An email and [a new blogpost](https://bsky.social/about/blog/08-28-2024-anti-toxicity-features ) from Bluesky announce their new anti-toxicity, anti-dunking (i.e. unwelcome quote-tweets) feature… and it’s not that it’s bad so much as it enables people (both “good”, and “bad”, whatever your personal taste) to *curate their own echo-chambers* to an extent that will certainly fragment communities into curated in-groups and out-groups.
Both of these will doubtless feel *safer* for not having to publicly *defend* their positions … but on the other hand will also *learn less about defending* their positions, instead expecting the platforms (and, eventually, the state?) to deliver tools of microcuration.###
You can’t say that about me! I’ll unlink it!Again, these are not “blocklists” nor “killfiles” in the USENET sense, these are “Bob eliding what Alice quoted him as saying in her post about his being an abuser and racist, so that Charlotte won’t see it.”
If you’re reading this and looking for a political explanation for {my, the author’s} position being apparently “against” Bluesky, don’t bother because I am actually on Bluesky and I believe it’s doing some interesting work; instead consider: what will happen is that all the critics, trolls and assholes will move to “shadow trolling” with immutable screenshots. There will be parallel universes with mutually hostile communities, seeing but not touching each other. There will be a communications breakdown.
Bluesky are relying on transparency and community labels to address the rough edges:
> As of the latest app version, released today (version 1.90), users can view all the quote posts on a given post. Paired with that, you can detach your original post from someone’s quote post. This helps you maintain control over a thread you started, ideally limiting dog-piling and other forms of harassment. On the other hand, quote posts are often used to correct misinformation too. To address this, we’re leaning into labeling services and hoping to integrate a Community Notes-like feature in the future. Note: Like blocks, quote post removals are public data. The Bluesky app won’t list all the quote post removals directly on your post, but developers with knowledge of the Bluesky API will be able to access this data.
…yet I cannot but think *they’re making their own lives harder in pursuit of giving people more control*.
Who here remembers [Google Circles and why they failed](https://google.fandom.com/wiki/Google%2B_Circles )?
https://alecmuffett.com/article/110355
#bluesky #censorship #trustAndSafety
