from the what-views,-motherfucker?! dept
Editor’s note: Mike Masnick is on the board of Bluesky, and took no part in editing or reviewing this piece.
Here it is: the dumbest take to date on Bluesky v. xTwitter. There’s been plenty of stupid offered up before by bitter xTwitter users who are trying to pretend they’re not still splashing around in white nationalist dumpster juice while surrounded by bots. Their favorite coping method is to claim Bluesky users are afraid to engage in the marketplace of ideas. But all they offer is a limited market in the darkest alley in town.
None of these arguments are being made in good faith. No one criticizing Bluesky users for routinely rousting Nazis and their fans from this social media platform is making intellectually honest arguments. They’re just bitter that the people they actively dislike (and actively harassed on xTwitter) are no longer willing to slog through the sewage just to have a meaningful interaction or two with their fellow, non-bigoted human beings.
This column for… um… Commentary, written by James Meigs, at least lets you know right up front you’re dealing with a dishonest broker in the marketplace of ideas. You’ll see it immediately in Meigs’ opening paragraph:
When Bluesky opened to the wider public in 2023, more left-leaning users flooded in, many of them hoping to escape the increased visibility of conservative views on Musk’s now laissez-faire platform redubbed “X.”
I mean, it’s right there. This is yet another person who thinks people are closed-minded because they prefer not to engage with “conservative views,” while failing to acknowledge that “conservative views” is a coded term that refers to open racism, white nationalist ideology, anti-trans hatred, bigoted beliefs covering pretty much every race, color, creed, or sexuality, and a general enthusiasm for MAGA-based autocracy.
These are not “conservative views.” These are bigoted views that far too many people hold — people who think they might be perceived as rational if they use this phrase, rather than something more specific that would reveal what these “views” actually are.
The bad faith argument continues, broad-brushing Bluesky users as liberal elites, skeeting from the relative safety of their ivory towers in the general direction of the internet’s peasantry.
Having emerged from the intersectional hothouses of academia, many progressives today view policy disputes through a therapeutic lens: They see themselves—and the marginalized groups they claim to speak for—as victims of trauma. The solution to that trauma is not rigorous debate. Quite the opposite; they need protection. Exposure to dangerous speech could threaten their mental stability. So progressives now treat opposing ideas not as errors that need to be rebutted with facts, but as dangerous contagions that must be quarantined.
Bro, there has been actual trauma inflicted by social media users. It happens on every social media platform, but Bluesky’s robust moderation tools (many of which are controlled by users themselves) — including a Block button that actually works — do offer protection to people who’d rather have a pleasant online experience, rather than one routinely interrupted by harassment from ugly trolls and outright bigots who seem to feel the “marketplace of ideas” obligates the harassed to indefinitely endure harassment.
At least Meigs says there’s some “dangerous speech” out there. That he won’t equate it to the “conservative views” he name-checked earlier is disingenuous. The entry fee for social media interaction should never be subjecting yourself to bigotry and hatred. If the bigots want a playground, they’ve got several to choose from. This just sounds like the whining of bullies who are finding fewer and fewer people to push around.
After a diversion into a bunch of stuff that’s so barely worth discussing even Meigs can’t be bothered to do it any length (and that’s in an op-ed that runs more than 2,400 words) — de-platforming, Biden Adminstration allegedly demanding accounts be blocked or removed, COVID origin conspiracy theories, the banning of Trump from Twitter after the January 6th insurrection) — he goes right back into pretending xTwitter is the only place real social media interaction still takes place. And, of course, he uses phrasing that glosses over the irredeemable shithole xTwitter has become under Musk’s ownership:
When Bluesky gave them an escape hatch from the increasingly freewheeling—and sometimes raucous—debates on X, many jumped through it without looking back.
Oh yeah. “Freewheeling.” “Raucous.” Those are some mighty fine words. But they don’t fool anyone who isn’t already deep in the throes of self-delusion. There’s no “debate” on xTwitter. What’s being referred to as freewheeling, raucous debate is just a steady stream of open racism, transphobia, sexual harassment, death/rape threats, and a bunch of dudes with philosopher bust avatars declaring that everyone calling them bigots are just low-IQ liberal NPCs. And that’s if you can even get past the massive ad load, Bitcoin hucksters, and emoji-laden responses that clutter every single thread on the platform.
There’s more of this throughout the rest of it. The guy speaking on behalf of his fellow “conservatives” continues to proclaim Bluesky is the platform of intolerance and fragility — again, using phrases that refuse to acknowledge the genuine ugliness that is the day-to-day business of xTwitter.
I don’t love X’s somewhat uglier vibe, but I accept the trade-off. I’m willing to tolerate a few angry or idiotic posts in exchange for knowing that right-wing views aren’t being deliberately buried.
