Twitter (and Threads) Have Made a HUGE Mistake

[@unknown23hornet22]

The algorithm not showing things with links has another side effect. It makes it really hard to fact-check people and provide evidence.

[@VegaNorth]

HARD agree

[@ClaireAmey]

@@kawkasaurous What about any of this makes you think either would produce an unsafe or insecure workplace?

[@unknown23hornet22]

@kawkasaurous Are you implying that we leak information? Because there is this skill called keeping your mouth shut when appropriate. And it can be learned while still being able to debate.

[@JimCullen]

I don't think that's true, because replies give you a notification that's not subject to algorithmic performance

[@Sep_tmbr]

​@@ClaireAmey Something tells me this person likes to blame the victims who speak against workplace harassment and/or exploitation instead of the wrongdoers.

[@elizabethtangora4353]

I had a bit of a lightning bolt moment when I realized my dad complains about the same thing on Facebook at the micro level; he’s not a content creator he’s just a guy who enjoys connecting with his friends and fandoms (ballet and history) on Facebook. But he’s actually felt hurt by friends not responding to certain posts and I’ve had to explain to him *why* those friends aren’t even seeing his posts. Yeah, social media where the algorithm ignores people when they need it to return the effort users have put in is ultimately doomed.

[@vixxcelacea2778]

Aw :( There's something sad (not in an insulting way, in a genuinely empathetic way) about an adult with kids who feels hurt by his friends not liking his posts. I hope your dad understood that it's not a reflection on his friends engagement to how they like him and that it's the system set up of FB when you told him. Honestly, I think something like whatsapp or discord that you can use on your phone to directly connect to a specific group of friends/family and share things is a much better way to avoid things like that. Because you will see everything posted as it's not using the same type of set up with engagement.

[@marloelefant7500]

I recently logged into Facebook again, scrolled a bit on the news feed. 70% advertisements, 29% some sites I've liked, 1% posts from real people. Facebook is genuine rubbish.

[@krisismav]

@@vixxcelacea2778fr, my family was having the same complaints until we opened up a family WhatsApp group. Highly recommend something like that to connect with friends or especially family

[@margevonmunchingindahausen]

THIS! Friends of mine are fed up, sharing links to their semi-professional photography site, none of their friends seeing it. Sharing insightful or important "news" from our communities but via links to the original article/announcement etc. No engagement. Subcultures are suffering when we can't share our creativity or our favourite new band discoveries without taking the photo/video ourselves and posting it direct on the platform. Word of mouth fan reach is dying in favour of corporate or even full time "content creators" setting up multiple platforms and posting content directly. But to keep people engaged it has to be so pithy and short that nuance is lost completely.

[@Axterix13]

@@vixxcelacea2778 Worth noting he said "responding", not liking. So he might have found some interesting links, perhaps related to things his friends have discussed in the past, put them up to spark discussion, and then... crickets.

[@slash196]

"Links end sessions" is such penny wise, pound foolish behavior. If someone is posting a link that you're interested enough to click on, you're probably interested enough in that person to come back later.

[@steggopotamus]

Exactly. It's shallow people knee jerking their way to a conclusion based on limited date. The way you analyzed the situation is akin to systems thinking, where you consider what happens later on. (Also critical thinking but I think more people need to make systems thinking a household word, because it's a particular application with specific diagramming etc.)

[@celticphoenix2579]

I have memory problems, so if I click off a video to follow a link I am highly unlikely to be back.

[@steggopotamus]

@@celticphoenix2579 i have adhd, so I won't come back immediately, but I'll be back ince it lands in long term memory

[@namehereandthere]

@@celticphoenix2579you can’t remember to reopen an app? 😂😂😂 okay.

[@HumbleWooper]

@@celticphoenix2579 one workaround for that issue (if you want it, no worries if not), if I want to come back to wherever I found a link I'm clicking, I'll open it in a new browser tab. (Right-click the link, choose "open in new browser tab" from the drop-down menu.) That way when I'm done with the linked thing I can close the tab and the original page is still there waiting for me.

[@crystaljoymusic]

I've gotten so used to seeing or hearing "link in bio" that forces a profile page landing. Then the in app browser takes over and you are still forced to live in that app's ecosystem. It's commercially driven, not community driven. I'm hoping bsky continues to invest in the community aspect, because a strong community will be happy to pass along info about a show somewhere from someone they like, even if they can't personally go.

[@consequences]

You can usually go into setting and change something to make links open in your preferred browser.

[@wmj1860]

You want an echo chamber to invest in the community aspect? Who not stick to using the platform that doesn't censor free speech? Echo chambers are evil.

[@MZ-9993]

It’s a intrinsic problem with all for-profit platforms. They will all sooner or later have to justify their existence financially. The obvious solution would be to provide them as a public service, but then, do we need public social media platforms?

[@Nathanyel]

@@consequences not for Twitter, at least not for every version

[@bills8450]

You said something once about not at all understanding why people use youtube only from the Subscriptions page, and uh, this is it. This is exactly it. Its one of the rare ways I can take control back from the algorithms.

[@mzaite]

Also the algorithm just keeps feeding the same stuff you didn’t want to watch but are only shaped exactly like your subscriptions. Terrible waste to use the front page.

[@berjbannayan8666]

As far as I'm concerned youtube is 99.999% hot rancid garbage. I am one of those who basically only uses it from my subscriptions page. I've spent years finding the creators I like and I watch them regularly. The recommendations I see in the main feed are mostly the same hot garbage and I can't be bothered most of the time to deal with it. I want to watch what I watch and I want not be firehosed with rotting feces. So for the most part I just watch what I already know. After this many years, that's more than enough content to keep my brain engaged and take up the free time I allocate to this particular activity

[@bane2201]

Same here! I made the homepage redirect to Subscriptions. I even blocked the "recommended videos" on the sidebar and the 4x3 grid at the end of videos.

[@conlon4332]

@@mzaite Huh. I just wrote a comment, which I'll paste here, but this is making me think maybe the answer is yes. I find my home page and recommendations very relevant. The majority are from people I've subscribed to, maybe like 90%, of those a fairly even mixture of new videos and old videos I haven't seen or haven't seen in a while, and of the new people a good chunk of them are things I'm interested in. I often find new people to subscribe to this way. Original comment: I have KZbin Premium, which means KZbin doesn't get more money from me the longer I spend on here, it gets the same amount from me every month. Which means it doesn't benefit it to keep me here at all costs, it benefits it to keep me a happy customer who feels like I get value from the product I'm paying for so I keep paying for it. I wonder if that affects how the algorithm treats me...

[@amyisreallybored]

shorts completely destroyed my subscriptions page tbh. ever since shorts were populerized thats all i see on there and i have to scroll so so much to find actual videos. my recommendations suck too (almost always showing me stuff i REALLY dont want to watch lately), so i barely come on youtube anymore :(

[@diegodoesstuff86]

'Hank green loses his mind and then plays connections' is a series i never expect to get a new installment but I'm always happy to watch when it does

[@forivall]

I feel that HBO show thing, I don't know the name of any networks for shows I like

[@NicholasHay1982]

It just kept getting more satisfyingly rant-y, and I'm here for it

[@osmia]

+

[@spoookley]

has someone made a playlist yet? i feel like there needs to be a playlist of every time hank ends an episode with connections

[@voidify3]

@@spoookley seconded

[@zenosfire]

Also worth possibly noting, Blue sky has significantly lower user population compared to threads and twitter, but is showing equal or greater engagement numbers, which in itself is a really bad sign for both of those platforms. Just using your numbers as an example Hank, You have 350k followers on blue sky and 1.5 million on twitter, a quarter of the followers thus a significantly higher engagement percentage. Its insane actually from a metrics point of view.

[@nethulone]

botted

[@kain0m]

Yeah Twitter has insane numbers of bots. I'm always amazed by how little engagement there is on twitter.

[@VinatsuYT]

Am I cooked cause I feel like I get a few likes and whatever more in Twitter than in BlueSky like my BlueSky is basically no responses

[@jesusbarrera6916]

Maybe Bluesky is just an echo chamber of the left?

[@vickypedia1308]

​@@jesusbarrera6916 if you think it's an echo chamber then bring your conservative friends over there to balance it out

[@seanbendickson]

"I feel like I got frog-boiled" Definitely gonna use this idiom. Thank you.

[@tentiapoe]

i really liked that when i heard it but forgot by the end, thank you for reminding me!

[@phantomfeather518]

Blue sky also allows you to look at their website without having to make an account,which is FANTASTIC

[@GlassActivist]

I don't think that will last, but it is a good way to start out

[@ketgremlin8776]

That’s obv gonna change once the site grow a bit. They’re desperate to get people onto it

[@friendlyfire7861]

which is DESPERATE

[@Utoko]

@@friendlyfire7861 ? that was always the case for twitter until it got bought up.

[@lolkthnxbai]

having embeds work on discord again is also godly.

[@SharkieTheDork]

This is exactly why I never left Tumblr. World's least profitable userbase and BPY does it have its own host of problems, but hey, at least our main dashboard is algorithm free and the "for you" tab is easily ignorable. It's nice to see Bluesky isn't playing the algorithm game, honestly I really hope its recent surge in popularity shows the devs that it's valuable especially in today's landscape. I probably still won't be on it much because I've found that Twitter-likes are just kinda Bad for my brain on principle but I respect what they're doing.

