Bluesky Is Booming in Japan | Hacker News Reader

Bluesky Is Booming in Japan

japantimes.co.jp

30 pointsbelter43 comments

The article nails Twitter's problem: spambots and promoted tweets. Checking Twitter now feels like checking my spam folder. Bluesky at the moment feels like a group chat with old friends.

It will get worse as it grows—that's how these things seem to go. However, two things give me a bit of hope: first it's been a chance for a complete reset and I'm ruthless curating who I follow. Secondly, and most importantly, hackability and API access makes it easier to filter out the stuff I don't want to see. You don't even have to built it yourself! There are already AI tools that will hide screenshots from Twitter / Insta / etc for example.

The Twitter nazi problem is also real. Nobody wants to hang out at a pub where a bunch of nazis are doing their nazi thing. Ditto chatrooms, social media etc.

I think the “Don’t engage, just block” culture helps a lot. I don’t have much of a block list since the larger accounts I follow have been ruthless in with their block lists. There is a spam-bot “herd-immunity” developing in certain communities on Bluesky.

yeah, this has been big, also the custom labellers for moderation. Sub'n to a couple does wonders.

Silly fools - once they need money it’ll turn to poo just like all other social media.

I mean, if it just gets as bad as pre-Musk Twitter (which was basically financially stable, albeit certainly not printing money), then I think a lot of people would be okay with that. People were tolerant of a lot of shit from Twitter; there's a reason it was affectionately known as the hellsite.

There was an intermediate state on Twitter -- where the default experience was poo but one could make Twitter palatable by using third party clients and other tools.

The promise of Bluesky is that this intermediate state won't be yanked. There are some steps they've taken to fulfill this promise, but it's not fully realized.

This is great news to me. I've made the switch to Bluesky, but don't want to close my account on X yet because I follow a bunch of Japanese game devs, for whom US politics is not a reason to leave. Hope to see them on bsky.

Bluesky stats:

https://bsky.jazco.dev/stats

https://bcounter.nat.vg/

These are great. I'm working on something related, a hashtag tracker for Bluesky [1]. Japanese posts are often among the top hashtags.

[1] https://www.butterflystats.com/

I'm still waiting for the dust to settle before I open my starter packs.

I don't really need to be caught up in the hype. Even though marketing myself more would be nice. This rat race is exhausting sometimes.

Filter this page [1] for newly created profiles and see how it grows in realtime.

https://firesky.tv/

What the hell am I looking at here!? This surely can't be ALL the messages right!? That would be amazing.

Someone want to do the math on bitrates?

Seems reasonable to me. If only 10% of the user base posts just twice a day, we are talking about 4.2 million posts in a single day or about 48 posts/second.

French posts have also skyrocketed.

Indeed! In particular in higher-education and research many people moved over to Bluesky in the past two weeks. In fact, the biggest "starter pack" on the platform is the French “#HelloESR” pack (ESR means "enseignement supérieure et recherche", literally "higher-education and research").

I can't find the stats per language anymore...

Not really a Japan exclusive thing, it's had massive growth recently.

Did people stop having meltdown about politics?

When I installed few days ago every post was about politics it was suffocating.

I see virtually no politics. Maybe don't follow accounts which post about politics?

I didn't follow anybody.

It was all I saw after creating account (which was just after US election results). Maybe i should give it another try.

You see posts even without following anyone smh

Considering the world is on an insane trajectory, it's probably good politics is being discussed. If you can't handle reality, try blocking based on keywords to insulate yourself from it.

Discussing politics in an echo chamber - which is what BS has rather quickly devolved into - does not help in resolving the 'insane trajectory' the world is supposed to be on. To resolve that it should not just be discussed but also acted upon in the real world where everyone gets to have a say instead of just those who happen to follow the desired narrative. Such discussions tend to be contentious and often not at all 'nice' but that's what you get when discussing important issues in an open forum. In that respect X does a lot better than heavily polarised venues like BS ('left') or Gab ('right').

Of course X will only be better in this respect as long as there are some 'progressives' who refrain from following the herd to the next echo chamber. If all of them leave X will become another Gab.

Your compressed Overton window isn't doing you any favors. If all you see is "left" on bluesky, then you're operating on the terms that liberals and conservatives use, usually unconsciously, to further the interests of capital at their own expense.

If you look closer, you'll see that liberal != leftist, and both exist on BS, and not exclusively in echo chambers.

There's currently a shift or awakening happening where some liberals are actually self reflecting for a change, because they realize they're standing on false ground.

Also, you can see on the bluesky subreddit that many users are aware that they shouldn't be blindly trusting the curated user blocklists, if for no other reason that they're being curated dishonestly (surprise, surprise).

Old Twitter was always a steaming pile, and Musk didn't change that with X. Bluesky is actually innovative and refreshing. Time will tell how that holds up.

To me "liberal" has nothing to do with "left" since I'm not American and as such use the term in its original meaning. As to the width of the window of allow discourse I'll just say that as far as I'm concerned it is only limited to the law of the land no matter which terms - left/right/liberal/conservative/progressive/whatever - you want to use.

