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These news are awfully similar to click-bait stating "the science is settled" by grouping a small set of the group and then pretending it represents the whole.
The paper failed both to identify the overall number of scientists using X or the cases where multiple platforms are used (most common scenario). Therefore the paper only seems biased on its best scenario or downright propaganda at its worst.
NOSTR and Mastodon should never be left out of any serious research.
> NOSTR and Mastodon should never be left out of any serious research
I'm a nerd and I've never heard of NOSTR. What I've heard about Mastodon suggests strong "Desktop Linux circa 2000" vibes: Too much fiddling around for too little gain. If I can't be bothered to deal with either of these, the normies certainly cannot.
> The paper failed both to identify ....
But its published by Oxford, so it must be perfect.
/s
I registered a Bluesky account not too long ago and noticed shortly after a regular appearance of gay and furry nsfw content. The NSFW setting was turned off, so these accounts are for whatever reason neglecting to tag their content properly.
Telling Bluesky that I'm not interested in "this type of content" didn't help remove the problem. Blocking/Reporting the accounts is futile, as they are so numerous. Moderation lists for LGBT/furry content seem to be nonexistent or unlisted from public modlist sites (maybe they are considered to be "homophobic"?)
Anyway, Bluesky does't seem to be safe-for-work, so it's hardly a proper replacement for Twitter. If this is fixed, then that would be good.
Agreed that better filtering would help greatly in making Bluesky more work-safe. (By contrast, ActivityPub’s communities do a decent job self-filtering, but that community is also more self-selecting at present.)
That said: furries are the internet’s coal mine canary. They’re one of the more visually prominent marginalized internet communities, and one of the first to get deplatformed when capital steps in. If you’re on a platform where furries are thriving, you’re probably in a safe space. Cf. the history of Tumblr, Twitter, Blogger, etc.
Since I started reporting them ad "Unwanted sexual content" I am seeing significantly less half naked persons desperately begging for sttention. But there's still the issue of all the comic and manga crap labeled as art. Bluesky needs to correctly identify and relabel those as comics and manga.
Would be nice if others would report them too, because there are kids on BlueSky and they don't need to see their uncles/aunts or neighbors sticking their butt into a camera.
Yes, same experience.
I only read posts from people I follow, which solves this problem.
But of course this is a slow way to grow my network. But I like the slow linearity of the timeline this way.
> Bluesky does't seem to be safe-for-work, so it's hardly a proper replacement for Twitter.
Is twitter SFW? I constantly hear about "mechahitler" and all sorts of terrible bigotry, language, and dog whistles. I may be ignorant because I refuse to even go on there.
I noticed the same, which was off-putting, but not as much as how dull it is, and how badly the "nuclear block" feature ruins conversations.
Can't really see a future for Bluesky outside of the niche communities that are already established there.
> Anyway, Bluesky does't seem to be safe-for-work, so it's hardly a proper replacement for Twitter. If this is fixed, then that would be good.
I'm not a Bluesky user. Twitter has exactly the same problem. I've got the NSFW setting turned off. And I've reported a lot of accounts posting unflagged NSFW content, mostly videos. And every time I get this slop reply email from them after a few minutes:
Thanks for reporting <account_name> and for using your voice to make X better for everyone. After review, we want to let you know <account_name> hasn't broken our sensitive media rule.
We allow sensitive content — like consensually produced adult content, graphic imagery and violence — in posts as long as it doesn't break our sensitive media policy.
I suspect they let these accounts slide because they value the user (or bot) engagement these accounts generate over safety/moderation.
That’s what I’ve heard from basically everyone I know personally. They get the app sign up and just a flood of furry content. Bluesky really needs to figure out a better default curated feed if they’re gonna just recommend content like that.
It’s fixed. There were a few weeks in which I noticed this as well. No longer.
Regular appearance as in posted by the people you follow?
> I registered a Bluesky account not too long ago and noticed shortly after a regular appearance of gay and furry nsfw content. The NSFW setting was turned off, so these accounts are for whatever reason neglecting to tag their content properly.
What... are you doing with the app exactly??? Do you not curate a list of accounts you follow?