[@SharkieTheDork]

*BOY lol

[@Funtimefreddysgf]

Same! I was just thinking about this lmaoo. Also I feel like most people that use tumblr atp are apart of very specific fanbases so they stick to their niche. I might just think that way though because that’s what I use it for.

[@LucillePalmer]

bluesky is def the most twitter-format that engages most like tumblr with the bonus of of a fresh start attitude (better conversation and engagement without the hostility). and tons of easy curation. tumblr and bsky are the two im choosing to use from here

[@vozera723]

​@@Funtimefreddysgfyeah I agree Tumblr was more for fanfic ppl/smut orrr niche subcultures and stuff. Only reason I ever had Twitter or Instagram or any other social media was to follow an artist to see portfolios or tours or stuff like that; now I'm just on Reddit and I'm about to delete Twitter.

[@oh.sorry.dont.mind.meeeee]

​@@SharkieTheDorkbtw, you can edit your original comment if you want to fix your typo 💕✌️

[@MartynDerg]

"is this manipulation in the room with us right now?" "YES." is one of the greatest interactions I've seen, and I'm grateful for how sane you are

[@linkboynine9814]

Normally I approve of that line, but jesus YES OF COURSE the manipulation is in the room with us, the algorithm is RIGHT THERE, WATCHING US.

[@slickandslaycious6579]

@@linkboynine9814listening

[@dotapark]

I know it's "Twitter being Twitter 🤪" now but, under that receipted some people STILL trying to downplay the result and it is hilarious 😂 at some point Twitter will only have religious users who believe Twitter is internet or something.

[@chamikk90]

yeah but he did it with a bot or a really stupid person

[@why-even-try-brotendo]

A movement built on hate cannot last

[@anselmenator]

Hank - I have to tell you that your big hand gestures around 11:40 caused my cat to come over and start scratching at the monitor. My cat got off my lap to claw at your image.

[@rosecarter5597]

Awwwee

[@KirbosPlanet]

is your monitor okay? if mine did that i would have monitor guts all over the floor

[@TheTpointer]

As a user I actively hate when the algorithm doesn’t show me what the people I follow posted. This topic is big on KZbin too. Super annoying to go on channel I subscribed to years ago to see if they are alive because they don’t „post“ anymore. Just to find out that their stuff just didn’t make it on my front page.

[@Captain-Cardboard]

Pro-tip: Use the 'Following' tab.

[@answer5092]

This is why it's so important (and so much better) to use the Subscriptions page.

[@ZaCloud-Animations___she-her]

​@@answer5092 This! I made a bookmark on my browser's shortcuts bar that goes directly to my Subscriptions section, & on the mobile app I instinctively tap on it. Front page can be fun sometimes, but for the most part I just wanna see what's posted by those I follow.

[@NoodlleScar]

this is why I begrudgingly hit the bell (but on my computer so I don't get the notifications on my phone)

[@Samhwain]

this. I watched like 5 people every day because they provided a lot of content that I could listen to while cleaning the house. About a month ago they ALL stopped appearing on my front page and now it's content that's somewhat maybe, sort of possibly related if you squint real hard, tilt your head and suspend your disbelief. Content I don't engage with shows up more than stuff I DO engage with and it's frustrating. I end up just dragging out my old music library because that's easier to dig through than youtube when they refuse to pull up the channels I subscribed to (what's the point of subscribing if I'm not going to get to know that the person I want to follow has content?)

[@PierceArner]

I think the biggest boost to Blue Sky will be when content creators learn this, because they're SO used to having to share Thumbnails with no link, and reply a link to the video, this alone will shift a MASSIVE number of people to use the platform for the whole reason anyone started using Twitter in the first place.

[@BioBrimm]

I also hate trying to find the link as a reader.

[@yuvalne]

the real question is why wouldn't just do a twitter the second they roll out ads?

[@cashnelson2306]

I always wondered why they did that annoying shit

[@cashnelson2306]

@@yuvalnebecause a smart business owner doesn’t copy the mistakes that drove people to your business from similar others

[@zenbon2319]

No tf it won't lol. Be so fr no one gives a fk about bluesky and no one will with yall spouting nonsense

[@deyeti]

The moment that facebook and twitter decided that they knew what I wanted to see more than I knew and changed my timelines to be algorithmic instead of chronological, I knew I needed to leave them behind. To me, one of the biggest advantages of Bluesky is the very fact that I can start at the top of my feed and scroll down to the last thing I read and be done. If I want more than that, I can go out looking for more. But until then, let me control my feed.

[@adelucas4824]

Facebook drive me nuts to the point my interaction is barely once or twice a day now. I want to see my friends posts in the order they posted them. I don't want to see the same posts from three weeks ago over and over again. The suggested friends list is utterly random, most of the recommendations aren't even connected by mutual friends, and if we are connected then I'd add them if I actually wanted to. The ads are weird and almost never anything I'm interested in, and the short videos are a waste of time as rarely watch them.

[@JackTheVulture]

It's so refreshing to have real control over what i want to see again. Non-chronological feeds being forced onto us without a choice should never have become a thing. If I follow people its because I want to see what they post. Show it to me.

[@Cobalt985]

Same. The equivalent for KZbin is Newpipe btw. Great app.

[@Silverraine1]

@@adelucas4824 i no longer use fb but i remember the first time i saw the suggested friends list i was so horrified. i only added people i was personally familiar with, like my friends, classmates, people from uni, and some cousins. if i wanted random strangers to see my posts I would've used twitter or instagram.

[@fuzzyotterpaws4395]

You can do that? I only use Facebook now after not using social media much and it's all random posts, doesn't work like Discord or Telegram or anything

[@yungthunder2681]

Ironically the KZbin algorithm seems to really love this video. It's been on my recommended for the last 3 days constantly and I scrolled past it at least 10 times without clicking.

[@kovelamanas9905]

youtube for now seems good on algorithm behaviour but shitty on moderation and channel handling and even this comment might not get posted due to the supposedly bad words.

[@skapaloka222]

⁠@@kovelamanas9905idk, supposedly fresh accounts will first be recommended far right misogynist content by andrew tate types geared towards adolescent boys but im ngl im basing this off of memory of a single post so i could also be entirely wrong.

[@kovelamanas9905]

@@skapaloka222 ohh interesting but i didn't find youtube recommendations biased but comments and videos moderation is very bad. Instagram Moderation is shitty as hell. I reported 5 p*rn pages but because the posts had thumbnails of random cats and dogs the post or channel was not taken down. And now Mark announced recently theyre removing fact-checking teams, they'll only take down posts based on community reportings 😮‍💨. Basically we have now have to do the work it has to do as a company.

[@thethoughtemporium]

this exact thing has been slowly driving me crazy for years and ya, it's totally downregulated how often I'm willing to post on other platforms. If I can't use the audience I build there to push them to more important things, there's literally no point for a content creator to make content for a platform. the ad revenue from something like twitter is so laughably small that there's no other incentive to build on that platform if all it lets you do is make money FOR that platform, not even yourself. I've been migrating to bluesky and it feels like old twitter before musk absolutely ruined it. It's lovely.

[@watamatafoyu]

A company throttling posts containing outside links is very SDE

[@vestigials]

Can you elaborate on how Musk ruined Twitter? I don't use either platform but from what I understand, there is more freedom, particularly for right-leaning individuals, so it's not as heavily dominated by one political side. From the limited knowledge I have of Bluesky, it's acting as similar to what Truth Social (which I know even less of) is - just an echo chamber.

[@kenzieduckmoo]

As someone who regularly supports creators i enjoy, whenever i see someone trying to "push" me to something they view as more important, it instantly devalues them to me. So many people think "i have to be posting on all the platforms so that people will eventually see my twitch, or tiktok, or youtube", whatever is "important" to them, and theyre never going to be "successful" like that. and honestly i dont want to be used and manipulated like that.

[@savagesarethebest7251]

Why did I have to scroll this far down before I saw your comment? 🤔 KZbin should know that I always want to see what you post as I always click on it when I see it

[@AgentEm34]

They're "paying you in publicity" 😅

[@JakeBroe]

It took me 48 hours to figure it out that Bluesky was infinitely more beneficial to me as a content creator than Twitter. I've never been able to take Threads serious. Bluesky is the best hands down for content creators that want to share anything and reach a bigger audience.

[@xantares13]

Hi Jake

[@dennylukman1801]

Hello there, Indonesia to USA, both condemning Russia's invasion, I have bluesky account.

[@Kevintendo]

Will Bluesky always be this way?

[@madelinefarrell2176]

@@Kevintendo the real question

[@thePyiott]

You reach more bots

[@narmowolf4201]

Just went and followed you on bluesky - just gotta mention, you are the first profile that comes up under Hank, didn't even need to start typing your last name. In other words you're the #1 Hank of Bluesky 😂

[@aazhie]

😂 something we fans already knew, but having it confirmed is pretty cool

[@youruniquehandle2]

I bet Hank Williams is ok with this.

