Leaving Bluesky.
It isn't as good as I had hoped.
I deactivated my Bluesky account yesterday. I didn’t delete it, just in case it ever gets better and then I can just reactivate my account, but somehow I doubt that will ever happen.
Before Enron Muskrat completely ruined Twitter in 2022, that was my main social network. It was a great place. I had been on it for years. I had floated the idea for my debut novel, Us Against Them, on Twitter in 2016. Then, Muskrat bought Twitter in 2022 and Twitter as we knew it was over. In fact, I had actually left Twitter a few months before he became the owner. I knew nothing good was going to happen, so I deleted my account and never looked back.
When Bluesky was first announced, it seemed like it would be a lot like the old Twitter. It even looked like the old Twitter. I was truly excited for a return to the old Twitter. But, as time has gone on, Bluesky has completely fallen flat for me. The first thing I noticed is that it is quite the echo chamber. I’m willing to listen to other points of view, but on Bluesky, that seems not to be allowed. You better subscribe to whatever views the “majority” on Bluesky demands that others hold. Yikes. That’s not going to work for me.
Then, there’s the problem of engagement. The majority of the people who followed me on Bluesky were bots. I know that’s a problem on all social media, but it seems very bad on Bluesky, a place that should’ve had less bots. It’s impossible to have a conversation with bots. It was like a ghost town.
I think Threads might be the closest thing we have to the old Twitter. However, Threads has its problems, too. An influx of MAGATS seems to happen every couple of months. There’s a quite a bit of censorship on Threads, too, being it’s owned by Meta and Meta is known for censorship.
I don’t know if we’ll ever find anything like the old Twitter. Bluesky failed miserably at it. Threads isn’t there yet. Will there ever be anything?