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Comment by yupyupyups | Hacker News Reader

I registered a Bluesky account not too long ago and noticed shortly after a regular appearance of gay and furry nsfw content. The NSFW setting was turned off, so these accounts are for whatever reason neglecting to tag their content properly.

Telling Bluesky that I'm not interested in "this type of content" didn't help remove the problem. Blocking/Reporting the accounts is futile, as they are so numerous. Moderation lists for LGBT/furry content seem to be nonexistent or unlisted from public modlist sites (maybe they are considered to be "homophobic"?)

Anyway, Bluesky does't seem to be safe-for-work, so it's hardly a proper replacement for Twitter. If this is fixed, then that would be good.

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Agreed that better filtering would help greatly in making Bluesky more work-safe. (By contrast, ActivityPub’s communities do a decent job self-filtering, but that community is also more self-selecting at present.)

That said: furries are the internet’s coal mine canary. They’re one of the more visually prominent marginalized internet communities, and one of the first to get deplatformed when capital steps in. If you’re on a platform where furries are thriving, you’re probably in a safe space. Cf. the history of Tumblr, Twitter, Blogger, etc.

How does that work? Would they lose access to the platform? Has that happened actually?

Generally, yes. If NSFW content is removed, it's incredibly common to see furry and LGBTQ content rolled into that. Furry themed account will be treated as a "repeat offender" even though they weren't really offenders to begin with.

Since I started reporting them ad "Unwanted sexual content" I am seeing significantly less half naked persons desperately begging for sttention. But there's still the issue of all the comic and manga crap labeled as art. Bluesky needs to correctly identify and relabel those as comics and manga.

Would be nice if others would report them too, because there are kids on BlueSky and they don't need to see their uncles/aunts or neighbors sticking their butt into a camera.

> there's still the issue of all the comic and manga crap labeled as art

I'm not into comics or manga, but surely they're art?

And I mean this quite aside from the annoyance of seeing them when you don't want to. I'm not saying you should have to see them. It just doesn't seem right to imply that you shouldn't have to see them because they're not art.

The problem with Art is Art is whatever the Artist says it is. There is no concrete definition of Art, it is wholy subjective to the perspectives of the creator and the appreciator. Comics & Manga certainly fall under the umbrella of art in a strict sense, they are first and foremost Comics & Manga.

Colloquially when people say Art they mean what they see in a museum, not what they can buy in the corner store. When I subscribe to a generic Art category I want to see artists showing techniques, cool paintings, breakdowns of how marble was carved, and most certainly not catgirl uwu. I might be interested in a post about how comics are made (high effort, interesting content), but I am not interested in a picture from issue #346 (low effort fandom attraction).

> When I subscribe to a generic Art category I want to see artists showing techniques, cool paintings, breakdowns of how marble was carved

I think the root issue is that a generic category is inherently not opinionated.

At a place like bluesky where it's user generated content, if you follow art you're going to see a lot of the content artists want to make. For whatever reason, that's often apparently a lot of comic and manga artwork.

If there's a "fine art" category, that would probably be more in line with what you're looking for.

But not many artists these days work in marble or do museum-style paintings because there's not much of a market for it and they have to eat. So working artists are not likely to generate that sort of content in large numbers.

Labeling content as SFW/NSFW is the first step towards censorship. Seeing a butt never hurt anyone, and we shouldn't try to sanitize the Internet just to make it safe for children.

Yes, same experience. I only read posts from people I follow, which solves this problem.

But of course this is a slow way to grow my network. But I like the slow linearity of the timeline this way.

This is how things would (and ought to) work without a social media algorithm pushing engagement. It's a better way.

It's a shame you have to push through people making some sexual fetish the centerpiece of their online identity. That speaks volumes for the lack of maturity for the people behaving this way.

Granted the scientists heading over to BlueSky are predominantly doing so for ideological reasons, not for "effectiveness." Sean Carroll, for example, both an excellent scientist and perhaps the best science communicator out there, has declared for BlueSky, but it's largely because of his political views. Sean is a committed Democrat and his ideological in-group has declared for BlueSky.

Not content to waste an opportunity, that in-group is spinning this sort of thing as "Science (TM)" is moving to BlueSky. But it's really just moving to a comfortable echo chamber.

> Bluesky does't seem to be safe-for-work, so it's hardly a proper replacement for Twitter.

Is twitter SFW? I constantly hear about "mechahitler" and all sorts of terrible bigotry, language, and dog whistles. I may be ignorant because I refuse to even go on there.

it comes down to who you follow, posts you comment on, and the type of posts you like. those who say it's filled with (insert some category) indicates that their past activities likely involved those entities or topics in some form.

my feed is made up of rust stuff, databases, system designs, tech meetups, a few founders, OSS stuff, and some companies. even the other day, i came across a post from a dev at planetscale, ben dickens, who said he's going to livestream at a scheduled time to talk about some of the database concepts he recently read in the book DDIA. i watched it, and it was fantastic.

bottom line, i would say what everyone has to say about X, based on their personal experience, are all completely correct, because it becomes (or can become) the environment you want it to be.