[@hankschannel]

In fairness to the other Hanks, I am the #33 /account/ on Bluesky.

[@cobobonzobobby]

LOL cuz theres only one on there 😂

[@TexRobNC]

It's Gold Rush time for anyone who moves there. If you wanted a chance to "be on the internet early", this is a pseudo chance for creators to get a new platform boost.

[@FaeWry.bsky.social]

BlueSky reminds me a lot of what I loved about social media back in the day. I can actually see my friend's posts and people engage with my posts. My art gets seen again and it is so healing. I had begun to believe that my art was crap and that was never true. Eff twitter and meta.

[@KarlinaAstuti-g7s]

same here! I do have doubt about myself because of it!!! in BlueSky I get likes on my first post!!! even with just 2 followers and newly created account.

[@violet3242]

Hank Green Rages Against The Machine (for charity)

[@Gregorius421]

thx for the tldw

[@Personb-yt7hu]

Its meatriding.. But its ethical meatriding.. I respect it.

[@Topo842]

Idk why "Bulls on Parade" started playing in my head

[@nathanr.4700]

they do tell you to Know Your Enemy

[@Zieg_Games]

He is the machine. That's what this election taught us.

[@rowynnecrowley1689]

That's exactly what I hate about TikTok and KZbin Shorts. Not only do you see a completely unrelated video if you scroll up or down, but it just starts replaying automatically with no break, so sometimes you end up watching a video three times before you realize it's over.

[@inf0phreak]

My solution has been to install an addon that redirects from YT Shorts to a regular YT page (and just never touching TT not even with a 10 ft pole). Definitely helped with reducing doomscrolling for me.

[@jessicawright6093]

​@@inf0phreak What addon did you install?

[@briansammond7801]

And those replays show up as artificially boosted "engagement" so they can say that shorts benefit content creators

[@Mercure250]

@@jessicawright6093 I don't know if that's the one they're using, but I got one called "youtube-shorts block" and it works perfectly

[@TheHanyuuuuu]

At least in Brave browser you can uncheck video autoplay in the settings

[@SergioLeRoux]

My wife works in social media, I brought some of the points in this video to her, she told me something interesting: the way people are getting around the link etc shadowbans, is to exclude then from the main post, then immediately follow with a comment with all the links, downranked words etc.

[@mischarowe]

I was just wondering if that would work lol.

[@jonathanf.9395]

Yes, I started seeing that on FB in the last year for sure!!

[@timo4463]

but you gotta be carefull with it for example on youtube or twtich if you leave the platform aftetr watching a creator youtubes takes it as you didnt like it and you are now searching for other entertainment

[@Jacob-W-5570]

@@timo4463 well that's f'd up. as I always open videos in a new tab and then close them..

[@gcc2313]

​@@timo4463 well you can win either way. So what's the loophole now. Create a. Link account to use it every time to comment on your own posts? Seems so damn convoluted for no reason.

[@loshay3325]

I love that you always play connections as a way to calm down after something intense like that but also that you include us in it bc you recognize we need it too

[@JohnSmith-qy1wm]

Linkedin is absolutely awful too. I also feel like I'm being attacked by marketing from every possible vector. I hate that it feels like a professional requirement to use now.

[@nasonguy]

I’m in IT. Networking. It’s unreal how mandatory LinkedIn has become for upward mobility and networking.

[@gwen9939]

LinkedIn is pure misery. It's basically dominated by a kind of "hustler" mentality where it constantly feels like you're at some entrepreneur guru's TEDx talk with "key insights" into how to make yourself attractive to employers and it just feels like you're being gaslit by those same employers into accepting poor agreements and disadvantageous social contracts. Basically the mindset of business and marketing majors that measure success in life in material wealth and high status employment that fundamentally requires stepping on less fortunate peers to get ahead.

[@Proj3ta]

What about Handshake?

[@Utoko]

Linkedin is the worst. It is just a part of work, building some fake image.

[@ricktyman4709]

That's because the nature of monetizing the internet with ads isn't working anymore. Either people pay money, start unblocking ads to watch them, or you become the product sold to advertisers. Content on the internet isn't free to host and serve up. Someone has to pay to subsidize it.

[@alt042]

The other thing that clicked using BlueSky is when I saw everyone's pet pictures.. Threads is suspiciously absent of pet pictures, like the 5 subjects Zuckerberg wants you to talk about are so overfitted in the algorithm that it just doesn't have room to provide pet pictures. That clicking really got the ball rolling for me to thinking about how Threads is just as manipulative as X and in the same ways - just with different subjects

[@geneticjen9312]

Tbf some people will be posting their pets on Instagram then going to Threads when they have something to say

[@AbsurdAsparagus]

@@DerekS-kq3zh hope you dont starve from the tarrifs your gonna get. you dont deserve to die for your mistakes.

[@modestysnooze6154]

​@@DerekS-kq3zhI'm not sure how you've stumbled into Nerdfighteria-adjacent spaces, but that's not how we do things here. We'd love for you to stick around respectfully, but perhaps there are other online spaces that would suit you better.

[@Riccardo_can]

​@@DerekS-kq3zh judging by your multiple comments here, you either follow this channel just to hate, or the algorithm is feeding your anger by suggesting it to you every time, either way it seems like a really sad existence. I think most of us have been there at some point, and hopefully you can get out of the cycle and actually watch content that makes you happy, rather than making you a worse human being.

[@banillivanilli]

i love the pet pictures! i always drop a like as i swoop on through, and if people don't like that and just wanna argue, go somewhere else. i'll take my cat and dog pictures, thank you!

[@birichinaxox9937]

The constant manipulation = constant exhaustion and wanting to not engage

[@RyanDeGreg]

"If it's free, you are the product"

[@NickiPlums]

I am genuinely curious to know why people are staying on twitter. Lately, I've been hearing a LOT of people say something on the lines of "it's awful and terrible and the worst it's ever been but I NEED to stay on it". I ask this without judgement: do you really need to stay on a platform that causes this much suffering? If you feel like this is not the right moment to leave, what would make you leave? I really would like to understand this viewpoint because I was only on twitter briefly over 10 years ago and have not used threads or bluesky so I have absolutely no personal context or attachment!

[@matt45540]

Addiction... People are uncomfortable being left alone with their own thoughts and need to scroll. It's like a fidget spinner

[@IndianGeek5589]

Lots of organizations and important people are still on Twitter. Remember Joe Biden announced his stepping down on Twitter.

[@spamware5984]

i stay on twitter for the p0nr

[@ArmadisRock]

I made a point of interacting with all the bots for like, a month with nothing but my face and the power of weaponized cringe. It was very funny to me, but highlights just how readily people are willing to believe anything online, which is weird.

[@yhiz4757]

A lot of it is because of the people on there. I follow a lot of artists and a lot of them haven't moved over to bluesky yet, idk whether that's because they haven't heard of it yet or think they would lose a lot of followers

[@ezachleewright2309]

Twitter's never going to fully actually die, but it could become totally irrelevant.

[@scrubtug6507]

Is your Myspace page still active?

[@emris2697]

It to an extent already has, and will with time turn more and more into a right-extremist social media platform that spreads misinformation and hate.

[@wabek5882]

i'll call it "X" when it fully loses relevancy

[@internettevarolanadam]

​@@scrubtug6507internet says it had 6.9 million visit in 2022. Irrelent but not totally dead.

[@makiK6]

Anywhere that gives bad people a voice and had a large audience I one point will always be a thing, like four chan and what reddit used to be. Or it will stop giving them a platform and die

[@ShadowFaerie1041]

This is such a great point I hadn't thought about before, Hank. Twitter profits from free labor, and refuses to let you generate profit or external benefits from that labor.

[@griffinarcher2911]

They literally pay you to post. I don't know how you can claim it "refuses to let you generate profit" when it is incredibly easy to monetize.

[@HolmesHobbies]

Easier to make $ on Twitter than KZbin imo

[@cptntwinkletoes]

Oh no the elon bots are here under your comment, I'm so sorry

[@amelialonelyfart8848]

This is a universal principle, sadly. About 20 years ago there were article after article about the moral ethics of sites like Wikipedia and WikiCities (later Wikia then Fandom) about how they were profiting off of unpaid passion. Even to this day people try to defend Fandom for amassing huge profits off of scammy, creepy practices because 'it's just for fun'.

[@j.g.dangerfield3999]

it's easy to monetize in ways that are also profitable for Twitter, who has the ability and motive to control that monetization just like casinos do...​@@griffinarcher2911

[@KevinSchleich]

Hank, don't try to manipulate me, I can give the 12-Pack of Mystery Socks to 24 friends and you can't stop me.

[@ngwoo]

Fragmented is better. The internet was more fun when there were thousands of vibrant message boards with different cultures. The twitter/reddit/facebook monocultures suck.

[@trankzen148]

wholeheartedly agree

[@Unbreathless]

Boy do I miss Stumbleupon.

[@gitghetto]

There's different kinds of fragmentation, and the kind of fragmentation seen on the internet in the 90s is not the same as the fragmentation we see today. You are actively disallowed from viewing most of Twitter and Instagram unless you're signed into an account; they literally lock you out of their content unless you join the ecosystem, and will prevent your posts from being seen if you reference anything outside of the ecosystem. That's a result of fragmentation, and it's definitely not better than anything. Fragmentation is not inherently better, you just associate it with better times in the past.