That wide window is not what I see on BS nor on Mastodon but it is starting to become visible on X. Such wide windows let in a lot of noise but that is part of deal.

> To me "liberal" has nothing to do with "left"

Then we do agree on something. Your previous message vaguely lumping all of the "left" together suggested otherwise.

Mastodon has always been mostly liberals in an echo chamber who fled from Twitter. Lemmy to a lesser extent via reddit's api fiasco, but that's a good example of the liberals and leftists siloing themselves on the same platform through ideological instances, resulting in echo chambers. The tech issues of those two still isn't ironed out, either.

Between needing an account to merely view posts and Musk's willingness for knee-jerk censorship, X is simply a non-starter in 2024.

Needing an account to view replies to posts is one of the (many) reasons why I only use X through a proxy. I've been running and using nitter for years, even when you could peruse twitter without needing an account and do not see any reason to stop doing so. That said X is the only platform where you'll regularly come across opinions different from your own no matter where you personally stand. On Mastodon (and on Pleroma instances which I have experimented with myself), on BS and on Lemmy (which I also experimented with) you'll either be welcomed as a comrade or shunned as a foe with not much in between. While BS theoretically could be a place where the whole GAL-TAN spectrum is represented it currently seems to harbour mostly those on the left two quadrants - left-liberal and left-authoritarian. Even if and when the other two quadrants become populated the blocklist feature will probably keep the separation in place for many if not most of the ideologues. It will be up to those around the centre to go light on the blocklists so they can interact with those on the other side of the X and Y axes.

The meat and potatoes is: does a person agree or disagree that capitalism is on a globally unsustainable path with no real vision for the future. Some people are willing to engage in this discussion, while others are not.

Suggesting elitist centrism as a solution is a joke.

Edit for clarification:

> In that respect X does a lot better than heavily polarised venues like BS ('left') or Gab ('right').

That's the context of our conversation's beginning. From that, you made it sound like it was a traditional "US"/modern EU style narrow window neoliberal debate between "liberals" and "conservatives". What I'm saying is this is narrow because both of those groups take capitalism as some fundamental law of nature that is to never be questioned, and if it is questioned, labeled as "tankie" and put in containment. The issue of to-capitalism or not-to-capitalism is a far broader one than what these normie platforms typically concern themselves with. Scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds. We could preempt the bickering about Cheetos and rotating villains if real solutions were offered from the start.

Bluesky actually has instances of questioning this fundamental assumption.

Now you're falling in the same trap you earlier accused me of having been caught in: I am not talking about capitalism or 'elitist centrism' here and consider this focus on capitalism vs. some form of socialism to be a rather narrow view of the way the world can be organised. I am talking about how on a platform like BS which currently mostly hosts those on the 'left' side of the 'spectrum' (line, square, cube, hypercube - take your pick of the number of dimensions you want to measure a person's political affiliation in) but which may in some potential future in which it survives the current phase (which to me is doubtful but leave that aside) and starts attracting people on the 'other' side of the 'spectrum' can foster communications across ideological lines given that the platform offers a feature - curated blocklists - which enables users to be shielded from those who go against some desired narrative. It will be those clustered around the centre who are most likely to engage in real debate with people on the 'other' side while those further away from the centre are far more likely to only venture across the line to verbally shoot down their opponents in some way - by calling them names, by trolling them, etc.

Never seen any politics on there personally. It seems to respect your interests a bit better. Grab a few starterlists for subjects you're interested in and that should narrow it down and make it more tailored.

The amount of BS astroturf - or should that be bluescreen [1] given the subject at hand? - is remarkable which makes me wonder whether these posts are created by a small but dedicated number of users. Having a quick look at the submission history for belter, a prolific high-karma poster indicates this might be the case given that it shows 7 posts in the last 4 days which either directly plug BS (3 posts) or are negative towards something related to Musk or X (4 posts).

7 posts in 4 days sounds like a person on a mission. What about others though? It would be a coincidence if belter happened to be the leader of the pack when it comes to BS bluescreening. So, what does it look like for the last 7, 31, 365 and (why not) 3650 days? Well, like this when searching for posts with 'bluesky' in the title [2]:

In the last 7 days belter was actually the most prolific bluescreener. In the last 31 days (i.e. including the whole post-election period) the following users submitted two or more posts with 'bluesky' in the title:

      2 "coloneltcb"
      2 "davidbarker"
      2 "hasheddan"
      2 "hboon"
      2 "Karrot_Kream"
      2 "Kye"
      2 "ulrischa"
      3 "belter"
      3 "colinprince"
      3 "consumer451"
      4 "cannibalXxx"
      4 "speckx"
     11 "mooreds"

Run the command yourself [2] for the other results, they are less interesting. The results show most 'bluesky' posts come from individual users so in that respect this disproves the thesis that the whole BS push is the result of a few users trying to create groundswell around BS while showing there are a number of users, belter being one of those who are pushing the subject with above-average fervour.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chroma_key

