Scientists move to Bluesky, transitioning away from X and Meta platforms
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That's not really a fair description of what's going on.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with a recommendation algorithm, can you imagine trying to use Netflix if it didn't tell you about any of the shows and you just have to guess and type in a film in order to see if it existed?
The problem with algorithms is when they're the only option, or when they are invisible and you think you are getting a timeline of people you've subscribed to, but really you're getting an algorithm optimizing retention. As long as it's just recommending stuff there's nothing wrong with it, in fact as a lot of people point out, it's kind of necessary.
The world functioned before recommendation algorithms. Even the internet did. Once upon a time, when Goggle worked, it didn't modify its results based on your history.
Netflix could operate fine with classifications, ratings good tagging and search. It doesn't need to monitor your viewing habits and recommend something based on them.
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I'm just saying, because someone is a scientist absolutely does not absolve them of human fallibility. I just don't like the take of "because scientist, therefore smart or wise" and that's not true, they're just (hopefully) educated and credible in their one specific field and nothing else.
Right but Mastodon is irritating to use, isn't it? It has actual problems. I think it's intellectually dishonest to pretend that it doesn't have problems and therefore anyone not using it is being ignorant.
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Took me like a day on bluesky to find all the funny people. Never saw any funny people on mastodon.
The comedians don't use it. Why would they, there isn't that much of an audience there. Also I don't think there's even particularly political people on it for pretty much the same reason. All of the political commentators I follow either post on bluesky or post on both platforms, somewhat eliminating the need for Masterdon at all (assuming that's the kind of content you want to follow).
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What like OpenAI?
OpenAI was always set up in a stupid way though. It was always for profit business that owned a charity, so there was always this potential to go into the "for-profit exclusively" direction.
If you look at news articles from a few years ago even back then there were people saying that the name isn't really appropriate. GPT has never been open source at any point.
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The other issue is, nobody is trying to take on Facebook. Not really anything in the FLOSS community like it.
Friendica aims at that. I'm not sure about the results as I haven't tried it.
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The world functioned before recommendation algorithms. Even the internet did. Once upon a time, when Goggle worked, it didn't modify its results based on your history.
Netflix could operate fine with classifications, ratings good tagging and search. It doesn't need to monitor your viewing habits and recommend something based on them.
Yes but it would be more irritating to use than without which is my point.
The world function perfectly well without electricity but I don't think anyone is seriously suggesting that we go back to a pre-electrified age just because technically it's possible.
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We can avoid it ever becoming shit when a wannabe dictator buys it if we make it impossible to sell: like mastodon and other federated options.
Right, that's the sure-fire way. But if a platform is better in some way than another, I'm inclined to use it, as long as it's morally just to do so.
I like Bluesky because it's more like Twitter was. But I like Mastodon because of how liberated it is. So I'll use both, probably, until Bluesky turns to shit (or doesn't).
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What.. Are you taking about? I know hundreds of scientists and the vast majority of them interact with social media just as much as normal people.
And when is the next circle jerk about how making an account on the Fediverse is too complicated for "normal people?"
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I would prefer any ActivityPub instance, but press media (and in general private entities), to which scientific institutes intend diffusion, is moving to bluesky...
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I use linux because I hate microsoft, not because itâs more feature complete than windows (it isnât).
lol... "Feature complete" if you want terrible features.
i just want it to work without having to fix it
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Because a fediverse is any group of technologies that talk to each other via a common protocol. In 2025 thatâs ActivityPub and has been for awhile. It would be one hell of a stretch to assert that a single platform with its own home made protocol that doesnât talk to any other technology in the entire fediverse as part of that fediverse. So at best you can say Bluesky has its own fediverse. And if one fediverse is going to be âthe fediverseâ itâs going to be the one that actually connects all the most common platforms people use today, including Diaspora.
Diaspora doesn't use ActivityPub, does it? It's still a Fediverse app though, and still fairly widely used.
It would be one hell of a stretch to assert that a single platform with its own home made protocol that doesnât talk to any other technology in the entire fediverse as part of that fediverse. So at best you can say Bluesky has its own fediverse.