[@travian821]

Fragmentation can happen in the same platform. Censoring content is what creates monocultures, if bluesky goes with that itll become stale.

[@RickJaeger]

Twitter wasn't really a monoculture in its heyday.

[@Ifyoucanreadthisgooglebroke]

It is almost like a profit motive inherently enshittifies anything it touches.

[@mzaite]

Just wait until Blue Sky hits critical mass.

[@richardarriaga6271]

It made Boeing jets fall from the sky, drive GE to ruin, and made news into disinfo.

[@plwadodveeefdv]

But everybody knows... almost doesn't count

[@Amorcea]

Nooo you don't understand, capitalism makes it so that companies are compelled to make the best product possible in order to stay competitive! /s

[@moxmox8058]

Yes, where is your faith in the god Mar’Ket?

[@igniteafire]

Rooman nomerals.

[@CrashingThunder]

This comment has a "Translate to English" button and when you click it, it corrects it to say "Roman numerals". Brilliant.

[@andrewmurphy5403]

Thank god google translate detected this and was able to help me understand

[@VegaNorth]

ghoti the fish

[@ianobrien3248]

@@VegaNorth the phish!

[@Brux-_-304]

Let’s get this to 2.6k

[@ChellyWood]

I mentioned this video on my website and supplied a link for my followers. I'm with ya Hank. Social media needs to support creators.

[@KickyFut]

I know it's possibly a minor thing... But, thank you for continuing to call it "Twitter"! Twitter is what I signed up on, and just because some moron tries replacing the name with a placeholder to devalue the name, doesn't mean we have to humor him!😅

[@sprockkets]

The irony of deadnaming X or Twitter is lost on Space Karen (musk).

[@ViridianFlow]

​​@@sprockketsGot to love the irony of Musk thinking deadnaming people is ok but he gets so turnt over people not using his ridiculous new name for what once was one of the most recognisable brands on the planet. I'm just waiting for Twitter and Truth social to realise they have the exact same audience

[@robertacomstock3655]

Twex.

[@drganknstein]

X actually sounds better but it's an easy way to tell who the boomers are.

[@gdmango783]

Leťs all keep calling it Twitter to piss off Elon. I never called it X, always Twitter, cause it's objectively a better name

[@nivision]

the strongest advice i can give anybody online: ditch the For You pages. ditch the front page of KZbin for that matter. go to your Following or Subscribed pages. curate your own experience instead of depending on what these companies decide to show you for most of your experience. they will still affect your experience, yes, but give your views to your favorite creators over engagement bait as much as you can. keep people who already proved themselves to you on some level afloat.

[@Sarcasticron]

I wish I could look at a mix of my subscriptions, and not just the most recent. Some people die, or have to leave YT for some reason, but I still want to watch their old videos because they're amazing and still relevant. They worked on their videos for weeks or months, and the videos are full of information that doesn't expire quickly. But if I look at my subscriptions, I only see the channels which post a hundred videos a day, which will all be stale next week. I want to see a few of those, but I also want to see some beautiful old science and history videos that have stood the test of time. The algorhythm doesn't appreciate timeless excellence and beauty.

[@nivision]

@Sarcasticron good point. I also marathon back work of good creators, just... by hand if you will

[@vixxcelacea2778]

You can get the echo chamber problem then. I've found a lot of loved content and new small channels through recommendations that pop up. But I'm 75% vigilant in saying "do not show again/Don't like this channel" when it's stuff I know triggers me in unhealthy ways. My algorithm gives me really random stuff and also repeats on stuff I've already seen because I do this so often. I also have two extensions that actually block certain channels from appearing at all and hide comments/suggestions/shorts etc that I can turn on and off. In fact, after this, I'm going to turn back off comments because I can't resist scrolling and posting and I know it.

[@LddStyx]

​@@vixxcelacea2778How come "echo chambers" aren't a problem IRL? Noone hangs out with people they hate all day, nobody spends time with people that insult them constantly. But they still get new ideas and find new things to recommend to their friends. Echo chambers are a problem only if your goal is to reach as many people as you can, like when you want to do entertainment, politics or propaganda. And normal people don't owe their attention to these people. Some messages don't deserve a wide audience and would struggle to spread trough IRL social networks because noone would recommend them to any of their friends.

[@nivision]

@@vixxcelacea2778 the algorithm still exposes me to new content through the suggested next videos panels to be honest. and the algorithms themselves created the echo chamber, like, we're already here unless we use search to deliberately go outside it-- even then it'll lowkey fight you. I'm just an 80s kid trying to solve doomscrolling with what worked for, well, "turn the tv on when you know a program you wanna see is coming on, don't just leave it on 24/7 as background noise".

[@CallMeCoachWalker]

9:15 this rant right here made me pause and think about all of the “free time” we give to things that don’t make us better people or help us grow into a more beneficial member of society. I’m going to do better starting now. Thanks Hank for all the work you do and have done to help me grow into a more caring and thoughtful person. You have opened my eyes to different perspectives that I otherwise would surely have turned a blind eye to.

[@dombo813]

Apparently the average teenager today (in the developed world) spends 8 hours a day using their phone, 2 hours on tiktok alone. And the adults aren't much better off, so many habitual twitter and reddit users, plus all the youtube addicts. We really need to figure out how to give these people productive alternatives that they enjoy doing, because so many people are scrolling their lives away.

[@thehevandragon]

@dombo813 It’s not about giving, it’s about whether they’ll TAKE said alternative and stick with it.

[@bearmugs1408]

@@dombo813 I will admit I'm a bit of a KZbin addict. I know it's not great for me because it's artificial and algorithmic, instead of interacting with nature and people and more real things in the world. However, I like to think I have created a type of KZbin that I enjoy and get value from, like actually learning new things I'm interested in or using it to relax. Some of it is certainly 'comfort' and relax watching (e.g. gaming content) but a lot of it is educational/catering to my interests in some way. Also that can be a lot of different 'genres' of video too. Not just your typical school subjects e.g. science videos (which I am glad are quite popular on YT because they are actually useful, interesting and educational) Anyway, all this to say, I think KZbin is one of the slightly better (they are all run by tech conglomerates who see us as numbers) social media's because of that 'customisability' which we can actively control in some way through subscriptions by choosing to focus on just them. This is instead of short-form content (which I'm aware YT is guilty of participating in) which often inundates it's users with new genres of videos and trends. These can often be divisive and controversial videos, 'brain rot' videos which lack substance or simply videos with something fake. All of them with 1 goal, and that is to keep users on their apps (as discussed by Hank) and it works extremely well. Yes, YT has the same goal but again I feel like there is more choice to stay with subscriptions than to just scroll. And YT recommendations tend to be related to what you watch. I think short-form content is way worse for us because of this, it's so heavily algorithmic. Long form can be better if we make it better for us. YT is still filled with bad videos (just look at MrBeast) and click bait and controversial/divisive videos too. Nothing is perfect when at the end of the day we are all just numbers to these corporations.

[@vixxcelacea2778]

@@dombo813 People need hobbies and things they enjoy doing. Even if that's still on a screen, just the social engagement (which is usually negative, like comparison of lives, anger inducing titles, rage bait, outcry, bad news etc) isn't helping. Especially because it's the worst part of social. No wonder people feel so alone and lonely. I'm not the person to sit here and say tech is dooming us or something, but I do think there needs to be better ways to engage with others. Honestly, something like VR chat (which does have a monetary barrier) seems better and more like connection in lieu of IRL options. A person is still subject to strangers and everything that entails, but it is a much closer often more real connection than curated photos, rage bait and anger addiction. Even with some random avatar. A person behind that is still talking and "moving" (wasd or body tracking) and you can make friends there. People are less likely to be outright mean/voice anger inducing things when a voice can be heard or there is ability for someone to literally walk away from the situation. A comment on a screen or a video that's already recorded is a lot harder to really get away from because it is stagnant.

[@georgeandrews1394]

​​​@@vixxcelacea2778 I'd say in-person works best overall for that. I have a co-worker who I tend to have difficulties with because we think differently on how we explain things, and it's easier not to get annoyed with him when he's in the room with me as opposed to talking on MS Teams (though voicecall). My brain goes 'that's a person; slow your roll' easier when I can see him. But I do agree that moving towards methods online that make the brain understand 'oh, I'm talking to a person; this is a conversation with a person and I can leave whenever' a little better is probably a good idea.

[@tiaraono7668]

this video actually got me to sign up for blue sky. I was never a twitter user, but being able to SHARE LINKS AGAIN fills me with such joy. I miss sharing music videos with friends :(

[@TheeBurgerDude]

I deleted my twitter the day it throttled my feed when they couldn't pay for their servers (the last of many straws) and I loathe threads, so this will help me lean into Blue Sky, thanks Hank!

[@dpelpal]

At this point it's just a bunch of right wing propaganda and russian bots anyway lol

[@GermanSausagesAreTheWurst]

You might want to also try Mastodon. No ads and no algorithm.

