Hi, scientists from the Fediverse! It seems that Nature is asking people about Twitter migration and if they are happier on #bluesky .

On Nature writers' minds, Bluesky is the only place to migrate to. There's not a single mention of the Fediverse in there! However, there is a small free text box where you can write your thoughts, in the step before "send" button. So I did fill the poll anyway, writing why I decided not to go to Bluesky but to Mastodon instead.

I thought that maybe if we get enough people to actually fill the survey and mention that they migrated to Mastodon, we can make a stronger case for open, free networks. It's an extremely short survey, so let's try! nature.com/articles/d41586-025…

#academicchatter #OpenScience

Has Bluesky replaced X for scientists? Take Nature’s poll

The research community has flocked to the social-media platform Bluesky. Tell us about your experience.

^{www.nature.com}

A thread posted on #Bluesky by a formerly incarcerated firefighter. It's really informative and worth clicking through for. Also, note the twist ending. 👀

bsky.app/profile/hahnscratch.b…

#CalFire #Fire #California #Prison #MatthewHahn

"Nous allons continuer à communiquer, notamment sur les autres réseaux sociaux, certes perfectibles, mais loin de présenter les mêmes travers fonctionnels et idéologiques que X. Contrairement à X, où les règles sont imposées de manière centralisée, #Bluesky et #Mastodon permettent aux utilisateurs et aux communautés de choisir ou de créer leurs propres règles de modération."

lemonde.fr/idees/article/2025/…

« En quittant X, nous avons bien conscience de nous priver d’un canal de communication pour valoriser nos actions, nos combats. »

Constatant que les causes solidaires et environnementales sont invisibilisées ou caricaturées sur X, un collectif de 86 associations, répondant à l’appel d’Emmaüs France, s’engage dans une tribune au « Monde » à quitter le réseau social d’Elon Musk.

^{Collectif (Le Monde)}

This fucking Free Our Feeds bullshit is basically trying to do for Bluesky what Mozilla does for Google.

And guess what, there’s Mozilla’s executive director and president on as custodians alongside two guys from AI companies and the executive director of Meta partner Social Web Foundation.

I’m so bloody sick and tired of bloody Silicon Valley asshats sucking all the oxygen out of the room with their bullshit and I truly hope the folks roped into legitimising it realise this and distance themselves as quickly as possible (you know who you are).

freeourfeeds.com

#FreeOurFeeds #SiliconValley #SanFrancisco #BlueSky #SocialWebFoundation #bullshit

Free Our Feeds

Let's take social media away from billionaire capture.

^{Free Our Feeds}

Meanwhile, so many people seem intent on reinventing the Fediverse? Hm raise $5m to help grow Mastodon, or raise $30m to make Bluesky... like Mastodon?

theverge.com/2025/1/13/2434279…

#Mastodon #bluesky

Free Our Feeds wants to build a social media ecosystem ‘resistant to billionaire influence’

A group of technology advocates and celebrities are backing the launch of Free Our Feeds, a project aimed at creating a social ecosystem atop the AT Protocol.

^{Emma Roth (The Verge)}

I would like to repost some #Bluesky posts onto #mastodon

I don't (yet) have a Bluesky account but I do follow @bsky.brid.gy and I see some Bluesky posts here on Mastodon.

Do I need to get the Bluesky account to also follow a bridge?

Or is there something I can do myself to repost someone else's content?

(I'd like to automatically post messages from @spinerace.bsky.social)

#Help
#FediverseHelp

the two aren't equivalent, though.

#Bluesky / #ATProto and #ActivityPub / #Fediverse are based on fundamentally different designs particularly with regard to the role of instances, not to even mention details of protocol signaling.

It's not the case that they could simply invest here rather than there. This place has its own issues that arguably make Bluesky the more attractive path to develop.

Just because people have dedicated their lives to one particular path doesn't mean it was the right path to take.

"Let's spend $30m to fight the VC invested folks at #bluesky to make #ATproto what we want it to be, instead of giving that money to the people who have dedicated their lives to making #ActivityPub what we claim we want."

The fedi was built on blood and sweat. We can improve all the shortcomings people complain about for a fraction of what #FreeOurFeeds plans to invest.

If they are unsuccessful in this fight, do they admit it? How would that reflect on decentralized social media generally?

freeourfeeds.com

Interesting concept, but why not use activity pub

#Fediverse #ActivityPub #ATProtocol #Technology #SocialPlatform #bluesky

Free Our Feeds

Let's take social media away from billionaire capture.

^{Free Our Feeds}

"#Bluesky "est conscient du problème et sait que la communauté des vérificateurs de faits et des chercheurs de sources ouvertes enquête déjà sur ce contenu et le signale afin d'empêcher sa viralité". Ses efforts sont "plutôt efficaces pour limiter l'opération" à l'heure actuelle, selon l'expert. Mais ces actions demeurent "très réactives" et Bluesky doit encore prouver qu'il peut démanteler de manière "proactive" cette opération en cours."

bfmtv.com/tech/actualites/rese…

La désinformation prorusse entre en scène sur le réseau social Bluesky, le concurrent de X

Jusque-là épargné, le réseau social Bluesky, perçu comme une alternative à X (ex-Twitter), est la cible de campagnes de désinformation prorusses.

