spiderflorist

the Bluesky early adopters are baffling to me because the ones I followed on Twitter—the most gung-ho of the Bluesky fans—were the people who complained incessantly about Twitter's moderation before Elon bought it. like folks, you're propping up the exact same thing you (rightly) never shut up about before. the only difference is the logo.

One thing I've heard from a few acquaintances that are on Bluesky is that there's already a contingent of early beta testers who are more or less demanding respect because of their "seniority". All two months of it.

This is such a bizarre thought process, and it feels like it falls precisely in line with what you're saying in the last paragraph.

Bluesky is an absolute shit pit of tech bros and bros-adjacent people tweeting from the thinnest ledge of moral superiority.

Yeah I watched this whole thing unfold from the sidelines and it was baffling to me. The core thing that I saw happening was, of course, outrage driven by one-step-removed-from-reality discourse. The purported issue with dril wasn't that backed Block The Blue, the main claim being circulated was that he was hostile to SWers. I saw a lot of accounts, many of whom I really respect, parroting this claim with no chain of reasoning or evidence; just flat statements of supposed reality and claims that not falling in line will get you, too, blocked.

But of course we're super familiar with this line of discourse! It's the same shape of outrage machine as when the far right picks some milquetoast leftist to pillory via out-of-context screenshots and unverifiable claims. We always talk about the left's worst enemy being itself but it felt wild to watch it unfold in real time.

Not on bluesky for a lot of reasons but this is reinforcing my belief it's the right thing to do

i never use automated blocking tools, partly because of how commonly they put random people with whom i have no beef in their crosshairs. and while i don't follow a ton of people who do sex work i feel like i would at least have seen actual pleas from sex workers who bought blue checks to not mass-block them, if that were really a thing. anecdata and all but i suspect this idea where sex workers are significant collateral damage in the fairly bottom-up resistance to musk's enshittification speedrun is an almost totally invented one, by people who aren't directly affected and do this type of shit as a weird kind of crusade-of-the-week spectator sport. your logic seems sound to me.

there's also a strictly practical argument where even if you are a marginalized person hanging on to a terrible platform for dear life because it's sustained you in the past, there is a point past which it is no longer worth your while to be on that platform. and it really seems like twitter has passed that point for most people. like, hang around to behold its final days if you like (i guess that's what i'm doing) but don't persist in believing your livelihood is at all safe with a billionaire who's actively shitting his pants in public daily.