That is very sad if that is the case - do you have any specific examples?
I'm following at least three overtly gender critical people on there, including ones who have shared stuff about this on the site, so I'd assumed it was OK (and that the small number was due to not many coming across). But quite prepared to be shown I'm wrong.
Here are some examples. (I don't know most of the people involved, so the obvious caveat applies that some of the photos and videos could be faked; but I'd be surprised if they all were. In some cases we only have the person's paraphrase of what they posted, so it might have been phrased more offensively; but in other cases we have the literal wording.)
And here's a clip of Joe Rogan saying "You know if you go to Bluesky and type 'there's only two genders' you get banned instantly?", which is weak evidence that the claim is true, and strong evidence that it's well-known. https://x.com/AutismCapital/status/1859342849688600953
(None of these are the original example that I saw organically in my feed, which I can't find now because I foolishly didn't bookmark it. They're mostly from a search for "bluesky banned".
One feature I'd like X to implement is the ability to filter search results to things that have previously appeared in my For You feed, and/or things from people adjacent to my network. They have the ability to filter to "people you follow" but that's not enough if I saw it in For You. I want something in between "people I follow" and "absolutely everyone".)
Yes, that's decent evidence there is some level of censorship. To play devil's advocate, if you go to a site and the first thing you post is something deliberately controversial that also looks a bit like a spammer or bot (though I am not saying it justifys an instant ban).
Now I have seen people posting gender critical stuff and not being banned. Maybe they're banning un-noteworthy people but not more well-known people, or being overzealous, or being very erratic, all of which is bad. But I agree this is a bad sign.
I know a decent number of people in the GC community so this is something I'll be able to keep an eye to see what happens as the site grows. I may try blogging something about gender/trans in the next couple of weeks, sharing it, and seeing what happens.
Interesting to hear your impressions, which are very different to mine.
In terms of design choices and features, there's really almost no difference between old and new Twitter for me, except for the addition of Community Notes which are a huge win.
Yet in terms of broader policy, the fact that old Twitter censored and blocked users for repeating uncontroversially true facts (like government statistics, not even theoretically contentious things like sex/gender), was basically a deal-breaker. It's not just extremely bad in terms of the use of the platform, but I think it's the kind of extreme wrong which should be punished, deontologically. Bluesky currently seems to be on a trajectory to be worse in terms of moderation.
Agree that community notes are a big win for Twitter. And I do agree about old Twitter; it was pretty bad in the final couple of years before the takeover (though that said, I did still hear about e.g. the Great Barrington Declaration, gender critical stuff from there, so clearly stuff did get through).
It's entirely possible I'm wrong about Bluesky being better. I still think it's worth a try - but if they start embracing to the pre-Musk ways of censorship, then I'll leave again. I still have my Twitter account and for most things are dual-posting at the moment.
I pre-commit to doing another post in between 3 months to 6 months time to say whether I think my optimism here was misguided.
I haven't noticed any deterioration in my user experience of Twitter/X.
Feature-wise, it seems mostly the same, but with the addition of community notes, which are a good thing. I also like the bookmarks (I'm not sure when they were introduced, but they're a huge improvement compared with Facebook, which makes it almost impossible to re-find posts), and something that is a new feature is the ability to group bookmarks in folders.
There's been no noticeable deterioration in performance or uptime since the dramatic staff downsizing, despite many people's predictions. I think the reduction in censorship is also a very good thing (and I don't think censorship on old Twitter was restricted to the two topics you identify). X also tends to break stories sooner than mainstream media.
Content- and community-wise, I'm not seeing many ads, I'm not seeing any users I can knowingly identify as bots, and I'm not seeing any low-effort name-calling. I am seeing intelligent people either geeking out about nerdy things, making in-jokes with lots of levels of references, discussing political issues intelligently, or mocking and insulting other people in creative and clever ways. (This is on both the Following and For You feeds.) The vibe is similar to the early Slate Star Codex community, although admittedly not as kind.
It's much better than my experience of Facebook, which includes an awful lot of ads, lots of very clearly AI-generated content, some groups full of illiterate people misunderstanding each other and getting angry, and some clickbait that I find tempting in the moment but don't actually want to spend time reading. I mainly only stay on FB for the 5-10% of my feed that's actually updates from my friends (whereas I stay on X despite not knowing the people I follow IRL, because they're interesting and entertaining).