To counter your anecdote: I've literally never seen anything like what you describe. I follow the people I'm interested in who post things I find of interest. I've occasionally (only occasionally) clicked on the "discover" tab, but it also does not show the sorts of things you described.
I joined to try to re-follow the tech community that was lost when Elon lost it. All I get now is 24/7 non stop Trump complaints. I get it, but it adds no value to my life. I certainly don't look forward to opening the app and hearing them. I've tried blocking the terms and even unfollowing people, but to no avail. Now I just never use the app.
Gay furry nsfw content you say - well shit, maybe I’ve been sleeping on bluesky.
Several comments already angrily agreeing with the claim in the headline, which is weird.
"Yeah, those academics are all in a bubble together on bsky". Yes, that sounds "professionally useful", to be in a bubble with the people who work in the same field.
Bluesky seems unfriendly to email-alias providers like SimpleLogin. I signed up with an alias and was suspended within minutes.
bsky.app email support [1] requested me to contact them via blueskyweb.xyz email instead [2], but mail from aliases appears dropped by blueskyweb.xyz.
Gave up creating an account after being given the runaround. In contrast, Mastodon have worked fine for me.
[1]: https://bsky.social/about/support
[2]: https://bsky.social/about/blog/09-18-2024-trust-safety-updat...
I'm trying to like Bluesky. X has a large tech community and some deep thoughts/discussions on tech and philosophy matters, but I can't find similar people or groups on Bluesky yet.
I find it really difficult to care about whether other people use a website or not. I stopped using it at one point, and I started using another website instead. I really don't care if other people continue to use it because I can just continue on with my life ignoring it.
The are fewer posters and likes on bluesky today than there were in early September of last year, and both graphs have been trending down consistently since February of this year.
Bs went from 2.8m likers/day its peak to 1.1m today.
Yes certain so-called scientific fields that have a 100% viewpoint capture in academia only feel comfortable sharing views in the bluesky bubble, and they’re the exclusively-BA schools like “Integrative Biology” that this paper is published in.
Bluesky is constantly bleeding users so even if this is true it won't be relevant for long.
BlueSky and Mastodon are as relevant and useful as Blogger.com; Threads meanwhile has leeched itself to Instagram and somehow existing.
There is no point in creating an account there, even the Elon Haters have gone back, they keep the BSky account as a backup.
Sad, but if you want to feel the global pulse (however weak) X/Twitter is still the place.
Also X/Twitter is an insane name.
I’m glad to see folks moving off Xitter. But this feels like just repeating the same mistake by moving to a VC-funded centralized platform. What prevents ActivityPub from being technically sufficient—or is this just the network effect in action?
Seems to be similar to my experience. I used to go to track and follow interesting individuals - scientists, engineers, artists... then it all got washed away with flamebait. Bluesky doesn't feel like its there yet, but I'm hopeful
Personally Twitter was very useful as a mid-career engineer to keep up to date on Bay Area developments and connect with my former coworkers. Several of my previous jobs were the result of Twitter DMs.
At this point someone being a big Twitter user would be a deal breaker for joining their company.
Blue Sky has far more moderation. Unfortunately some of that includes limiting political view points. I always looked at BlueSky as reddit lite from that perspective. Their "respect others" rule appears to primarily apply to protecting left of center posters. Academia as a whole is left of center so I understand the overlap there.
X has almost no moderation. Its the wild wild west. You can read a thoughtful post about nutrition followed by outright antisemitism. X is the free speech platform, almost anything goes. I am a free speech maximalist though, my only limit being personal threats of violence, targeted attacks (revenge porn, pornographic image manipulation, doxxing, etc. ) other than that whatever people want to say or ideas they want to push should be debated in the public space. No censorship. Freedom of speech of course does not mean freedom from consequence. If I am spouting racist diatribe under my real name and lose my job, that's on me.
I prefer X as I like being exposed to all sorts of view points and find the more extreme posts amusing as its not something you see on the daily. I'm a jew and at one point the algorithm seemed to think I was an open neo-nazi. Was pretty funny, did not bother me at all.
Each to their own, the nice thing is that there are options.
I wish that was the case but at least in my domain, after many people initially switched to bluesky, most eventually went back since many high-profile people did not make the switch.
