My father asked me the other day what was this Bluesky that he’s kept hearing about lately. I explained that it was a micro-blogging service similar to Twitter that recently came on the scene along with Threads, Mastodon, and others that have since dropped off the map. I went on to say that once Elon Musk purchased Twitter, a lot of users migrated to these other platforms because they didn’t like the direction of what Musk planned to do with Twitter. Bluesky is the most old school Twitter-like and it has grown because it isn’t owned by a billionaire (Threads, Twitter/X) nor is it incredibly complicated to navigate (Mastodon).

He was wondering because he kept seeing it on screen in relation to the MSNBC hosts he was watching.

It reminded me of this article from a few days ago asking the question, “Are we Self-Segregating on Social Media?”

The answer is yes. If any social media platform amplifies fascists, racists, misogynists, and disinformation, you should leave. Maybe you’ll find a new home. Maybe you’ll just walk away altogether.

In her piece, Allison Hantschel argues that it only makes sense to avoid those toxic places and create new spaces. She also cites a couple of journalist type folks who have written pieces on the migration calling places like BlueSky an “echo chamber” and a “silo.”

There is a very real danger in getting all of one’s information filtered through one social media outlet, of course. You cannot follow every reporter, or even every news outlet, on X or Facebook or TikTok reliably enough to get the kind of generalized understanding of the world once provided by, say, a nightly TV newscast.

But that’s not what these commentators are complaining about. They’re not concerned you might miss out on a proposed solution to a tax loophole or a change in water reclamation rates if you don’t follow your local government or regional newspaper online. They are throwing a fit because they can’t express hate speech.

They’re complaining that Americans are underexposed to fresh new ideas like “non-white races are inferior” and “trans people shouldn’t exist” and “we should hunt the poor for sport” and without algorithmic pressure will suffer without such content. They’re upset that they’re not allowed to promote their toxic work into the eyeballs of people who aren’t looking for it.

Manufactured outrage is big business, after all, and they don’t want to lose a paycheck.

Personally, I don’t want to be outraged every second of every day. It’s exhausting and I have better things to do. I spent years curating, crafting, and following exactly who I wanted on Twitter. I never saw the crazy. You can’t avoid it now.

I used some awesome tools that no longer exist like Tweetbot and Tweetdeck. I was probably considered a high-end Twitter user. Not anymore. I deleted thousands of old tweets. It was cathartic.

I have accounts at all of these micro-blogging platforms, including Twitter, but my only post consists of a quote from Arnold Schwarzenegger. Today, my Twitter/X account is locked down so I can’t share, so here’s the same post on my account on Bluesky:

“Turn off the social media, think about your biggest insecurity, and go start working on it out in the real world. Go outside, exercise, talk to real people. Stop listening to these influencers and what they think you need.” — Arnold Schwarzenegger

— Sean McDevitt (@seanmcdevitt.bsky.social) 2024-11-06T21:43:24.516Z

I’ve self-segregated myself straight off these platforms. If you haven’t already, you should too.