I know some people's experience of X is different, and I don't know if that's just random, or because my usage of Twitter started with a small, densely interlinked, rationalist-adjacent community and expanded out from there, so maybe in some sense it was "seeded" with good things, and maybe if I created a new account following the exact same list of people I'd have a worse experience?
The only arguable downside to my experience on X is that the ratio of important-but-sometimes-depressing political topics to amusing geekery in my feed is increasing, but that's partly my fault for clicking Like on those topics (combined with the algorithm probably being inclined to promote them given the slightest excuse). In an ideal world there would be a distinction between "Like" as in "I agree with this and think it's important" and "I want to see more of this", but I don't think any social media platform makes that distinction.
...Thinking it through some more and trying to figure out why we might have such different experiences: one aspect of it might be that my usage of X is primarily *consumptive* (reading the jokey posts to be entertained and the political posts to be informed), and secondarily *creative* (I don't post very often, and when I do, it's one-way, hoping to entertain or inform others; not starting or continuing a direct conversation, but maybe joining the wider "conversation"). I almost never reply to an individual.
Whereas I get the impression your usage is more *conversational*, looking to have back-and-forth dialogue with specific individuals or small groups (but in front of a public audience, rather than in DMs). I've never tried using old Twitter or new X for that. I can imagine that if I did, I might get replies from spammers, bots, and low-effort haters, as the conversation is public and anyone can reply (which is both its strength and its weakness).
I'm not saying my way is better. I kind of stumbled into it, and your way sounds more wholesome and relational. But I think maybe X is (or is becoming?) more like YouTube - a media outlet, similar to traditional media except that anyone can create the content (and be compensated for it) and users can decide what content they want to consume - and less of a social network like Facebook.
Really interesting - thank you for sharing! I completely agree with your experience of Facebook, which is getting so awful I've considered quitting, if it wasn't for a few people I have fun conversations with and sharing photos of the children with family and close friends (and seeing some other people's in this way).
I also agree about the reduction in censorship being good and the performance not deteriorating (I don't think any of the negative changes have been from him firing 75% of people, but from active choices). And yes, I still think Twitter now is better at finding out breaking news or more obscure news than Bluesky is (but that's because there are still only 20 million people on Bluesky).
In terms of why, your consumptive vs creative vs conversational distinction is helpful. My biggest single bugbear is suppression of external links: I want to share links (e.g. to this substack), share interesting articles I've read (or, professionally, things from colleagues) - and I want to read interesting articles other people share! Nuking links feels like nuking one of the core reasons I'm on the platform and was the biggest driver to leave.
On the 'conversational' element, even if I'm not personally joining the conversation, I often like to read interesting exchanges between policy wonks/journalists/etc on the issues of the day, or other debates. These were (a) getting drowned out by spammers/blue-ticks; (b) happening a lot less because lots of the people involved had decamped to Bluesky, which I was missing.
Also, potentially another difference is that maybe I follow a lot more explicitly political people, rather than SSC-type rationalists (I do follow some of them too), and perhaps the more political topics are more prone to getting swarmed by the outrage merchants.
I guess a final factor is that although I am very anti-censorship, I am also quite concerned about the impact of social media on mental health (I felt noticeably happier when I took a two-month break from Twitter between jobs, in 2022). The tools that Bluesky has put in place to try to enable better blocking, ways to detach from a conversation seem actively good and worth rewarding, whereas Twitter is implementing features that seem likely to make their users more miserably and angrier, which feels like something actively bad about the site, just as censorship is. If Bluesky embraces censorship long-term though (rather than just being very left-wing because of its current user base) I will probably leave again.
I think the link issue may be less of a big deal than you think (although, like with every other aspect of the experience, it's probably subject to differences in both the feed algorithm and our personal perception). I still see, and click on, quite a lot of links from people's posts. I'm sure the algorithm does penalise them, but I'm also sure it penalises all sorts of other things we're not aware of (and boosts others). Unless you're a paid social media manager micro-optimising for engagement statistics, I'm not sure if it's worth worrying about.
You seem to be using "blue-ticks" as though it's entirely negative.
