Scientists move to Bluesky, transitioning away from X and Meta platforms
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I use linux because I hate microsoft, not because it’s more feature complete than windows (it isn’t).
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 that’s 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 doesn’t 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 “the fediverse” it’s 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 doesn’t 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 doesn’t 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 doesn’t. It’s 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. Bluesky’s not perfect, at least it’s 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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I’ve yet to find a multi language or English speaking misskey it appears they’re 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.
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Being a scientist doesn't mean you have the technical knowledge to run a public facing server.
Being a scientist kinda means to me you're able to follow a very easy to understand guide to install mastodon on ...
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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).
Mastodon is great.
The only reason why it doesn't get as much traction is because it doesn't manipulate your dopamine and serotonin receptors like other networks do with their black box algorithms that are designed to steal as much of your attention as possible, while almost certainly throwing you into an unhealthy filterbubble/echochamber.
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while I agree, the reality of the situation is that when you get down to comparing feature to feature, open source solutions tend to be technically inferior to proprietary ones.
I use linux because I hate microsoft, not because it's more feature complete than windows (it isn't).
I use lemmy because I hate u/spez, not because it's more feature complete than reddit (it isn't).
I use blender because it's free and it's actually kinda great, if all free and open source software was like blender, then it would be a no-brainer to use FOSS all of the time, and it would be easy to convince the normies to do the same.
also also
I'm using linux mint, i have minor complaints about it, but nothing worse than what microsoft is currently doing with windows. It's just different, and that bothers me. middle click paste is the bane of my existence, but other people swear by it. Just before I switched over, I learned about windows 10's built in emoji keyboard, and I really liked that. A year later (literally last week) I discovered a program that does most of what the windows emoji thingy did, and I can manually edit a keybind for the function to accomplish amost the same thing. FOSS, yay, it's free if you don't value your time in currency amounts. FOSS could be so good if only it were good.
while I agree, the reality of the situation is that when you get down to comparing feature to feature, open source solutions tend to be technically inferior to proprietary ones.
Yes. But there is nothing bluesky does that mastodon doesn't. It's a platform to write short text posts and have it viewed by other people. It's not rocket science.
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Never worked in academia eh? Plenty of dumb (and, more importantly here, computer illiterate) people there too.
I'm pretty sure there are a handful of technically literate scientists who are able to install servers lmao.
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Friendica aims at that. I'm not sure about the results as I haven't tried it.
Yeah, honestly Friendica has been around for ages at this point and I assume is pretty damn mature in terms of most features.... what is exactly missing here that it isn't even worth mentioning by name when talking about replacing Facebook?
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At least Bluesky is a public benefit corporation, so they at least have to consider the public good in their decision-making and not just profit. May not be much, but it's a start.
May not be much, but it’s a start.
Actually, when you tell people something is a start but it is actually a false start that doesn't deliver on the fundamental promises at all, it is much worse than having a much slower start....
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Being a scientist kinda means to me you're able to follow a very easy to understand guide to install mastodon on ...
Being a scientist also kinda means understanding what are your strengths, and how you can combine them with other people who are smart along very specific narrow vectors.
Being a scientist means understanding that if you work together with the right kind of smart, curious people you can build amazing things that will improve the world.
Being a scientist means understanding the modern business world is utter bullshit and will rot any science it touches to the core.
Being a scientist, like truly living that ethos means being someone who believes the truth is important and that there are power structures who will fight tooth and nail to subdue that truth or hoard it to themselves for personal gain.
Being a scientist thus effectively means I would expect that after having a brief conversation with you that you would at least understand the grave danger that entrusting science communication in another for profit social media company poses and how it doesn't seem sensible to take that risk when the actual material barriers to creating Fediverse communities aren't actually that high.
Don't get me wrong, those hurdles are real, the fediverse can be confusing, there are lots of growing pains here.... however, not every scientist needs to become an expert in selfhosting Fediverse software, and not every scientist needs to become a Fediverse evangelist (although it wouldn't hurt), but we do need to connect boldly and clearly the hypocrisy of supposedly truth valuing people all shepherding dutifully onto another platform that will silence and betray them violently.
Scientists are inherently aligned with modern progressive politics, or rather scientists need to understand they are at everything up to physical danger from being hurt by conservatives and they need to understand that makes them fundamentally aligned with modern progressive politics.
There is no "I don't want to get political here" and the failure of the science community at large to recognize how embracing Bluesky as if it was a genuine solution to the unfolding catastrophe of science being defunded and destroyed is embarrassing. Those of us on the Fediverse should be kind, but also we should make fun of them for not using their brains. They clearly have them. Fucking use them you fools.
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When I first got a Bluesky account, back when it was invite-only a whole bunch of the Physicists and Astronomers I used to follow on Twitter were already there. If anything it seemed like scientists were early adopters.
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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.
Any public facing IT system stood up in the higher ed system I am familiar with, requires IT support to be engaged. A part of that process is sending the request through a software review board, department's IT, centralized IT, and then assigned to a project manager.
Otherwise, it would be considered a rogue service, and turned off at the edge, and core routers.