^{S. F. (Tech&Co)}

Your reminder that while #Bluesky is all fun and games now, but that it won't last. This is also a reminder that #socialmedia becomes enshittified because of #capitalism, but non-profit social media exists, it's the #Fediverse and you really should start having a presence there too.

RE: bsky.app/profile/did:plc:ykwur…

WRT #BlueSky: I know some people are getting a lot of mileage out of it, and I don't want to detract from that.

But whenever I log in after having been away for more than a couple of hours, I almost universally have to block a bot. Sometimes several. I feel like I spend more time blocking bots than interacting with humans.

And that's on top of the fact that blocking a user doesn't remove them from your followers list. At least, thankfully, they've started hiding blocked accounts on your publicly-viewable followers list, but this still artificially inflates follower counts. And there are still no polls, no way to increase max post length, etc.

Don't get me wrong, there are also some good things that Mastodon and other Fedi services could bear adopting (access controls for replies, quote boosts, etc). But still. Bots everywhere. Plus the fact that _here_ is where my posts actually get boosted, even on my other account with only 30some followers.

I'm not going to delete BlueSky, but for now, #Mastodon and the #Fediverse really are where it's at.

Will #BlueSky sign the RespectfulPlatforms.org pledge?

bsky.app/profile/dansup.bsky.s…

Some scholarly journal articles include links to share the articles on #socialmedia.

For example, here's an article with links to share it on #X and #Facebook. (Scroll to the bottom.)
insightsimaging.springeropen.c…

I don't think I've ever seen a journal use sharing links for #Mastodon or #Bluesky. Have you?

If some journals are doing this, is anyone keeping track of them? Is anyone systematically encouraging them?

Here's letter encouraging journals to add sharing links for Bluesky — but failing to mention Mastodon.
www-nature-com.ezp-prod1.hul.h…

#Academia #AcademicMastodon #AcademicBluesky
@academicchatter

Impact of AI on radiology: a EuroAIM/EuSoMII 2024 survey among members of the European Society of Radiology - Insights into Imaging

Abstract In order to assess the perceptions and expectations of the radiology staff about artificial intelligence (AI), we conducted an online survey among ESR members (January–March 2024).

^SpringerOpen

Sensitive content Reveal/hide

Cory Doctorow vs Molly White #Quotes

💬 #Enshittification comes naturally from capital invested or *the leverage* from capital invested?

@pluralistic vs @molly0xfff

(framed as "vs" just to get some reply points from people and potential answers about comment below...)

💬 Molly says
"Cory Doctorow provides his perspective on Bluesky, including on their recent funding round. I particularly like his point: “Plenty of people have commented that now that a VC is holding Bluesky's purse-strings, enshittification will surely follow (doubly so because the VC is called ‘Blockchain Capital,’ which, at this point, might as well be ‘Grifty Scam Caveat Emptor Capital’). But I don't agree with this at all. It's not outside capital that leads to enshittification, it's leverage that enshittifies a service.”

📋 Website Post by @molly0xfff citationneeded.news/issue-69/

#CoryDoctorow vs #MollyWhite #Quote
❓ #enshittification = #capital #investment #funding ? ❓

#Grifter #Scam #CaveatEmptor
#Capital #Capitalism #Bluesky
#Blockchain #BlockchainCapital

⭐ Images Credit: Molly's image + my edit by enlarging objects + adding ".news" in bottom right
( ⚠️ let me know Molly if this image is problematic)

Issue 69 – Nice

Coinbase threatens me that continuing to report on their activities would be “.... unwise”. Also, election spending hits a fever pitch, with several new crypto PACs coming out of the woodwork.

^{Molly White (Citation Needed)}

Given the shoddy level of engineering observed so far at Bluesky can you image the ease with which influence operations are going to take place on that platform?

#bluesky

Question: How does a company with effectively zero revenue get a valuation of $700M?

businessinsider.com/x-competit…

This is an astronomical sum, that can not possibly be validated on any kind of forward looking business rationale. The only answer is that Bluesky is selling it's position as the refuge for progressive social media. Herding progressive and resistance voices into a space that can be controlled, and even shut off at the next critical moment, like the next election, is priceless.

#Bluesky

X competitor Bluesky's valuation jumps to around $700 million

Bluesky is raising new funding led by Bain Capital Ventures that would value the social media company at around $700 million, according to sources.

^{Ben Bergman (Business Insider)}

If you use #Bluesky be sure to install a tracker blocker.

Thanks to @BlurryBitsPhoto for calling attention to this privacy nightmare: pnw.zone/@BlurryBitsPhoto/1138…

Apparently Bluesky ranks among the worst in their experience for trackers.