[2] Run this command:

    now=$(date +%s);query="bluesky";for n in 7 31 365 3650;do echo -e "\nLAST $n days\n"; curl -s -d '{"query":"'$query'","page":0,"hitsPerPage":1000,"minProximity":7,"numericFilters":["created_at_i>'$((now - (n*24*60*60)))'"],"restrictSearchableAttributes":["title","url"]}' 'https://uj5wyc0l7x-dsn.algolia.net/1/indexes/Item_dev_sort_date/query?x-algolia-agent=Algolia%20for%20JavaScript%20(4.13.1)%3B%20Browser%20(lite)&x-algolia-api-key=28f0e1ec37a5e792e6845e67da5f20dd&x-algolia-application-id=UJ5WYC0L7X'|jq '.["hits"].[].author'|sort|uniq -c|sort -n;done|less

People post frequently on topics they like. There are plenty of folks on HN that are heavily engaged in just a few topics, from specific programming languages to certain political ideas.

Running a variation on the command [1] above shows that belter is not so much focused on BS, rather he has a bone to pick with Musk which most likely explains his interest in X-alternative BS:

    Top authors for posts mentioning 'musk':

    LAST 7 days

      2 "breadwinner"
      2 "cannibalXxx"
      2 "highcenburg"
      2 "mpweiher"
      2 "peutetre"
      2 "RobinHirst11"
      2 "thunderbong"
      3 "rntn"
      4 "belter"
      4 "JumpCrisscross"

    LAST 31 days

      4 "ivewonyoung"
      4 "marban"
      4 "paulpauper"
      4 "rbanffy"
      5 "mitchbob"
      6 "peutetre"
      7 "rntn"
      8 "2OEH8eoCRo0"
      8 "JumpCrisscross"
     15 "belter"

    LAST 365 days

     12 "howard941"
     12 "isaacfrond"
     12 "jrflowers"
     15 "bookofjoe"
     15 "rbanffy"
     17 "doener"
     19 "peutetre"
     27 "rntn"
     29 "JumpCrisscross"
     30 "belter"

    LAST 3650 days

     12 "howard941"
     12 "isaacfrond"
     12 "jrflowers"
     15 "bookofjoe"
     15 "rbanffy"
     17 "doener"
     19 "peutetre"
     27 "rntn"
     29 "JumpCrisscross"
     30 "belter"


 [1] Run this command:
    query="musk"; now=$(date +%s); echo -e "Top authors for posts mentioning '${query}':\n";for n in 7 31 365 3650;do echo -e "\nLAST $n days\n"; (curl -s -d '{"query":"'$query'","page":0,"hitsPerPage":1000,"minProximity":7,"numericFilters":["created_at_i>'$((now - (n*24*60*60)))'"],"restrictSearchableAttributes":["title","url"]}' 'https://uj5wyc0l7x-dsn.algolia.net/1/indexes/Item_dev_sort_date/query?x-algolia-agent=Algolia%20for%20JavaScript%20(4.13.1)%3B%20Browser%20(lite)&x-algolia-api-key=28f0e1ec37a5e792e6845e67da5f20dd&x-algolia-application-id=UJ5WYC0L7X'|jq '.["hits"].[].author'|sort|uniq -c|sort -n|tail -10) ;done

Bluesky is just another haven for degenerate behavior with authoritarian leaders. It will be gone within a year or two.

Japan is 1 of 2 countries whose political polarization is worse than the usa.

The democrats fleeing to bluesky after the unexpected to them win of Trump, the greatest threat to democracy...

Identical for Japan's exodus. LDP did still win in october.

One of the shocking things CNN recently said. X is properly balanced politically. This is what's needed to cure the polarization.

> One of the shocking things CNN recently said. X is properly balanced politically. This is what's needed to cure the polarization.

Care to elaborate? I really don't see the logical steps for this to happen, those bubbles don't intermingle on platforms since they pigeon hole themselves, the only overlap is through slinging shit onto the other side.

Would really appreciate some elaboration on how exactly this statement could have any logic.

I didn’t see that CNN article, however I do see my feed on twitter. It’s a depressing flood of MAGA assholes that made it painful to see anything interesting. I’m sick of all the rage bait that’s pushed because it juices engagement numbers.

It’s been a joy to follow conversations on Bluesky and not have to worry about some chud interrupting with “cry more libtard” or some anti-trans bullshit.

Absolutely false. Both side still love X.

I am entirely fed up with articles about Bluesky growth / Twitter demise that include only the proportions and not the absolute values

So Bluesky users quintupled... is that from 5 to 25 or what?

From the article

> Active daily user numbers in Japan of Facebook-owner Meta's Threads have picked up from about 500,000 to 1.5 million, while for Bluesky it has gone from about 50,000 to about 500,000.

Thanks. I don't have a subscription. I was mostly venting about the first two paras that I can see and the many other articles using SimilarWeb data which don't include this info.

It's interesting that the numbers give do not show a 5x quintupling, but actually 10x growth

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