This seems factually incorrect? There are massively more scientists on X than bluesky, and they seem to engage in their profession on X all the time.
The scientists I know personally are actually using LinkedIn the most for discussions around their work, and extremely rarely using any platform other than LinkedIn for this
So they surveyed a few hundred people and that’s supposed to justify an academic paper? In a formerly prestigious journal (emphasis on the former - if you need evidence that it’s been co-opted by activists take a look at its home page).
Bluesky is dead, Mastodon is hardly any more popular. Neither X nor any of these should have ever been of scientific value. If you want to publish science, use a standard blog platform like a normal person and curate a RSS feed of stuff you like.
Circa 2018-2020, Twitter felt genuinely unique as a social media platform to find intelligent scientific and policy discussion. The quality of discussion in my feed felt much higher than reddit or HN. I could barely imagine leaving it. By 2024, that completely reversed, and it felt much so, so stupider than anywhere else. So many scientists have left. Eventually I left despite having 1000s of followers.
Bluesky has recapitulated or even surpassed peak sci twitter. The signal:noise is excellent. However, it requires some work because there is no algorithm. Aggressively unfollow people with low signal:noise, use the custom feeds that disable reposts and enable replies, use the Quiet Posters feed, and use sill.social. This has created a science feed that for me surpasses even the peak of Twitter, let alone X today which is unusable for scientific discussion.
Finally, the thing that drives me crazy is that Bluesky is literally a popular open-source, nonprofit, Ad-less, algorithm-less, truly free and partially decentralized social media network. It's what we all dreamed about in the 2010s! It's Mastodon but actually popular! But half the tech community have convinced themselves it's a "liberal bubble" (that anyone can join....) and that the website that apparently isn't a bubble is the, err, website run by a billionaire with an algorithm designed to promote certain political content that agrees with that billionaire. Absolutely bizarre situation.
i have only read the title and synopsis, but weighing the professional value of personal microblogging platforms seems misguided , i wonder what the breakdown would be if linkedin (the "professional" microblogging platform, even as awful as it may be) were included , i would wager that it would be the winner. nevermind that "following academics" is something that sounds better than it actually is and reduces the individual to their profession. a more interesting question is where the dilettantes frequent
My Twitter account was hijacked earlier this year. I created it in 2007 using an e-mail address on a domain I've owned since 1999. Multiple attempts to recover the account have been rejected.
I created a new account. Since I'm not following anybody, I see a random-ish feed of things.
It's kinda jarring going from a feed of tech science music to misinformation getrichquick scams and reposted viral content. Like woah.
In recent years, new leadership at Twitter has made substantive changes that have resulted in increases in the prevalence of pseudoscience, conspiracy theory, and harassment on the platform
changes to Twitter have made the social media platform no longer professionally useful or pleasant
I think we need to be honest that - while there is some truth there - this is the view from elements of the left who were instrumental in suppressing conservative voices and generally making it an unpleasant environment for people who did not subscribe to modish cultural takes under the previous management.
The alternative view is of course that for good or ill, freedom of speech is a much higher priority now - which you would think is more in tune with scientific and rational enquiry.
None of that is mentioned in the abstract which immediately suggests caution should be taken when evaluating this study.
That’s fine. If they want a hugbox, then they can have one.
But if they want scientific or public facing discourse, they will have to leave it.
why would a scientist need anti-social media?
I've stayed with X, just because it still seems like that's where stuff is talked about. If and when that changes, I won't need an academic study to tell me so.
If either "reality has a liberal bias" or "scientific institutions have become ideologically captured" then something akin to this would make sense. Of course, how you would distinguish between the two I'm not sure.
a lot of tech and design conversations are happening on X. is there a way to mirror those on Bluesky?
Twitter was never professionally useful.
FWIW- it seems tech is still firmly on X. I’ve made an account there recently (@ma_bettinson !) and the discussions are quite great, though there are quite a few grifters
Are scientists stupid, this study says yesss....
i wonder why various governments and journalists keep using anti-social media as well, due to the innate conflict of interest: anti-social media is all about sinking governments and trad journalism.
don't go on the rival platform and legitimize it further, IMO