mostly remarkably offensive.
Re: User ban controversy reveals Bluesky’s decentralized aspiration isn’t reality
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
"he didn't technically break any rules so I won't ban him" has been the death of _many_ social spaces good moderation requires discretion and keeping the users happy, not slavish legalism
Good on Jay Graber that she's sticking to a reasoned set of principles instead of bowing down to the braying mob.
if you call your userbase a braying mob, you're not going to have a userbase for long
Re: User ban controversy reveals Bluesky’s decentralized aspiration isn’t reality
#100> However, as time has gone by, Bluesky’s traffic has declined (X’s has as well) and some of its users have become increasingly upset at its moderation decisions, including allowing U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance and anti-trans writer Jesse Singal to remain as users of the platform. The problem, if you can call it that, is Singal hasn't broken any of their TOS or guidelines. Right now, AFAICT this is a people with pi…
It's worse than that, as the linked TC article links to an explanation of his ban-worthy views that, if applied to everyone, would lean to a ban of probably 85% of the US. (Purposefully not referencing them here. The question is not whether those views are right, it's whether those are mainstream.) Bluesky has a problem of its user base demanding purity, and it will 100% be the death of it.
>if applied to everyone, would lean to a ban of probably 85%
I'm not American but looking in from the outside i can't figure out anything 85% of you would agree on there right now.