The day after the election, I opened an account at social media site BlueSky. I intend to abandon my Twitter account in a few weeks. I had over 140,000 followers on Twitter, but I don’t know how many are bots. On BlueSky, I have picked up 2,000 followers and expect to see the number rise. I know that every one of them is a real person.
I’m not the only one. According to the New York Times, one million people joined BlueSky since the election. Twitter claims 50 million in the U.S., over 500 million worldwide. BlueSky, founded by Jack Dorsey, the Twitter pioneer, has 14.7 million.
BlueSky is growing now at the rate of 1 million new accounts daily.
The numbers go up every hour, as people seek a site that moderates content.
Elon Musk has changed Twitter for the worse. It’s overloaded with ads for Trump merch. His own tweets are ads for Trump. He has restored the accounts of Nazis, anti-vaxxers, and haters. Misinformation is rampant, especially since he fired all the content moderation group. “Let hatred and lies prevail” seems to be the Twitter motto.
I am now posting at BlueSky.
BlueSky is a welcoming community. The tone is friendly. Commenters are not angry. No nazis, racists, or misogynists. There are lots of historians, journalists, academics, familiar names.
People offer advice about how to navigate the site.
It has good vibes.
I don’t want to be part of Elon Musk’s world. I had to leave.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Agreed, going Musk-less is health
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Me Too …
@inquiryintoinquiry.bsky.social
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I’m also on Bluesky. It’s nice to escape the tyranny of the right-wing “For You” tab. And it’s good to not be contributing to Musk’s well-being. I’m not sure I agree about the tone on Bluesky being friendly. If you depart from the progressive orthodoxy, you will find yourself on blocklists. I was blocked by a couple hundred people my first week on Bluesky, even though I barely posted anything—it probably was because I was following people who are persona non grata. And I’ve gotten responses that are easily as offensive as anything I’ve seen on Twitter (including the classic “kill yourself”).
Hopefully as the platform grows this will change, but I think it’s more likely that people will just silo themselves. Which is fine, it’s silly to think you could actually have rational debates with thousands of random strangers who pop in and out at whim.
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Oh to escape the tyranny of the unthinking ideologues on both sides of the political divide!!!
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I think the no-brainer answer is that one should eschew social media like this in general and read longer-form writing. Return to the circa 2000 age of the blog.
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I started this blog in 2012. I enjoy writing it. I have steadfastly refused to monetize it (a fee to subscribe). Other bloggers are behind pay walls. Not here.
The other blogger who refuses to charge a fee is Peter Greene at Curmudgacation.
Heather Cox Richardson has graciously given me permission to post her comments. She has over one million subscribers.
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I must be living a lie. There seems only the distant RIGHT and the not so far RIGHT. I can’t find anyone suggesting a massive government control of the means of production so we had a true left.
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FLERP,
Thank you for being honest about Bluesky: “I’m not sure I agree about the tone on Bluesky being friendly. If you depart from the progressive orthodoxy, you will find yourself on blocklists.”
Unfortunately, reader comments sections for almost all publications and blogs are like that. Few people want discussion that is both spirited and civil – they want only reinforcements of their existing opinions. The Washington Post reader comments are especially bad: the slightest dissent from the party line inspires vile personal attacks on the commenter. Blogs that are obviously pro-Trump are just as bad, and often worse.
I regret to say that this blog is no better. Almost all commenters are enraged when even the calmest dissent is expressed here. How many people would express themselves face-to-face like they do online?
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Jack, I regret that I find it impossible to say anything positive about Trump. I do block most MAGA posters because their comments are unfailingly vile and often personal.
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Diane,
You are justified in blocking vile personal comments. What I refer to are differing opinions that are expressed in a civil tone but are then met with a barrage of personal criticism rather than responding to the substance of the comment. That tactic is all too common on this blog. The person who first referred me to this blog ( a retired teacher) no longer reads it for that very reason.
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I’m sorry to hear that.
I just got a MAGA comment calling me a “commie c—.”
I blocked it.
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From my observations, most of the long term commenters here maintain a civil tone. There have been a few tiffs between 2 or 3 commenters but nothing really bad and Diane has intervened to cool things down. The thing that infuriates are the trolls who bomb this site with obvious scripted comments designed to cause chaos and confusion. Trump is stacking his administration with right wing trolls, it’s a nightmare.
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Jack Safely commented on 10/28/2024:
“The hysteria over the Washington Post not endorsing a presidential candidate in 2024 shows how in-the-bubble this blog and most others on the Left are. The WP has lost over 500,000 subscribers since 2020 – half of its subscription base. I still have my $40/year subscription, but I don’t look at the WP much these days because it is mind-numbingly repetitive. 95+% of the political articles are reflexively anti-Trump, anti-Republican, anti-conservative. I’ve heard those same arguments many times before; I don’t waste my time just having my existing views reinforced, and I don’t like any journalism that deliberately conceals information that doesn’t advance the preferred narratives of the writers, e.g. Biden’s obvious cognitive decline.”
