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Re:Bluesky's active user base is shrinking as its focus expa... by ecshafer on Tuesday August 11, 2026 @04:53PM (#49264323)
Bluesky and Threads both have a fundamental issue in that their entire pitch is "We are like Twitter, but we are not run by Elon Musk, a Republican." Which only energizes the most radical, fringe, terminally online, who happen to be the ones that were most disliked on regular Twitter in the first place. When you whole pitch has zero appeal to 95% of people, its dead.
Re:Bluesky's active user base is shrinking as its focus expa... by bigstrat2003 on Tuesday August 11, 2026 @05:09PM (#49264532)
Yeah, I agree. It's the inverse of the problem Scott Alexander has observed in the past: when you make an alternative platform based on the premise of "we won't ban people based on having unpopular views", you wind up with a user base of 10 principled free speech activists, and a million people with truly awful views. It turns your platform into an awful place that nobody wants to associate with, even if they agree that it's bad to ban people for having unpopular views.
Re:Bluesky's active user base is shrinking as its focus expa... by bluemoonx on Tuesday August 11, 2026 @05:12PM (#49264564)
Sounds fun, sign me up. I want the bad. Moderation is somehow worse. I’m a big boy I can block the spammers myself
Re:Bluesky's active user base is shrinking as its focus expa... by inigyou on Wednesday August 12, 2026 @09:48AM (#49272391)
4chan.org here you go
Re:Bluesky's active user base is shrinking as its focus expa... by TacticalCoder on Wednesday August 12, 2026 @09:45AM (#49272349)
> ... you wind up with a user base of 10 principled free speech activists, and a million people with truly awful views

The problem of a leftist network like BlueSky is that so many people on it defend the totally indefensible. I'll give two examples...

1. Like all those who have a "preference" for young kids: it's nicknamed "PedoSky" for a reason.

You ain't finding me on a network that explains that wanting to have sex with young kids is "just a preference" and that explains that people selling drugs to kids aren't evil for it's all "contextual".

2. There are 300 million female who been genitally mutilated that are alive today. Because the west imported so many people from the middle east and africa, that issue of FGM is present in the West too.

And instead of fighting it, you now have some western "intellectuals" (or at least who believe they are educated intellectuals) explaining that "it's a complex problem".

That's where we are atm: people lecturing us about how we should be respectful of the culture where young girl's clit are removed "because it's complex / because it's contextual / because we need to understand the beautiful things about those cultures / etc.".

No it's not: it's a good vs evil issue.

If you genitally mutilate a young girl by cutting her clitoris or if you sell fenthanyl to teenagers, you are fucking evil. It's as in the TV series Euphoria:

"I don't care what your personal struggles are: if you sell poison to kids, you are evil".

I don't have X anymore but from I can see X is mild compared to the ideas defended on BlueSky.

It can be summed up as: "Musk is a nazi. I defend female genital mutilation because it's complex, I understand grow up men who have a preference for young kids, I believe we should pardon dealers selling drugs to kids for they have their own struggles, I sympathetize with islamist terrorism, ... And it's all OK because I'm so open-minded individual, while Musk is an evil nazi".

While I do believe that at some point it's a good vs evil issue (and I'm not religious) and you have to take an actual stance on those issues instead of weaseling your way out of it by "understanding the feelings" of pedos/terrorists/fenthanyl dealers etc.

Re:Bluesky's active user base is shrinking as its focus expa... by inigyou on Wednesday August 12, 2026 @09:56AM (#49272491)
Is anyone on X defending pedophilia or FGM?
Re:Bluesky's active user base is shrinking as its focus expa... by PaulHoule on Tuesday August 11, 2026 @05:10PM (#49264536)
Not sure what to say about Threads. I mean, if you have an Instagram account they’ll try to give you a Threads account and photos I post to Insta automatically go to Threads so I am probably in the top 5% of Threads posters though I hardly ever log in. I am happy if people see my photos on Insta or Threads or LinkedIn or Nextdoor or wherever.