I'm sure it includes some spammers etc, but it's also the premium users who help subsidise the rest of us; the ones to whom "if you're not paying for the product, you are the product" doesn't apply.
Some examples include:
Scott Alexander
Richard Dawkins
The Free Speech Union
Paul Graham (tech guru and interesting thinker whose essays I've been following since about 2005)
Allison Pearson (Telegraph journalist who helped publicise the NCHI issue after being impacted by it herself)
Devon Eriksen (sci-fi author whose posts include long, controversial, often strikingly eloquent political commentary)
Douglas Murray (Spectator columnist, bestselling/controversial author)
I agree not everyone with a blue tick is a bad person. Some of the blue tick advantages are unproblematic (e.g. no adverts, ability to write longer posts). But everyone with one is having their posts/replies boosted more than they should be.
This probably doesn't matter too much for big individuals such as Dawkins or Murray, whose posts would be widely shared regardless. But for people with few followers who post drivel, it means that things that would sink without trace instead get much more traction.
Re your point on then subsidising the rest of us, this gets to the heart of what I think makes a good freemium model. For me, it's one where the premium subscribers get a better experience but not in a way that impairs the experience of the ordinary users.
To choose a slightly silly example, it's great on Youtube Music/Spotify that users can pay for premium and get to listen without adds; it would be bad if they could insert songs in other people's play lists.
A more realistic example is computer gaming. Freemium models where the core game is good, but Premium users get access to better skins, new maps, extra scenarios and so forth are good. Freemium models which are 'pay to win' - where the game is a horrible grind without paying, or (in a PvP game) you get in-game advantages by buying it are bad.
A very specific example is that over the last couple of years I've played a few games of the very fun multiplayer space strategy game Neptune's Pride (https://np.ironhelmet.com/#main_menu). It's free to play, but Premium users get some cosmetic benefits (ability to change the names of planets, name carriers, more choice of race avatar) and some tangible benefits, including the ability to start a private game with friends, to play in more games simultaneously or to play in games with custom rules (such as dark galaxy, wormholes, different tech options). But in a game, Premium players get no advantage. If the Premium players got in-game advantages like improved ship production or research speed bonuses, then the game would suck and I wouldn't play it.
I feel the Twitter Freemium model has gone too far to the bad side of Freemium.
I found this a bit surprising to be honest. Generally, I don't understand when people complain about seeing lots of bad/nasty/racist etc content on Twitter because (a) it is very easy to restrict only to those you Follow and (b) it is easy to unfollow/mute/block people and so remove that stuff from your feed. Perhaps it is because your content is more overtly political or politics-adjacent that the crappy stuff is unavoidable; the majority of those I follow are either physics or poetry people and my feed is perfectly civil.
I'm on Bluesky but find it a bit dull and with too many people talking about how lovely they are compared to all the horrible people over there on twitter. I am also a bit put off when people talk about how nice 'old Twitter' was; I didn't really post then but can well remember during Covid the number of people on Twitter extremely keen on using the full compulsive power of the state to ensure that e.g. families with several children and a toddler with a cough should stay locked up in small flats for weeks.
I suspect you're right that some of it is that professionally I follow a broader range of people, including plenty I disagree with, on the political/culture war/politics-adjacent space, which attracts more spammy/unpleasant people (some of which then get retweeted into my feed).
I agree Bluesky is a little dull right now, but I'm hoping a good influx will improve that.
Sadly, it is already censoring gender critical views.
And not just censoring the individual posts, but permabanning the accounts making them.
That is very sad if that is the case - do you have any specific examples?
I'm following at least three overtly gender critical people on there, including ones who have shared stuff about this on the site, so I'd assumed it was OK (and that the small number was due to not many coming across). But quite prepared to be shown I'm wrong.
Here are some examples. (I don't know most of the people involved, so the obvious caveat applies that some of the photos and videos could be faked; but I'd be surprised if they all were. In some cases we only have the person's paraphrase of what they posted, so it might have been phrased more offensively; but in other cases we have the literal wording.)
https://x.com/razroo_chief/status/1858376691258691593
https://x.com/TechGuyChris2/status/1857838646621307252
https://x.com/markmulvey/status/1858864706636632331 (the post this is self-replying to is also interesting)
https://x.com/heterodorx/status/1858525683820986417
https://x.com/SayonaraShtbird/status/1857658881649872908
https://x.com/JordanSchachtel/status/1858621512124953077 and https://x.com/JordanSchachtel/status/1858638879647002660 (This one contains an external link! The linked article is a bit rambly and sensationalist, but its central claim is "I was banned for declaring that there are only two genders.")
