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Comment by mountainriver | Hacker News Reader

I joined recently and haven’t seen any of that. In fact it just feels like old Twitter where people are having fun instead of being pompous trolls

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I just logged in again, I have 0 following and 0 followers and this is what I see [0], straight up political content, even on the Following tab, for some reason. I simply don't care to see political content right when I log in, and this phenomenon shows me that it has the exact same problems as Twitter, people posting ragebait to get engagement, just on the opposite of the spectrum.

[0] https://imgur.com/a/XHmidRt

And why do you think that is?

Probably because that's what people engage with the most and is thus shown to users who just start off on the platform, as I mentioned. Note that while Bluesky is open source, its feed algorithm actually is not open source, so it can be just as bad as Twitter.

If you don’t follow enough people or feeds to fill your Following feed it can add some of the most popular posts of the moment, just to make sure there’s something there, which right now will be about a major political event that just happened. I’m not sure what else you would expect?

If you don’t like how the algorithm works you can write your own (that’s what feeds are - custom algorithms).

If these are the most popular posts on the platform it is a clear indication of BS having the same lopsided political bias as Twitter had before it became X and with that it is just a refuge for those who prefer a platform with a similarly narrow window of allowed discourse also known as an echo chamber. If that is what you like BS may be appealing but for those who like to voice dissent - even if only to rile up the regulars - it is probably less than welcoming.

I don't like the format used by X, BS, Mastodon and all the others so I do not use any of them but I do passively partake of what is posted on them. In practice this comes down to probably 95% X, 5% Mastodon/Pleroma and that's it. I have yet to find a BS post of interest and won't use Threads because I don't do Metafacebookthings.

Obviously it’s left-leaning. X is pushing to the right. People are voting with their feet as a natural result: “like Twitter but not an alt-right foghorn” is a good enough selling point. It probably won’t stay that way as it gains traction.

However, it’s not just that. If you want to see more tailored content you have to follow people. Expecting to see anything other than the most currently-popular posts when you’re not following anyone and haven’t set any preferences is frankly ridiculous.

One thing I will say though is that although BSky has good science and arts communities the tech community seems to be sticking with Mastodon.

Because that is representative of the largely unpleasant user base.

unfortunately you have to train the algorithm to your liking by blocking everything (IIRC there's also a dislike button somewhere?)

not unlike reddit where the first thing you should do is unsubscribe from every single default subreddit (if you visit the home page at all, anyway) - this has been true for as long as I've been there (a decade, and I haven't really visited for the past couple years)

I don't have an account and all I see on the front page is posts about how bluesky is better than Twitter and how trump is Satan. There was one digital art piece of the moon over a lake.

Mine is like the old Twitter and is rife with political meltdowns and “own the libs” memes.

I also basically only follow indie hackers and some “thought leader” types like Naval Ravikant.

Every time I launch the X app on mobile, it automatically switches me to the algorithmic “For You” feed, so it’s hard to miss. This is apparently not configurable in the app.

When I’m on desktop, the Control Panel for Twitter does a good job of getting rid of most of that.

I tolerate X, I wouldn’t say I like it but I like reading and connecting with certain people and their only platform is X.

I think that’s what keeps X going: network effect.

You should be able to stay on Following, they made that change a while back. I.e., once you choose Following, you will keep going there till you change it.

That's not how it works on my iPhone or iPad, unfortunately -- and I just replaced and clean installed my iPad this week. It even happens when I quickly switch from and back to the X app.

Maybe my user account isn't in that feature pool yet?

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