> Is twitter SFW?

I'd rate twitter about as safe-for-work as 4chan.

Talking about the mechahitler bug is water cooler appropriate. Even funny. Talking about the sexcapades and fetishes you have at home is not.

Ah, the puritan incel mindset that's taking over the USA.

Huh? You talk about your fetishes/turn-ons and sexual experiences with your co-workers, or are you mocking something I'm not online enough to understand?

>Huh? You talk about your fetishes/turn-ons and sexual experiences with your co-workers, or are you mocking something I'm not online enough to understand?

"Lotta straight guys like watching their buddies fuck. I know I do."[0][1]

More seriously, on at least one occasion, a co-worker was showing a group of co-workers photos of their vacation at a swingers retreat. Let's just say nothing was left to the imagination. I'd add that this was an employee at the corporate headquarters of a Fortune 50 company.

[0] https://www.moviequotedb.com/movies/repo-man/quote_37738.htm...

[1] https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/50d10668-35f3-40bd-8fd1-c8c1aa6...

Edit: Added detail about NSFW content at work.

You choose who to follow on twitter. It's also your choice to use the AI feed vs just who you follow.

Mechahitler thing was a brief controversy that was turned off a while ago and the people I follow aren't getting spammed dumb questions to grok (although I find grok to be very good these days).

The attention seeking right wing accounts are annoyingly prevalent but it's entirely possibly to not see their content. Just like on old twitter which was full of radical politics. Curate your follow list.

Even so being a nazi or having a feed of a bunch of hitlers or whatever is 1st amendment protected political activity that won't expose your employer to a successful hostile workplace lawsuit.

Having a sexually provocative furry show up is not protected by the first amendment, since it appeals to prurient interest, someone passing by could argue they feel sexually harassed or find it hostile and have a much better chance at causing problems for your employer.

Maybe I've worked for some weird employers but if I was caught on twitter posting Nazi salutes I would expect raised eye-brows, but for the stated reasons, if I was caught with a furry picture on display where someone else could see it I'd expect to be immediately terminated.

> I was caught on twitter posting Nazi salutes I would expect raised eye-brows, but for the stated reasons, if I was caught with a furry picture on display where someone else could see it I'd expect to be immediately terminated.

Let me get this straight: you would get fired immediately for a picture that depicts a sub-culture of people that is often sexually deviant (but would include no nudity or anything in said picture), but it would be perfectly acceptable to promote a hate/terrorism group whose main purpose is to exterminate large parts of the Earth's population?

There's pretty much zero chance of a hostile workplace lawsuit succeeding for Nazi activity, political activity is the absolute strongest 1st amendment protected activity.

It is much easier to win a lawsuit on something appealing to prurient interest since the supreme court says it is not protected.

Most people don't actually care if the people involved in making their products are murderous psychopaths, as long as you aren't putting Nazi symbols in their product or something. That's why what are essentially CCP owned chinese manufacturers run by a party that tank-rolls over people wanting basic civil rights is seen as no-fucking-problem, no one gives a shit and their sales are not meaningfully impacted.

The only reason American employers care is if they're going to get sued, unless they are selling to rich people in San Francisco or something who can afford to pay more to buy something for moral reasons.

The US government is concerned about terrorism, as they have very much been in the past. The current political climate, however, specifies forms of terrorism which are seemingly acceptable, so I suppose in this case you are sadly correct. It still doesn't fail to boggle the shit out of my mind.

So the celebration of the murder of me and all people like me is not "hostile". Right.

"Hostile" can only be enforced by the government within the bounds afforded by the constitution. The constitution as interpreted protects the right to publicly and loudly wish or celebrate death of minorities. The constitution as interpreted does not protect the right to display sexually explicit pictures to your coworkers of someone in a furry get-up.

I do not have an account on twitter but I’m sure you hear more about “mechahitler” on here than on twitter

It was on the front page of most of the worlds news.

If it's not discussed on twitter, there's a good chance that topic is suppressed.

I don't know what you mean by "not discussed on twitter." That's where it happened. There were follow up posts, including explanations of who and what goaded that particular output stream for Grok. There was also an incessant stream of memes by people making fun of Grok, Elon, and X (all of it allowed).

The fact that LLMs become what is projected on them, in this case from outrage over a leftist saying how glad she was that white children died in a flood, was twisted to fit a narrative by the media. It was not suppressed. That woman did get her account nuked, but that was because of her own violations of the ToS.