[@omiai]

So something I loved about twitter was that I could get notifications from specific people I followed, generally artists or comedy accounts, so that I could see their posts and make sure I didn't miss them. Several months ago, twitter stopped sending me these notifications. It seems most people are still getting theirs but I don't. So I miss all the good stuff I used to love seeing. My feed is now mostly devoid of the amazing art and comedy, and seems to be stuff I'm not interested in, followed by an ad for a product/company I have never showed any interest in. I'm hoping bluesky will integrate a few of the twitter features I like (such as notifications and being able to quote reply in your DMS)

[@omiai]

Also, I find myself spending more time scrolling bluesky now. Even if I click a link, I'll return to the site after because the content I'm getting there is what I actually want, rather than ads and nonsense. It seems a lot of people figured out early on they couldn't refer to it as blue sky on twitter, because everyone has a euphemism for it 'the butterfly app' for example. And you can't post a direct link to your account there, so people have to screenshot their usernames to share that they've moved over there

[@TheKcXiV]

because alot of them left. once the pay to be seen hit twitter, that was the downfall of it for me. Then the trolling got really out of hand and its just boring. Been 5 days not that i just logged out of twitter and at this point i dont miss it. Elon fucked it all up pushing his skewed bullshit. The for you tab is all elon posts, i dont even follow the fucker.

[@jijitters]

I'll never understand people acting like quoting is a specific feature that can be turned off/on. Just copy-paste the link to the post like we all did before twitter added that as a thing you could make twitter do "for" you (with the same amount of button presses, btw).

[@dragonabsurda]

​@@TheKcXiVRight??? It was driving me crazy how often rage-baitey BS was getting pushed into my feed on Twitter, stuff I had zero interest in. BlueSky feels a lot more organic (especially with labelers that can flag or mute accounts that appear to be mostly AI, crypto, etc).

[@achilleasmanousakis4622]

Links aside, I don't want to be on a platform that makes me angry all the time. I deleted Twitter last week. I never joined Threads because I don't trust Zucc. I joined bluesy because it reminded me how Twitter used to be

[@bethannevandagriff7054]

I think Threads is the one that I looked into just long enough to realize an app was the only way to access it. No web page. I stopped looking into it right then and there.

[@katerynasirko1832]

I have been angry and stressed so much less since I got banned of Twitter. It was sad, but a blessing in disguise.

[@alistairmonro]

Filled with CP?

[@cokebear1337]

True, many snowflakes got rectally ravaged when they lost their precious safespace.

[@alphacode5]

a lot of people think "bluesky is better for this". but no, bluesky is just newer and smaller. as soon as they start getting busier and bigger they are going to end up just like any other

[@EwenBell]

Genuinely surprised that the "manipulative" aspect of Twitter has only just crystallised in your thoughts. Manipulation has been the dominant feeling for me since day one for every platform outside of Mastodon. If they're manipulating a power user like yourself, just imagine how they treat us plebs!

[@richardarriaga6271]

My FB feed is so lame. Propaganda, bad ads, engagement bait, etc.

[@sw1257]

​@@richardarriaga6271 Then why do you use it?

[@user-zp4ge3yp2o]

​@@richardarriaga6271it's actively pushing me conspiracy theory posts despite me never clicking on them or anything.

[@dragonabsurda]

​@@richardarriaga6271Agreed. I stopped engaging on FB years ago, then completely deleted my account after I looked at the list of sites they were actively tracking me on. I didn't even recognize most of them! Their claws dig deep.

[@aurochf1]

Yeah, that's why Mastodon is my choice.

[@jamesc.7216]

I don't use any social media sites but I do have a large list of subscriptions on KZbin. None of which will show up in my home page no matter how many times I tell the algorithm I don't want to watch what they are pushing. It's become really bad in the last few years. As a related note, we should all be pushing to the term 'algorithmic' as negative as possible. That way when, for example, the next comic book movie is described as algorithmic the big money suits understand that it's a bad thing.

[@GermanSausagesAreTheWurst]

You have to constantly keep training it. Keep clicking "not interested" or "Don't recommend channel" in the sidebar. Don't forget there are 2 algorithms on YT; 1 for the front page and a different one for the sidebar, and they both need to be trained.

[@kekoraaaa]

I set youtube com/feed/subscriptions as my homepage

[@Gohka]

Definitely agree that we should start doing that. Though the cynical part of me thinks "then they'll just rename algorithms, probably in to AI-something or something-AI as that seems to be the new buzzword". Also I haven't even SEEN the youtube homepage for literal years. I exclusively use the Subscription feed and haven't missed a video from any of the uncountable number of subscriptions I have.

[@Paulinemoke]

I feel that in my heart. It's become so freaking hard to watch what I want on KZbin, because I have freaking no way of knowing if the people I like have posted a video. I will not ring that bell, because I can't deal with all those notification. It's called *subscriptions* not random stuff you throw at me. That's what the feed is fooooor!!!

[@owen-trombone]

@@Paulinemoke can’t you just use the subscriptions feed?

[@AileTheAlien]

10:55 IMO, advertising is the wrong model for _all_ monetization. It _always_ leads to clickbait content, and scummy behavior from platforms.

[@mfoxxy52]

The problem is no one would use a pay only social media platform

[@davestagner]

Oh, absolutely. I greatly appreciate that I can pay for an ad-free KZbin feed, and I think I get a better feed for it too (I’m always impressed by the KZbin algorithm). If Bluesky offers a paid subscription with no ads (AND no selling my information!), I’d be there in a hot second.

[@davestagner]

@@mfoxxy52 Yes, it can’t be pay-only. But if they keep a B-corp structure, where they don’t need to make huge profits for their investors, then they only need enough subscribers to cover their operating expenses, and those of us willing to pay will be effectively subsidizing everyone else - which is fine with me, if that’s the price i play for social media that doesn’t use clickbait and provoking fights for “engagement” and doesn’t sell everything they know about me to the mysterious Capitalist voodoo doll kept by advertisers.

[@vsnrm5451]

Not to mention the censorship! I'm really sick of people being unable to say a word even remotely negative. It really takes away from the topic when someone is taking about a serious topic and have to say goofy variants of words that used to carry weight. It's ridiculous watching a video about true crime or drug addiction and they can't even say half the relevant words. Meanwhile kids are watching weirdly borderline sexual content on the kids app, or even just watching videos through spotify to circumvent the age restriction. It's all bullshit.

[@haaspaas2]

Goodhart's Law in action: "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."

[@mrheisenberg83]

I am sad and shocked, that people have not realized the amount of manipulation that happens on Twitter. There is literally no reason left to stay there. Bsky is SO much better. Everything we ever wanted Twitter to be is RIGHT THERE with Bluesky. Don't give Elon your value in return for nothing. Hasn't the guy made it clear that he basically hates all of us who still have a brain? Thank you, Hank! This video is more important than even you might think. I hope this goes ultra mega mega viral.

[@GCAT01Living]

Not just Twitter, ALL social media. It's all manipulation whether to buy products or to vote a certain way or to sway you on values. This is blatantly known at this point and yet everyone is always so surprised when we hear about it.

[@LukeMcGuireoides]

Elon is the devil

[@ogurasyn2354]

Also, Twitter can feed your posts to AI now

[@BioBrimm]

Being forced to read Musk’s drivel in my feed even though I was unsubscribed from him was the last straw for me.

[@mrheisenberg83]

@@BioBrimm Yeah, I blocked him as soon as he carried that sink inside the Twitter HQ. He still showed up constantly in my feed. That platform is nothing but a bad joke nowadays.

[@shyPandemonium]

6:46 is just Hank’s inner John coming out for a few moments to talk about tuberculosis before we get Hank back ☠️

[@NeonRosette]

They love to work for each other's interests, Edit: and we love them for it

[@hello91634]

I can see a bunch of other possibilities with whats happening, pulled out my ***. - On BlueSky, people havn't clogged their feeds with many follows. Plus, whoever followed you delibrately chose you early, they probably value you more, and that drives engagement. - The community on bluesky is more engaged, the platform is early / novel, your core base that really supports you, is probably outright sick of Twitter / X. - There is a deilbrate push for community on BlueSky, and propping up of those who joined them in that social camp. They are trying to encourage you, support you, for being with them on the platform. They want this movement to work. They are trying to raise the vibes, noone cares of / wants good vibes on X right now lol. --- They might even want to invalidate the use of the space of X, so ignore many things, including you. - There is a push for 'identity crafting' on BlueSky, being someone. Not just community, but people are partially playing a role of 'the nice friendly person on the nice friendly app' and that bleeds into digital behaviour. You are in a new room, and trying to be a new person. I'm not disagreeing with your ideas / gripes, just, some other things to consider.

[@wintermute5974]

Good points, it's important to consider other possible reasons.

[@morgantrias3103]

bluesky is too new to have dead followers (accounts that follow you but have since been abandoned) so you get a better ratio.

[@HWHAProb]

re. suggestion 1 - I dunno, I'm already at 1000 follows on Bluesky (roughly equivalent to my former twitter account) and Hank has came up way more often, just by virtue of having a "sort all posts chronologically" option.