Donald Trump lies. Trump doesn’t just spin the facts to benefit himself. He all out lies. He lied about winning the 2020 election, he lied about fomenting an insurrection, he lied about having proof that Obama’s passport was fake, he lied about Haitians kidnapping and eating pets, he lied when he refused to return classified documents, he lied about Ted Cruz father helping to assassinate JFK, he lied about so many things that it is impossible to report on someone who lies all the time without his most rabid supporters screaming “bias” if the media informs the public that Trump is spewing lies. Like a sports team that simply sends in an enforcer to break as many players legs as possible, playing a team that follows the rules (which means occasional fouls), fans of the team breaking legs yell “unfair” if the refs don’t call equal number of fouls on both teams.
The liberal media, like a cowardly ref worried about showing bias, believes that if it calls more fouls on the team that is breaking legs than the team following the rules, they are guilty of being too biased toward the team not committing fouls.
But in fact, a referee who believes it is very biased to call all the fouls a team of enforcers breaking legs commits (because that team is receiving more foul calls than the team playing by the rules) is actually biased FOR the leg breaking team of violent criminals.
That’s why you read these kinds of comments where we are supposed to believe that the liberal media covered up Biden’s cognitive decline but gave Trump’s cognitive decline “too much” coverage. Facts don’t matter – their “feeling” that the team they like better was treated unfairly matters.
Trump did say he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and his supporters would be good. Likely his supporters would be on here working the refs to say that the couple stories in the Washington Post that mentioned in passing that shooting someone is illegal proved “extreme bias”, even though the Washington Post then dropped the subject since Trump shooting someone on Fifth Avenue ceased to be newsworthy anymore.
It is true that there should be more fouls called on a team that spurns the rules and makes up its own, then a team that tries to follow the rules. But eventually when a team shows that it has no interest in playing by any rules, as their goal is to cause people the greatest harm so they can “win”, it’s time for the referee to end the game. When instead the cowardly refs admit that they are very, very biased to be calling more fouls on the team causing permanent injuries than the other team, the refs are biased FOR the violent team spurning the rules.
Telling the truth is never “biased”, except in the Orwellian present, because the same folks who Trump said would be good with him shooting someone on Fifth Avenue now say that too much reporting on the truth is “biased.”
Allowing a bully to lie and hurt people because he has powerful friends is “bias”.
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Even if you choose to use BlueSky for non-political commentary like sports, tech, fitness, entertainment industry, teacher talk, etc., hopefully you won’t get follow requests from p*rn bots like Twitter.
I don’t post on Twitter nor do I consume that kind of content, but I get requests from bots all the time.
I’ve considered trying to build a Twitter following under may name in the recent past, but as a teacher, I can’t have OF models spamming my comments. I see that often on other people’s posts.
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Teach,
Thus far, my BlueSky experience has been very positive. No bots or trolls. People even post lists of known trolls so you can block them at once. There is a nice spirit there.
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Me too, Diane. It’s a much nicer site- and growing by leaps and bounds.
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Good for you! I don’t do any social media, but thanks for the info, which I will pass on to friends and relatives.
Bobbi Eisenberg Sent from my iPhone
>
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I’m delighted–and not a bit surprised–to hear of this latest instance of your doing right and doing good, Diane.
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Thanks, Bill.
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I left Twitter right before November 5th and joined Bluesky, too. I will find you there, Diane.
Honestly, I don’t want to hear from the “other side”, right now. I think I know what they are thinking, due to the election results. I need some time to cool my jets before trying to engage with people that don’t think like me right now. I have spent the better part of a lifetime, listening and working to understand points of view and beliefs that I don’t hold. It has been part of my work for a very long time.
I need a break from being civil with Americans that voted against their own best interests, against civility, against honesty, against truth, and for hypocrisy and treachery.
Sorry, I need to be around people I feel safe and can trust right now.
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Blue Sky sounds like a good replacement for X. That way more people can have “their X.”
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I made a Twitter years ago under my online name, but never used it much and don’t even remember the password.
If it’s of any interest… There’s a resistance of sorts being planned by Malcolm Nance for a mass exodus from X/Twitter all at the same time. My understanding is he is telling people not to delete their X/Twitter accounts yet, but to download their past data they created on X/Twitter, start their new accounts “where the sky is blue,” but not to engage “the redcoats” on those forums, and then to wait for his signal for a mass deletion of millions of X/Twitter accounts at the same time (leaving the “s**thole to the klansmen and racists”).
I don’t know enough about the implications of the simultaneous deletions of millions of X/Twitter accounts, but this may be interesting.
I had heard about this plan and searched “Malcolm Nance on leaving twitter.”
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me, too.
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Yes. I’m coming along too. Will you have a replacement button for the twitter linkup?
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Shirley,
I don’t have a replacement button for the Twitter link. I wish I did but it’s not in my control. That’s part of the WordPress design.
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Wow! Thanks for the response. Hmm. Makes one wonder about the WordPress design though.
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I am on Bluesky with my original handle that was banned from Twitter because I told Rand Paul his neighbor should punch him in the face again.
Lets see how long this lasts before it is destroyed by the forces associated with the Orange Turd.
We need to be vigilant and not allow the trolls to gain any traction. Don’t engage..block instead.
@rlratto.bsky.social
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