Maybe you should re-read again what I was responding to

They said:

> I do not have an account on twitter but I’m sure

I noticed the same, which was off-putting, but not as much as how dull it is, and how badly the "nuclear block" feature ruins conversations.

Can't really see a future for Bluesky outside of the niche communities that are already established there.

> Anyway, Bluesky does't seem to be safe-for-work, so it's hardly a proper replacement for Twitter. If this is fixed, then that would be good.

I'm not a Bluesky user. Twitter has exactly the same problem. I've got the NSFW setting turned off. And I've reported a lot of accounts posting unflagged NSFW content, mostly videos. And every time I get this slop reply email from them after a few minutes:

Thanks for reporting <account_name> and for using your voice to make X better for everyone. After review, we want to let you know <account_name> hasn't broken our sensitive media rule.

We allow sensitive content — like consensually produced adult content, graphic imagery and violence — in posts as long as it doesn't break our sensitive media policy.

I suspect they let these accounts slide because they value the user (or bot) engagement these accounts generate over safety/moderation.

On other platforms I tend to not use algorithmic feeds that much, and so I don't encounter that problem. That's because I already know some good accounts.

But on Bluesky, I'm new, and I want to get a feel for what's out there, so the Discover feature has been interesting for that purpose. But using it will quickly lead to the types of content that I mentioned, and I don't think users should have to tolerate this until they find interesting accounts to follow and move on to more controlled feeds.

With that said, from the limited experience I've had with Twitter/X's algorithmic feeds, they haven't been that explicit. But that's my anecdote.

That’s what I’ve heard from basically everyone I know personally. They get the app sign up and just a flood of furry content. Bluesky really needs to figure out a better default curated feed if they’re gonna just recommend content like that.

It’s fixed. There were a few weeks in which I noticed this as well. No longer.

I still get NSFW catgirls in my "Cats" feed. It's better, but not perfect.

Cats are inherently NSFW, you will need to switch to a dogs feed. (Though husky feeds are strangely NSFW too.)

Thanks, I will try it out again. I will be ready with the app delete button in case any inflate furry porn appears though.

Regular appearance as in posted by the people you follow?

Nope, I didn't follow anything of the sort.

So how did the content appear in your feed?

Likely using the "discover" or "popular with friends" feeds, not sure why one would do that to themselves on either bluesky or twitter.

Do you use social media? You seem unaware of how it’s worked for over a decade.

Normally, I need to follow someone on BlueSky to see their content or content shared by them. It doesn't inject recommendations into my feed.

The discover feed of bsky on a blank account with no follows or followers or likes had lots of this stuff when I tried it.

That makes sense.

My discover feed is pretty much all Scottish politics and tech.

I have since the early days. And I avoid algorithmic feeds. So I don’t get furry porn she. I read bsky. Or X. Or Insta.

These are non-problems for people who don’t allow them to be

Why on earth is this downvoted? I have an identical question.

The default method of operation on Bluesky is that you follow people you are interested in, and only the people you follow show up in your feed.

> Why on earth is this downvoted? I have an identical question.

Feigning misunderstanding is a weird look.

Spell out what you are implying.

I have no idea what the originator of this thread was doing to end up in their situation. I've seen nothing like it on bluesky.

Maybe it's obvious to you and others why it happened, but it's not to all of us, and down voting people for asking this question doesn't make is any clearer.

The way BlueSky is structured, you have to follow people to see their content in your feed. Hence my confusion.

Other people have pointed out that the "Discover" feed with a fresh account may show material that the OP finds unappealing and that people have failed to report as untagged NSFW content.

> I registered a Bluesky account not too long ago and noticed shortly after a regular appearance of gay and furry nsfw content. The NSFW setting was turned off, so these accounts are for whatever reason neglecting to tag their content properly.

What... are you doing with the app exactly??? Do you not curate a list of accounts you follow?

To counter your anecdote: I've literally never seen anything like what you describe. I follow the people I'm interested in who post things I find of interest. I've occasionally (only occasionally) clicked on the "discover" tab, but it also does not show the sorts of things you described.

I joined to try to re-follow the tech community that was lost when Elon lost it. All I get now is 24/7 non stop Trump complaints. I get it, but it adds no value to my life. I certainly don't look forward to opening the app and hearing them. I've tried blocking the terms and even unfollowing people, but to no avail. Now I just never use the app.

Gay furry nsfw content you say - well shit, maybe I’ve been sleeping on bluesky.

I tried registering a new account using my real name a few weeks ago (I have never used blue sky before this) and within 5 minutes got an email saying my account is suspended for spam behaviour that violates community guidelines. I hadn’t even posted anything with the account yet.

I appealed but my appeal has seemingly gone into a black hole somewhere.

You'll never find any moderation lists for the people who are the main users of the site. It'd take far, far too long to create it anyways.

Have you considered that it might not be worth it using social media at all?

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