[@Fulmenify]

I think that's why Hank started with the example of "normal" link-less posts, that sometimes do better on twitter, sometimes better on bluesky. So we have a kind of baseline, in which we don't see the effect of bluesky being consistently and significantly providing more reach. Your possibilities don't explain how the platforms seem to behave differently for link-less posts and posts with links, if I read you correctly. So while I think what you say sounds logical and probably plays a big role in numbers overall, I think it doesn't explain the video's point about different behaviour for posts with links very well. That's how I understood the video and your comment anyway.

[@ZaCloud-Animations___she-her]

​@@Fulmenify He already said in the video, it's because those manipulative sites push posts with links down so they get noticed less, while Bluesky doesn't soft-censor them like that. That has pretty much nothing to do with OP's food for thought.

[@christianknuchel]

Bluesky is just going to be another reddit in 10 years or so. We have the fediverse without *any* of those problems, and still people are acting as if there were no options *at all* , clinging to small features of slightly better twitter-semiclones as if they were fresh water in a desert. All the while, there's a lush glade with gurgling water right next to them.

[@IdealisticDog]

Bluesky is just twitter before it shifted toward monetization as a priority. VC funding forced twitter to go public, and going public means shareholders demand revenue, which is how twitter went downhill. Bluesky will be the exact same. We aren't built for this type of advertiser-driven attention economy social platform.

[@callyral]

mastodon

[@nomms]

I've seen some thoughtful blogs from the bsky devs about making enshitification difficult and deliberately trying their hands behind their backs in anticipation of this. I'm still partial to the fediverse and smaller forums and image boards though, even though they're reliant on volunteer labor and compute instead of VC money. Still not sustainable, but you can usually follow communities from one site to the next and you have a habit of 'bumping into' people years later. It all feels more personal.

[@MrWhyzGuy_Plays]

yes and now that elon got twitter and rebraned it to X, he privatized it and people thought it was going to die within a few months after he fired everyone but X is still alive and well so i dont understaned why people still think X is going to die lol

[@placeholdername0000]

But since BlueSky is federated, you can move your account to a different host, increasing competition. This means that you can have one with ads, one that costs X dollars a month, or your own hosting at home or office servers for companies, universities etc.

[@mso1ps4]

​@@MrWhyzGuy_PlaysTwitter has lost nearly 75% of its value under Elon (bought for $44 billion, now worth $12 billion)

[@CountryMusicMann]

"Taking power away from the people who create all of the value." Swap in a few words and you have Karl Marx's conception of capitalism.

[@thewhitefalcon8539]

You mean you have capitalism. Marx is irrelevant, soy.

[@LLPTV]

oh no. literally demonism

[@maxkozak9702]

The difference is that that isn't happening in capitalism. The only people who think it is are the communist movement on social media who cry communism every time they see a court verdict they don't like. We control corporations through our money, sometimes it's indirect through investors but WE control THEM; not the other way around.

[@charli216]

Because that’s exactly what it is.

[@maxkozak9702]

@@charli216 only if you believe communists on social media. We have power over corporations via voting with our wallets, not the other way around.

[@MariaLanger]

The algorithm is why I quit Facebook and Twitter and haven’t even bothered with Threads. I want to see ALL of the posts from the people I follow. I don’t want some machine deciding what I should see. And I’m really sick of ads. So I’m on Mastodon now and I really like it.

[@ericfielding2540]

I joined Mastodon and the Fediverse two years ago and stopped using Twitter. I am not going back there and I have no intention of joining the Meta empire to use Threads. I thought about joining BlueSky, but I enabled the bridge-Fed bridge so that I can be on BlueSky without getting an account there.

[@ChanJENI]

I wonder how Mastodon compares. It has fewer highly engaged users that Bluesky, but it doesn't have bespoke or context-dependent algorithmic ranking. And Hank's the kind of name that would engage a considerable core of those who *are* active on Mastodon. Would be an interesting control.

[@tiffanymarie9750]

After over a year of no twitter following it's demise, trying bluesky was a breath of fresh air.

[@nethulone]

you are in a bubble

[@gabbyhughes9111]

​@@nethulonehuh?

[@Doublemonk0506]

​@@nethulone, if everyone but your firends are in a bubble... it's like the example of everyone being an ***hole

[@DerekS-kq3zh]

@@Doublemonk0506 Plenty of people aren't in bubbles. They aren't the people going to a social media platform that explicitly censors certain political views. That's what extremists do

[@Zieg_Games]

Lol, X has more users and makes more money now than it did a year ago.

[@Mr.FastZombie]

Im glad so many people are finally moving to Bsky. I feel like this is a chance for us to say no to the enshittified social media we have now and have a reset. If Bluesky can remain successful without enshitting itself, I think it will set an important precedent for the future of the internet, and I really hope that doesn't get squandered.

[@Mr.FastZombie]

I think theres some scepticism about the long term sustainability of Bluesky and I'm sure im gonna get some replies about it so I'm just gonna leave this extra info here: 1. While it is true that ads are not the current plan for Bluesky, I dont think they said there would never be ads at all. Just that they dont want to depend mostly on them. In a 2023 blog post they wrote "...advertising couldn't be our *dominant* business model". So I think some form of ads may eventually appear. 2. In the same blog post mentioned above Bluesky's team said that they plan to offer "paid services" to monetize the platform. This is kind of vague but the first one has been implemented: through a partnership with Namecheap you can purchase a domain and it will automatically be set up as your handle. This is obviously a small source of income but if they can offer a lot of small services it adds up. 3. In a skeet, one of the team members said that they are looking into a subscription plan that would allow stuff like larger file uploads and profile customization like avatar frames. As much as I don't like this on Discord, I think this will be a big source of funding for them and I think it's preferable to letting advertisers influence it. 4. Previously Bluesky was funded and supported by Twitter, but that was cut off when Elon bought Twitter. It was meant to be a research project and it is was likely not meant to ever replace Twitter itself, but that all changed and I think they are handling this new burden well, the company is still in its early stages and they need to figure the sustainability out. A lot can change, but the start has been good all things considered.

[@AstoundingAmelia]

Well I think that with blue sky the enshittification won't happen because of the AT protocol which means that if they do go bad everyone can just pack up and leave

[@augustuslunasol10thapostle]

@@AstoundingAmelia i mean its also a benefits first company bsky made sure to tie its hands behind its back set a mine field around itself and wrote a sign saying “fuck you shareholders our customers and the world is the priority”

[@user50]

@@augustuslunasol10thapostle what is a benefits first company?

[@Theinatoriinator]

@@user50The company is not legally obligated to make the most money possible for its shareholders. If a company is not benefits first, it is generally legally obligated to make the most money possible for its shareholders.

[@RabblerouserGT]

X got mad that Bluesky was trending and adjusted the algorithm. LMAO! 🤣😂🤣😂🤣

[@Storm-j8u]

⁠ is that why there’s 42,000 reports of CP daily on blue sky?

[@petergrams6390]

I own a small independent jewelry store. A large part of my advertising is in the form facebook videos. I have been so frustrated lately, as Facebook is making it harder and harder to post longer videos in the app, and Facebook also down ranks links to KZbin videos/channels. I feel hank’s point so much. I need to be on social media to reach my customers, but social media platforms just want to control how I post what type of content, then use it for engagement with the platform, not with me. It used to be a great way to make authentic connections with existing and potential new clients. Now I feel like unboosted posts get no exposure, and boosting just puts the posts in front of random people regardless of what parameters I try to give for targeting

[@kimbee2500]

It is infuriating the amount of posts i see on Facebook that have nothing to do with my friends. For every one post from a friend or group I'm a part of i have to scroll past at last 2 ads and 2-4 posts from random pages that they think i might be interested in... Instead of the things I've actually told them I'm interested in.

[@jlswickhaber]

Thanks for saying this!! 150% same with youtube. Sometimes I'm interested in checking out a random video about a random subject on youtube but don't because I don't want my feed to be filled with 75% of that for the next week until I can root them out. Subscribed to some awesome people, groups, creators on youtube. I might have 10% of them on my feed and go through and click don't recommend channel a bazillion times just because it ticks me off

[@SAmaryllis]

I only ever use the Feeds > Friends option now! Now I can actually see updates from friends via fb, which is absolutely ridiculous

[@AudraK]

Something had definitely changed on KZbin . I’ve noticed and others have mentioned how a lot of the comments end up without a username behind the @ when being replied to, or how you can post a normal comment without any cuss or trigger words yet your comment will almost immediately disappear. Had it happen few times in a row while just trying to leave a positive comment/review.

[@Kevin_Street]

KZbin has very ham handed auto moderation. In my experience it was quite a bit worse a few years ago, before they switched to the @ thing with names, but innocent comments can still be deleted or sent to the "spam filter" depending upon a channel's settings. It's frustrating because the scams and bots were getting quite bad, but KZbin's solution very much sweeps up the innocent along with the guilty. You can tell they don't value comments very highly. It's all about watching videos (and ads) here.

[@Kevin_Street]

@@ImperfectVoid8479 Good point! Being mostly ignored by KZbin has its brighter side.