And here's a clip of Joe Rogan saying "You know if you go to Bluesky and type 'there's only two genders' you get banned instantly?", which is weak evidence that the claim is true, and strong evidence that it's well-known. https://x.com/AutismCapital/status/1859342849688600953
(None of these are the original example that I saw organically in my feed, which I can't find now because I foolishly didn't bookmark it. They're mostly from a search for "bluesky banned".
One feature I'd like X to implement is the ability to filter search results to things that have previously appeared in my For You feed, and/or things from people adjacent to my network. They have the ability to filter to "people you follow" but that's not enough if I saw it in For You. I want something in between "people I follow" and "absolutely everyone".)
Yes, that's decent evidence there is some level of censorship. To play devil's advocate, if you go to a site and the first thing you post is something deliberately controversial that also looks a bit like a spammer or bot (though I am not saying it justifys an instant ban).
Now I have seen people posting gender critical stuff and not being banned. Maybe they're banning un-noteworthy people but not more well-known people, or being overzealous, or being very erratic, all of which is bad. But I agree this is a bad sign.
I know a decent number of people in the GC community so this is something I'll be able to keep an eye to see what happens as the site grows. I may try blogging something about gender/trans in the next couple of weeks, sharing it, and seeing what happens.
Interesting to hear your impressions, which are very different to mine.
In terms of design choices and features, there's really almost no difference between old and new Twitter for me, except for the addition of Community Notes which are a huge win.
Yet in terms of broader policy, the fact that old Twitter censored and blocked users for repeating uncontroversially true facts (like government statistics, not even theoretically contentious things like sex/gender), was basically a deal-breaker. It's not just extremely bad in terms of the use of the platform, but I think it's the kind of extreme wrong which should be punished, deontologically. Bluesky currently seems to be on a trajectory to be worse in terms of moderation.
Very much agree with this
Agree that community notes are a big win for Twitter. And I do agree about old Twitter; it was pretty bad in the final couple of years before the takeover (though that said, I did still hear about e.g. the Great Barrington Declaration, gender critical stuff from there, so clearly stuff did get through).
It's entirely possible I'm wrong about Bluesky being better. I still think it's worth a try - but if they start embracing to the pre-Musk ways of censorship, then I'll leave again. I still have my Twitter account and for most things are dual-posting at the moment.
I pre-commit to doing another post in between 3 months to 6 months time to say whether I think my optimism here was misguided.
I haven't noticed any deterioration in my user experience of Twitter/X.
Feature-wise, it seems mostly the same, but with the addition of community notes, which are a good thing. I also like the bookmarks (I'm not sure when they were introduced, but they're a huge improvement compared with Facebook, which makes it almost impossible to re-find posts), and something that is a new feature is the ability to group bookmarks in folders.
There's been no noticeable deterioration in performance or uptime since the dramatic staff downsizing, despite many people's predictions. I think the reduction in censorship is also a very good thing (and I don't think censorship on old Twitter was restricted to the two topics you identify). X also tends to break stories sooner than mainstream media.
Content- and community-wise, I'm not seeing many ads, I'm not seeing any users I can knowingly identify as bots, and I'm not seeing any low-effort name-calling. I am seeing intelligent people either geeking out about nerdy things, making in-jokes with lots of levels of references, discussing political issues intelligently, or mocking and insulting other people in creative and clever ways. (This is on both the Following and For You feeds.) The vibe is similar to the early Slate Star Codex community, although admittedly not as kind.
It's much better than my experience of Facebook, which includes an awful lot of ads, lots of very clearly AI-generated content, some groups full of illiterate people misunderstanding each other and getting angry, and some clickbait that I find tempting in the moment but don't actually want to spend time reading. I mainly only stay on FB for the 5-10% of my feed that's actually updates from my friends (whereas I stay on X despite not knowing the people I follow IRL, because they're interesting and entertaining).