Thread’s notifications are just plain weird like it is usually clickbait where you can’t tell if they love Trump or hate Trump and if the one sexy cosplayer/alt fashion model I follow because I know her in IRL did something provocative with her friend who has tattoos from head to toe, Threads thinks this is front page news.

Re:Bluesky's active user base is shrinking as its focus expa... by brooke2k on Tuesday August 11, 2026 @05:07PM (#49264491)
calling elon musk "a Republican" is such a wild understatement
Re:Bluesky's active user base is shrinking as its focus expa... by jryle70 on Tuesday August 11, 2026 @05:20PM (#49264663)
Sounds like you are the audience Bluesky caters to.
Re:Bluesky's active user base is shrinking as its focus expa... by mexicocitinluez on Wednesday August 12, 2026 @09:32AM (#49272153)
lol So stating a fact means you're more likely to be on Bluesky? Sign me up.

As long as it's not run by a guy who is so pathetic he lies about the video games he plays.

Re:Bluesky's active user base is shrinking as its focus expa... by jryle70 on Wednesday August 12, 2026 @01:52PM (#49276201)
I'm sure you'll find it home right there
Re:Bluesky's active user base is shrinking as its focus expa... by Krssst on Wednesday August 12, 2026 @08:14AM (#49271200)
Musk is not just a republican, he's pushing far-right parties everywhere else in the world (plus, the "roman" thing). He's the textbook definition of why social networks should not have recommendation algorithms other than "chronological view of who you actively chose the follow".

He can say whatever he wants, but buying one of the biggest social network to push his ideology onto billions leaves "freedom of saying whatever one wants" territory to enter "let's buy elections by controlling what enter people's feeds".

Re:Bluesky's active user base is shrinking as its focus expa... by exhumet on Wednesday August 12, 2026 @08:35AM (#49271435)
yeah im pretty fucking hard left wing, i would still have probably used twitter in this current day if it hadn't just become a total cesspool. i used bluesky because my friends moved there and tbh the custom feeds are a great feature. could not care about the owners political leanings as long as they are not being actively and outwardly malicious... pretty much most of my social media usage went down the hill when they just became outrage/outwardly racist/ai infested cesspits. i neeeeeed something more than my small local groups to keep up with my hobbies so i use reddit. but in 2025 i deleted my account and made a new one from scratch that was highly tailored and streamlined vs my 2011 account that had soooooooooooooooo many shitty subs still subbed.
Re:Bluesky's active user base is shrinking as its focus expa... by mexicocitinluez on Wednesday August 12, 2026 @09:29AM (#49272118)
lol

Twitter's fundamental issue is that it's entire pitch is "You can say the most outrageous things on the planet, share race-baiting videos, and be a scumbag as long as it doesn't anger Elon. Also, we're down with child pornography"

Which only energizes the most radical, fringe, terminally online, who happen to be the ones who were most disliked on regular Twitter in the first place.

See how that works?

Re:Bluesky's active user base is shrinking as its focus expa... by spacebanana7 on Wednesday August 12, 2026 @01:20PM (#49275782)
Twitter's first mover advantage meant that it was the first place analogue celebs/politicians/etc went to share content with the general public.

Much of this has eroded over the years because of competitive platforms like Instagram but these initial conditions remain formidable.

Re:Bluesky's active user base is shrinking as its focus expa... by mexicocitinluez on Thursday August 13, 2026 @11:56AM (#49287912)
I would say the erosion has less to do with Instagram and more to do with a man-child driving the platform into the ground.
Re:Bluesky's active user base is shrinking as its focus expa... by nitwit005 on Wednesday August 12, 2026 @04:21PM (#49278044)
Neither Bluesky or Threads actually made that pitch.

Threads was started up because of the business opportunity of Musk fumbling things, but Bluesky seemed almost annoyed by all the new users.