[@genericname8727]

@@ImperfectVoid8479 I’m pretty sure to some extent there’s already algorithms involved with KZbin comment sections. Obviously when sorting by new the disliked posts get pushed down, comments with several replies by the same people get pushed down (replies push comments up unless it’s a back and forth, I _think_ in order to push controversial comments down). I’m pretty sure this continues impacting individual commenters on later posts. If you’re regularly disliked, your comments will be pushed down further automatically. If you’re regularly liked, your comments are more likely to be promoted so they become top comment. Also, if you make several comments on one video then older comments will be pushed down when sorting by new even if they were relatively popular, which I think discourages spamming to an extent. I don’t object to this system as I think it’s mostly to avoid promoting toxicity. Obvious not on Twitter’s level, and they’ve definitely not made comment sections a priority

[@TweetyPAK7]

I've just noticed that!

[@genericname8727]

@@ImperfectVoid8479 I left a reply to you about how the algorithm does impact comments, although to a less significant extent, and that comment is seemingly not visible

[@Azeria]

Bluesky literally just feels like Twitter when Twitter was good, it’s great.

[@StarkRG]

It also suffers from the exact same vulnerabilities Twitter did.

[@Azeria]

@@StarkRG being run by Jack Dorsey and then bought by Elon Musk? because those are the _only_ two things that ruined twitter.

[@nethulone]

try saying "there are only two genders" pedosky

[@yvngin4699]

@@Azeriaextremist and cringe but its on all the platforms

[@cokebear1337]

We get it, you are a basement dweller snowflake that is mad he lost his echo chamber.

[@AceMcCrank]

The reason why links are downranked is because of rampant scams on those platforms. Eventually our butterfly friend will have to contend with the same.

[@heno02]

Nope, blocklists pretty efficiently deals with scammers, spammers, rage baiters etc

[@darkhelmet12e47]

This is why I HATE TikTok and love KZbin. KZbin gives you so much more control over your experience.

[@smellslikesouls]

exactly. i turned off auto play EVERYWHERE and uninstalled tiktok after it fed me a video of police violence with no warnings on it. which was inbetween my silly cat videos

[@fish3977]

and even what control youtube gives you has been consistently striped down over the years. federated and/or diverse, selfhosted web is really the only way out of this hell

[@jorin8297]

And even KZbin, at least ok mobile, shoves shorts in your face like there's no tomorrow and makes it quite difficult to make it so it just doesn't show you shorts anymore for a while.

[@syntheretique385]

Recently YT has been suggesting *members only* videos to me. That's beyond the pale. Don't try to sell memberships out of frustration. That just makes me mad at the platform.

[@badabing3391]

tbf youtube doesnt rely on shortform content, even though it still gains huge amounts of revenue from shorts based on all the ads and views there

[@omegaelement]

It's wild that Elon wants to sue Twitch for not advertising on Twitter, despite the fact that Twitch has no reason to advertise on a website that actively and pointedly down ranks all tweets that talk about Twitch, let alone link to Twitch. It is kind of self-defeating in a way for social media platforms to hide when people try to share their content that is hosted on other sites, but push engagement bait and toxic/controversial content, as both things bring down their reputation as good platforms to use.

[@LeonardoDaFinchy]

Connections having _two_ US-centric categories today is maddening

[@MentionedBefore]

I'm glad Bluesky is finally becoming what it is becoming. Btw I have interacted with your posts on there before I found your channel here. And thank you for doing what you're doing ❤

[@Somewisecracker]

8:56 Today's a great day to seize the means of production, Hank

[@Sarcasticron]

I mean, if MAGA are going to accuse people of being communists for wanting to give kids food and help people pay for their diabetes treatment, I figure we might as well go for the whole seizing the means of production. We get blasted just as hard for being "communists" if we politely try to go as conservative as we can, like Kamala did. So why keep trying to be more centrist? If they've decided that centrist is communist now, let's go for it! What do we have to lose, besides our chains?

[@billgates7859]

😬dont send him down that path please

[@Loudeboss]

Lol

[@secretasiandan]

​@@billgates7859username checks out

[@joaquinsanchez508]

Hankothy, my GOAT

[@whichyearisit]

hankothy

[@DNABeast]

“Why do I keep doing it?!” My brother you are so darn close to the solution. So close!!

[@jenn_willey]

is the glass of wine in the room with us now, Hank? 😆😘

[@JackTheVulture]

isnt it wonderful when websites just shows you the stuff the people you chose to follow posted. the internet has gotten so much more user-hostile since our choice got sacrificed in the name of manipulating our time on the website. bluesky is so refreshing for just. letting me see what i sign up to see, not try and decide for me what i care about for me. and the feeds giving you MORE control to filter that? brilliant.

[@morgantrias3103]

This is why I stay on tumblr.

[@ajb1884]

"Bluesky kicks ass precisely because it is less compelling. " BANGER!!!! Banger take 💪💥

[@Tantalus308]

And this is why Bluesky will fail

[@bookswithike3256]

@@Tantalus308 Real people hate how engagement-bait and advertiser-obsessed the internet has become. People have been looking for excuses to abandon twitter for a long time. If Bluesky continues to be an objectively better platform not run by nutjobs, people will continue to leave twitter.

[@nethulone]

pedophiles

[@nethulone]

​@@DerekS-kq3zh did it help in 2024 ? making a bubble , censoring people, ?

[@DerekS-kq3zh]

@@nethulone Well let's see, who won in 2024 again? lol

[@TomBortels]

Out of curiosity - why not mastodon? If the algorithm is a pain point - mastodon is an escape. "Not a huge audience" you might say - but it takes personalities like yourself to drive that audience. I really like the fact that *without the profit motive* the feed I see is reliably the people I follow and what they thought was interesting. Just a thought.

[@LulfsBloodbag]

Mastodon is kinda the Linux of social medias. It's cool, and it isn't going anywhere, but it's just that tiny bit too complex for the average person to try it on a whim. Blueeky functions a lot like any other social media in the sign up process, but Mastodon has that slight hurdle of choosing a server, which is just one step too much effort for most people. Again, it's a really cool idea, but most people are too lazy to get started.

[@slash196]

Because Mastodon sucks to use. Bad UX kills products and Mastodon is one of those products.

[@ReddStrider]

i like masto but i can't really see it evolving fast enough to match bluesky. it took them literally until last year to open up to the idea of quote posts, meanwhile just in the past few months bluesky has already surpassed twitter in any of it's forms with feeds, blocklists, starter packs... that said, you can use an animated gif as a profile picture on mastodon but not on bluesky so that makes it better.

[@Duconi]

@@LulfsBloodbag But bluesky only can allow everyone to register without choosing a server, because it's controlled by a single organization. It's the same as twitter, threads, facebook, instagram, youtube, myspace, etc. it's a single organization controlling it. But you still have to choose bluesky. Why is it so easy to choose bluesky, but so much harder to choose the mastodon instace of your location or of your church or of the topic you are interested in? It's not more difficult to chose an instance. It's just that you don't choose an instance based on the people there (like you do with threads or bluesky) because with mastodon you can follow anyone on any other mastodon, pixelfed, peertube, etc. instance. But instead you choose an instance based of different criteria.

[@KOSAMAGAMES]

​@@Duconi that's why I tell most who know nothing just to sign up for the main Mastodon Social site.

[@smile5143]

I came here for Twitter and this man spend 40 hours on the ad

[@malteschaper3782]

While browsing Mastodon and KZbin: yes, this is a big problem.

[@mattcoxonline]

Slightly disappointing that Hank has not embraced Mastodon considering... well... (put the script of the above video here)

[@kanjonojigoku8644]

​@@mattcoxonline sorry mastodon feels like Linux, like its probably good but the only people who talk about it are mega nerds and it feels overcomplicated to use and join, so the average person avoids it

[@mattcoxonline]

@@kanjonojigoku8644 No need to apologise to me. I didn't make Mastodon. You should be apologising to yourself for not liking it and therefore outing yourself as average. I'm sure you're not average. I believe in you. You can do it!

[@Duconi]

@@kanjonojigoku8644 To be fair, there are a lot of nerds there. Which adds to it being a better platform in my PoV, actually. But it has the mostly the same complexity as twitter, threads and bluesky, except that you can choose a server at the beginning. The usage of the software is pretty much the same. And the join mastodon site has made choosing an instance very easy. You can just choose a region or topic and then pic a server where you like the vibe or rules they operate on. It's like people have chosen e.g. Threads over twitter. The same way they can choose a mastodon instance. And if it's just taking the instance the nerd you know uses.

[@simjans7633]

​@@kanjonojigoku8644 what made it click for me is that it's like email. You choose a instance, and then your 'at' is 'at' that instance.

[@jayspeidell]

Blue Sky is a much better place for my photography.

[@Sib1204]

I read that differently 😦

[@abuBrachiosaurus]

​@@Sib1204 lmfao

[@franciasii2435]

Rest in peace, MySpace Rest in pieces, DIGG Rot in purgatory, twitter

[@katyungodly]

Rust in piss 😎

[@nethulone]

pedophiles

[@richardarriaga6271]

Twitter must be sent to Tartarus

[@JSSMVCJR2.1]

Seethe!

[@richardarriaga6271]

@@JSSMVCJR2.1 That's what Twitter is for. Look, unmarried cat lady with exes better looking than Twitter's influencers endorsing that candidate you hate!