I agree with this.
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While there has been some onboarding QOL stuff for mastodon, Bluesky still has them beat on that.
The "People" segment in the explore menu is a nice start, but it's still dependent on the users picking a server that somewhat matches their interests.
thing is lot of that is on purpose. mastodon and fediverse are more of an attempt to come back to the state where there is no algorithm picking for you... but too many people nowdays are simply too lazy to search and actively choose what they want to see.
what we really need is to separate content (keep that in fediverse) and content access and presentation (the interface people use to access the content). if you want a bot feeding you content whole day and for your internet to become a tv you nobody can stop you. but if you want to think amd search nobody should stop you either
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Using social media is far removed from operating your own publicly available social media server.
This coming from someone who is trying to get more mastodon usage in higher ed. Profs aren't the ones who operate these things. Merely getting the approval to get the project started is an immense task.
My question was about the "scientists are not allowed to" part. I've never heard to such restrictions, and been in the field for more than a decade.
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Diaspora doesn't use ActivityPub, does it? It's still a Fediverse app though, and still fairly widely used.
It would be one hell of a stretch to assert that a single platform with its own home made protocol that doesnât talk to any other technology in the entire fediverse as part of that fediverse. So at best you can say Bluesky has its own fediverse.
I agree with this.
Oh, looks like it doesnât. Itâs Friendica that uses both ActivityPub and Diaspora protocols
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Would he better if it was Mastodon, but I suppose I shouldn't let perfect be the enemy of good, and good riddance to Twitter, indeed.
Same here, well said. Blueskyâs not perfect, at least itâs not Twitter. I wish more people would use it though
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Going to play devil's advocate here.
Bluesky is just...better than any Fediverse microblogging platform. In terms of UI, discoverability, and keeping a balance of users in the community.
Mastodon sucks for regular people. And none of the other better platforms like Firefish ever gain enough steam to beat Mastodon because of existing issues in the structure of the Fediverse and ActivityPub (this also includes Mastodon itself to an extent).
what are those?
existing issues in the structure of the Fediverse and ActivityPub
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But we did leave
Who is we?
From what I can find Twitter has around 500 million users monthly, meanwhile Bluesky has less than 30 million total users... I've seen public figures who are outspoken against Trump and Musk, some who even called them Nazis, still using twitter but not Bluesky or Mastodon. And I even see people on Lemmy post screenshots from Twiiter posts.
So, clearly, the vast majority of people have not left, and those who did are just going for another centralized platform that is likely to suffer from the same problems as Twitter in the future. And all this about a decade too late, as another user said.
Sorry, should have clarified - I was speaking on the part of many academics. In my department, most people (faculty) have abandoned Twitter and a fair few have started on bluesky although more just don't use the format in any context anymore. I only know of one who uses Mastadoon.
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The other issue is, nobody is trying to take on Facebook. Not really anything in the FLOSS community like it.
I believe you've hit the nail on the head, the only people I've noticed that really want such a social media account are generally people who were older than millennial, out of Millennials, gen Z and gen A, I don't really see much interest in a social media account that is directly linked to your actual identity. Most of them are more interested in a pseuado-anonymous style account that only asks for a username and doesn't actually link you to a real world identity.
Facebook was great in principle, it was intended as like a college student community and evolved from there, it was never meant to fill the goal of what the platform is doing today.
As such as Facebook deteriorates, there isn't a huge demand for a Facebook alternative, because the people who are leaving the platform aren't actively seeking to replace what is lost.
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I feel like scientists should move towards open source solutions ... I feel like most scientists are smart enough to launch a mastodon server, but well.
Never worked in academia eh? Plenty of dumb (and, more importantly here, computer illiterate) people there too.
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Iâve yet to find a multi language or English speaking misskey it appears theyâre all Japanese
You could spin one up this evening if you wanted.
That's not the point. The point is, there are reasons Mastodon is being rejected, just like there are reasons you seemingly cannot pay people to use a Misskey-based or Hubzilla-based website.
It's not where the people are going, and the public or semi-public figures are going to follow the people.