Here is a comparison of the uBlock Origin filter log for bsky.app versus Mastodon 👀

(Note: had to cut off the bsky.app page as the log just went on and on yielding dozens of blocks and kept streaming in.)

I'm witnessing a large portion of my social network sign up for Bsky.

And I mean, I'm on there too (passively) but I can't help but want to constantly shout over there "this is another corporate owned social network. have you all learned nothing?"

Maybe I should just set up a bot to automatically post that every day.

#bluesky #bsky #SocialMedia

So #bluesky is raising more money, according to Business Insider.

They say valuation is around $700m, which at, say, 10m MAU values them at $70/user. Which is about in the commercial social media platform ballpark.

It also means that every one of you/us with a Bluesky account is expected to make at least $70 in profit for the company.

businessinsider.com/x-competit…

X competitor Bluesky's valuation jumps to around $700 million

Bluesky is raising new funding led by Bain Capital Ventures that would value the social media company at around $700 million, according to sources.

^{Ben Bergman (Business Insider)}

Fuck me - why is #Bluesky full of #Radiohead fans?
Why do they idolise these apartheid-loving racist cunts?
Who's their second fave artist? Fucking Morrissey?

bdsmovement.net/news/jonny-gre…

aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/3/…

nbcnews.com/news/world/radiohe…

#FreePalestine

Radiohead's Thom Yorke walks off stage in response to Israel 'genocide' heckler

Radiohead singer Thom Yorke left the stage during a concert Wednesday after a member of the audience shouted about Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip.

^{Patrick Smith (NBC News)}

2024 wasn't the best year for social media... but it's 2025 now 🎉

That means it's time to move to greener pastures. Social media that's open, democratic, and controlled by the users.

This year, we're looking forward to raising awareness for New Social and introducing more people and organisations than ever to open social.

We hope to help them move to truly open platforms, like this one.

Get in touch to learn more!

#SocialMedia #Fediverse #Decentralized #Mastodon #Bluesky #Threads

Didn't know Kris Nóva, Bob Young (Red Hat co-founder) and Automattic (a company by WordPress founder) invested in Bluesky among many others.

seanthegeek.net/posts/why-elon…

#Bluesky #SocialMedia

Why Elon Musk can’t buy Bluesky

Developers, data nerds, and VCs have made something special that even Elon Musk can’t buy

^{seanthegeek.net}

The Meta developments make it even clearer why so many of us are wary of #bluesky, while welcoming the migration off X in principle.

It's very much born from the same Silicon Valley soup as Facebook and Twitter, with some decentralization cosplay masking that they are absolutely in charge of who can speak and who can't.

Early test cases include Jesse Singal (see glaad.org/gap/jesse-singal/ - still not banned on Bluesky), Vagina Museum (forced "adult content" labeling), and probably more.

Jesse Singal | GLAAD

—Wrote cover story for The Atlantic headlined “When Children Say They Are Trans: Hormones? Surgery? The choices are fraught—and there are no easy answers.

^{Matthew Breen (GLAAD)}

At the end of the article:

"But Bluesky’s vision for an open-source decentralized platform is about much more than becoming the next big social media site."

Did I miss something? Or is the author confusing #Bluesky with #Mastodon?

"Bluesky and Threads showed us very different visions for a post-X future"

Well, not really "very different". Nobody is talking about the truly different social media - The Fediverse and Mastodon, that is.

engadget.com/social-media/blue…

#SocialWeb #Mastodon #Fediverse #SocialMedia #Threads #Bluesky

Bluesky and Threads showed us very different visions for a post-X future

Threads and Blueksy may share some of the same goals, but they’ve shown very different visions for how text-based social networks should operate.

^{Karissa Bell (Engadget)}

Turku osaa...

"Turku on ottanut käyttöönsä X:n sulkemisen myötä uuden somekanavan Blueskyn."

#Turku #Bluesky

yle.fi/a/74-20134271

Öyhöttäminen riitti Turulle – sulki ensimmäisenä suurista kaupungeista sometilinsä X:ssä

Viestintäjohtaja Saara Malilan mukaan Turku kyllästyi somealustalla esiintyvään negatiiviseen öyhöttämiseen. Myös julkaisujen näkyvyys on kärsinyt.

^{Hanna Kammi-Rahnasto (Yle Uutiset)}

Well, you had a good run... 😜

#LauraLoomer #Bluesky #canceled #trans #LGBTQ #GOP

I posted this on @darnell@darnell.day, but #Bluesky has 14 million monthly active users (MAU), & about 3 million daily active users (DAU): darnell.day/can-bluesky-rise-a…

👉🏾 Source: bskycharts.edavis.dev/edavis.d…

I would be surprised if they surpassed 50 million MAU in 2025, but they could easily surpass 50 million total accounts.

Aside from that, these are interesting predictions! Maybe I should speculate on a few! 😁

Can Bluesky Rise Above Its Progressive Plateau & Beyond Threads Shadow‽

After news of Donald Trump's impending victory was confirmed, people began abandoning X for more favorable pastures. Many of those folk...

^{Darnell (Seize The Day)}