[…]
I suspect that the progressives who feel threatened by right-wing “hate” have simply never experienced a cultural environment where conservatives speak as loudly as liberals.
“Right-wing views.” Hate in scare-quotes. “Somewhat uglier vibe.” But who’s really threatened here? It seems to be the “right-wing view” people who are running into a wall of resistance that’s no longer going to engage in the mutual lie of “freewheeling debate.” These are the same people whose “conservative views” make them angry about preferred pronouns, sexual identity, diversity, inclusion, women having personal agency, and any flag that doesn’t have a thin blue line, MAGA logo, or swastika on it.
Once again, Meigs goes back to his core complaint: Bluesky users don’t want our “conservative views” bullshit wrecking up their mostly-pleasant Bluesky experience. And, in doing so, Meigs accidentally advertises what makes Bluesky better than its competitors.
I quickly learned that the site’s core innovation is not finding ways to facilitate thoughtful conversations. Instead, Bluesky’s secret sauce is the powerful tools it gives users to shut down voices they disagree with. Block lists—featuring the names of people you will not permit to see your posts—are public and widely shared and discussed. “People make nasty lists and lists and lists there,” a Bluesky user in Germany explained to me. Many Bluesky regulars import other users’ lists wholesale, allowing them to block hundreds of people they’ve never even heard of.
That’s the real problem Meigs has with Bluesky: it won’t give him a platform to harangue people whose ideas he disagrees with. That’s always been the case, even back when “conservatives” were complaining about being muted, blocked, or banned from (original) Twitter and Facebook. They all carry the same sense of entitlement: a firm belief that if they’ve been given a platform to speak, everyone else should be forced to listen.
And this follow-up makes it clear Meigs is willfully ignoring what has already happened on xTwitter to pretend this is a uniquely Bluesky problem:
In real-world social circles, being a total flaming, um, jerk brings social costs. But in a hermetically sealed social-media bubble, it’s a way to build your status. Bluesky adds another perverse incentive: Anyone adding nuance or pushing back against violent statements risks being ridiculed and even mass-blocked by the online community. This combination of positive and negative rewards creates a one-way ratchet, always pushing users toward extremism.
Exactly. But you only like the bubble that includes you, rather than the one that doesn’t. That’s a pretty universal human trait — resentment towards any group that excludes you. Unfortunately, it’s also a pretty human trait to spend 2,400+ words trying to turn your personal bad experience with Bluesky (if this ever even happened — there doesn’t appear to be an account linked to Meigs on the service at the moment) into a universal experience that reflects a vast majority of internet users.
What’s never even considered in this column is that people are embracing Bluesky for all the reasons you’ve chosen to treat as negatives. Everyone can curate their own experience — something that’s definitely not possible anywhere else. Both Facebook and xTwitter allow pay-to-play amplification for posts, as well as sloppy, profit-first algorithms that shove whatever these sites think will increase “engagement,” rather than assist in curation by being more attentive to what users actually want to see on their timelines. What’s absolutely insane about Meigs’ assertions above is that he’s ignoring his own complaints about xTwitter so he can pretend the real problem here is Bluesky:
If you can’t see the embed, it’s a screenshot of Meigs on xTwitter in 2019 saying:
Twitter’s goal with every change is to have us spend less time doing what WE want to (interact with the people we actually follow) and spend more time doing what Twitter wants them to do (get sucked into “trends” and #StupidHastags and viral outrage mobs).
Here’s a platform that doesn’t pull that bullshit. And Meigs shits on it because “conservative views” (you know the ones…) aren’t gaining a foothold at Bluesky.
I’m a Bluesky user. I don’t mind honest debates. But I’d much rather have a timeline I can closely control — one that gives me access to what I’m looking for and allows me to remove any detritus I come across with a couple of swift clicks — than whatever’s passing itself as “social media” elsewhere.
What’s on display here is the amazing fragility of people who can dish out tons of abuse but just can’t take it. It’s also exposing the people who are facing the uncomfortable fact that lots of internet users don’t like what they post or the people they identify with. Worse, they’re finding out they don’t like they people they identify with much either. Echo chambers aren’t great, but I’m sure people would prefer an echo chamber where most people are polite, helpful, and supportive, rather than the alternative xTwitter provides: a dark pit filled with the worst people you know. Meigs, for some reason, prefers the pit. At least there, he can soak in some tepid applause for owning the liberal snowflakes currently enjoying a site he doesn’t feel obliged to listen to him speak.
Filed Under: conservative tears, content moderation, elon musk, james meigs, nazi bar
Companies: bluesky, twitter