[@GrantOberhauser]

I'm sorry but this feels like a pre-eternal september phase of bluesky and it will inevitably succumb to the same patterns because it happens every single time 😢

[@Silverwidows]

Not suprised saying bluesky gets less views on twitter. Good ol muskrat loves free speech unless you say bluesky

[@silith7027]

Or Cisgender.

[@nethulone]

try sayin "there are only two genders" on pedosky

[@firstnamelastname4959]

Twitter pre Musk was not exactly a bastion of free speech either.

[@Zieg_Games]

Bluesky is ass and will be bought by Elon in a couple of years.

[@MatthewMakesAU]

Or cis

[@DireDyer]

NYT's game programmers were on strike recently, and asked people to consider taking a break. They're no longer striking, but no deal has been reached yet either

[@fruitcakeunicorn2234]

I had no idea about this thanks for the mention!

[@londongirl2768]

They have ended the picket line though, it’s fine to use the games again

[@peacefroglorax875]

What he's talking about is why Mastodon is still good after all these years. I thought there would be no one there, but there's all these people sharing links, sharing other stuff, because there's *no profit motive*, and it's really nice to be there!

[@wlewisiii]

Tried it, walked away. Awkward at best, lots of horrifically bad feds, and no way to keep them out. Anarchism is only a pause on the way to yet another autocracy which is what will eventually happen there.

[@Duconi]

@@wlewisiii Sorry for your bad experience. Probably you have chosen an instance with bad moderation? I control my timeline there, so if someone posts too much things I don't like, I unfollow them and I don't see that things anymore (except maybe someone else I follow shares their posts). And of course you and your instance's moderators can mute or block people and instances. That's the thing with a decentral network like Mastodon/the Fediverse. It's actually multiple networks connected. There are for example even Nazi instances. Most instances blocked them, but they are still there.

[@friendlyfire7861]

@@wlewisiii It already is. Step slightly out of line with the Mad Libs and you get banned.

[@friendlyfire7861]

Only if you are a Mad Lib. Say one thing not ultra far Left and you are banned.

[@thewhitefalcon8539]

​@@friendlyfire7861 can't figure out what you're talking about with this

[@Rickfernello]

Companies want the short term profit. They don't realize that it is respect of the consumer and true value of something that makes people want to stay somewhere. I'm glad Bluesky exists.

[@yuvalne]

"on twitter, threads and bluesky" me, on mastodon 😭

Me too. Bluesky is shown in most users videos in a onesided view.

[@trankzen148]

Yeah, I think considering the techbro owned platforms as the only relevant ones is a pretty dissappointing stance. I mean I get that the game for content creators is maximizing engagement but I prefer social medias that don't forcefeed you

[@Duconi]

Yes, it's sad. But I guess people want to stay in this walled gardens.

[@smellslikesouls]

9:05 i think of this everytime i check minecraft’s twitter. i’m literally only still on twitter because minecraft isn’t officially on bluesky

[@HumbleWooper]

Same, I only check twitter for a few accounts that haven't moved yet.

[@4saken404]

The point you make at 11:46 is really what's at the heart of it.

[@shaynannigans]

I’m glad I’m not on Twitter, Threads or Bluesky. It seems like not a great place for mental health.

[@Sonnell]

Hank, start a petition for a law, which makes companies to publish their algorithm. Knowing how your info will be manipulated, filtered, etc, is a human right.

[@lemond2007]

Everything is a "human right" to you weirdos.

[@Sonnell]

@@lemond2007 Well, I hope you expect to be protected from things and people that might hurt you, because if you will be protected, it will be by a "weirdo", you fool.

[@untimelyfrog2354]

@@lemond2007 Would you rather choose to remain easily manipulated by social site management and their corporate clients, not knowing what they use your info and habits for, then? That you call people who want to know what's being done to their personal information and online habits weird makes me wonder what you consider a right, and what you otherwise consider a privilege. The U.S, as far as I'm concerned, has a thing called Freedom of Information Act. Not that government nor most corporations would honor something that until they are pressured to, but just letting you know.

[@lemond2007]

@@untimelyfrog2354 Everything. Is. A. Human. Right. To. You. Weirdos.

[@Nothinganywhereallthetime]

At what point does this stop just being a scummy thing that twitter is doing, and become an actual anti-competitive practice under anti-trust law? Google isn't allowed to down rank results from competitors, why is twitter? Does the user generation of content really have any bearing on such a dynamic?

[@MatthewMakesAU]

Why do you think Elon is trying to be BFFs with Trump?

[@makemetoasty3287]

I know it’s literally the whole point of social media but even on threads I see nothing but shitty takes on politics and hip hop and I just keep hate reading and then my day is gone and I have to go back to work.

[@DovahClone]

I can not express how much happier my life has been since I removed everything from my phone and computer, and deleted all my accounts. The only social media I use now is KZbin and Twitch. I never scroll, only ever watch specific creators with intention. I urge you to live with intention, it will make you feel better.

[@makemetoasty3287]

@ I’ve stayed off socials for the most part except for insta bc I need my memes, then it talked me into getting threads and it’s just been downhill from there lol. Stay strong

[@maxrequisite]

You should move away from the hate reading and listen or read the book "Humankind" by Rutger Bregman. I haven't fully finished it but it gives a whole new view of the world that is refreshing.

[@ricardopina_]

let me remind you guys that every social media platform had a wholesome start until they eventually become toxic, manipulative or people stopped using them. I think that a lot of social media's shortcomings are a reflection of people's shortcomings, not the apps.

[@drednorzt]

I think your right to some degree, but the apps certainly change their foundations more than the users do.

[@dollyraestar7624]

This is exactly what me and my friends have noticed promoting our smaller-scale projects: grassroots gigs and art projects and the like, and also just trying to use the internet. It's really interesting (and helpful!) to hear you expressing exactly the same frustrations - and that you're finding Bluesky to be different in this regard. It's exactly the push I need to embrace that platform, both for my own projects and in the job I'm about to start. Thanks man!

[@Clisare]

Threads is a different kind of toxic to Twitter but it's toxic all the same

[@AcornFox]

8:43 ding ding ding. this is why they downrank links. ads are all links, and they think that serving them is a paid service, separate from the free town square

[@VencentCross]

hey Hank, idk if you'll read this but i just wanted to say, me and you dont always see eye to eye on politics (i know, this isnt a politics video and i actually think your right about the algorithm manipulating your posts) but we do share a love of science and tech and nature and i just wanted to say that im glad your political takes tend to be mostly based in reason (not always, sometimes even you admit your going on a feeling or emotion) and you dont take that tone of looking down on anyone who disagrees with you as if only bad people think a different way than you do which is something i see all too much on the internet. i guess what im saying is, thank you for being reasonable and well spoken most of the time!

[@disky01]

I know it's not helpful to say this, but Mastodon just plain doesn't have this kind of system. Its a very nice place to be and I wish more of the creators I love posted there instead of being compelled to interact on these hellscape sites.

[@mattcoxonline]

💯

[@Shampyon]

Fun fact: Blue Sky's AT protocol and Mastoton's ActivityPub are interoperable. No walled gardens.

[@Duconi]

@@Shampyon Well, not really interoperable, but there are bridges, yes. With bluesky everyone registers at the same instance, though. So it's still fully controlled by a single organization unlike the fediverse, which is decentral with different instances and different software. Like you can use pixelfed and it's actually interoperable with mastodon, as both speak ActivityPub.

[@KOSAMAGAMES]

@@Shampyon only if you follow bridgey, and they continue to maintain it.

[@youtubespag]

Im unable to move past the fact that you said "you can get all your christmas shopping done here. They have tea, coffee, socks." I think its funny how that sounds like all you get is socks and tea and coffee.

[@PrincessSarahDucky]

I've been waiting for Hank's excellent points on this matter as soon as I noticed the little experiments going on. I love stuff like this Edit: Also yes!!! Connections. Love

[@Recreatorify]

This is a big part of why I generally hate social media and engage with it very little. Even KZbin, I comment some but I mostly just let videos play to listen to them while I'm working or whatever. Social media was supposed to be a means of communicating and sharing with each other, but the incessant need to make money off of EVERYTHING and gaming the system in every possible way means that everyone gets pushed to only do things in a certain way and not actually socialize in any meaningful way. Trying to have any kind of thoughtful conversation with people you encounter online, even if you're in complete agreement with them, is virtually impossible. People rarely want to read any more than a one-line sound bite so they can go "nuh-uh, you're wrong" without ever actually thinking about the substance. It's supposed to be about sharing information and connecting with each other, but all we do is silo off into little cliques that post a specific type of content that reinforces our own desires and makes us feel like we're smart and other people are dumb, while trying to get that sweet ad revenue that'll mean we might get to live the lazy life of staying home and working on more algorithmically required content 24/7, or the viewers will flip out that the video didn't go up at the exact time they wanted to watch it. Social media has naturally become the worst possible form of socializing - the kind that tries to drown out individual personality in favor of gaming some numbers. Blue sky is doing better now, but once they get enough investors complaining about not getting as big of a return as other platforms - it'll get ruined.