I know some people's experience of X is different, and I don't know if that's just random, or because my usage of Twitter started with a small, densely interlinked, rationalist-adjacent community and expanded out from there, so maybe in some sense it was "seeded" with good things, and maybe if I created a new account following the exact same list of people I'd have a worse experience?
The only arguable downside to my experience on X is that the ratio of important-but-sometimes-depressing political topics to amusing geekery in my feed is increasing, but that's partly my fault for clicking Like on those topics (combined with the algorithm probably being inclined to promote them given the slightest excuse). In an ideal world there would be a distinction between "Like" as in "I agree with this and think it's important" and "I want to see more of this", but I don't think any social media platform makes that distinction.
...Thinking it through some more and trying to figure out why we might have such different experiences: one aspect of it might be that my usage of X is primarily *consumptive* (reading the jokey posts to be entertained and the political posts to be informed), and secondarily *creative* (I don't post very often, and when I do, it's one-way, hoping to entertain or inform others; not starting or continuing a direct conversation, but maybe joining the wider "conversation"). I almost never reply to an individual.
Whereas I get the impression your usage is more *conversational*, looking to have back-and-forth dialogue with specific individuals or small groups (but in front of a public audience, rather than in DMs). I've never tried using old Twitter or new X for that. I can imagine that if I did, I might get replies from spammers, bots, and low-effort haters, as the conversation is public and anyone can reply (which is both its strength and its weakness).
I'm not saying my way is better. I kind of stumbled into it, and your way sounds more wholesome and relational. But I think maybe X is (or is becoming?) more like YouTube - a media outlet, similar to traditional media except that anyone can create the content (and be compensated for it) and users can decide what content they want to consume - and less of a social network like Facebook.
Really interesting - thank you for sharing! I completely agree with your experience of Facebook, which is getting so awful I've considered quitting, if it wasn't for a few people I have fun conversations with and sharing photos of the children with family and close friends (and seeing some other people's in this way).
I also agree about the reduction in censorship being good and the performance not deteriorating (I don't think any of the negative changes have been from him firing 75% of people, but from active choices). And yes, I still think Twitter now is better at finding out breaking news or more obscure news than Bluesky is (but that's because there are still only 20 million people on Bluesky).
In terms of why, your consumptive vs creative vs conversational distinction is helpful. My biggest single bugbear is suppression of external links: I want to share links (e.g. to this substack), share interesting articles I've read (or, professionally, things from colleagues) - and I want to read interesting articles other people share! Nuking links feels like nuking one of the core reasons I'm on the platform and was the biggest driver to leave.
On the 'conversational' element, even if I'm not personally joining the conversation, I often like to read interesting exchanges between policy wonks/journalists/etc on the issues of the day, or other debates. These were (a) getting drowned out by spammers/blue-ticks; (b) happening a lot less because lots of the people involved had decamped to Bluesky, which I was missing.
Also, potentially another difference is that maybe I follow a lot more explicitly political people, rather than SSC-type rationalists (I do follow some of them too), and perhaps the more political topics are more prone to getting swarmed by the outrage merchants.
I guess a final factor is that although I am very anti-censorship, I am also quite concerned about the impact of social media on mental health (I felt noticeably happier when I took a two-month break from Twitter between jobs, in 2022). The tools that Bluesky has put in place to try to enable better blocking, ways to detach from a conversation seem actively good and worth rewarding, whereas Twitter is implementing features that seem likely to make their users more miserably and angrier, which feels like something actively bad about the site, just as censorship is. If Bluesky embraces censorship long-term though (rather than just being very left-wing because of its current user base) I will probably leave again.
I think the link issue may be less of a big deal than you think (although, like with every other aspect of the experience, it's probably subject to differences in both the feed algorithm and our personal perception). I still see, and click on, quite a lot of links from people's posts. I'm sure the algorithm does penalise them, but I'm also sure it penalises all sorts of other things we're not aware of (and boosts others). Unless you're a paid social media manager micro-optimising for engagement statistics, I'm not sure if it's worth worrying about.
I notice it fairly heavily with links I share seeming much less likely to go viral than anything without links.
You seem to be using "blue-ticks" as though it's entirely negative.
I'm sure it includes some spammers etc, but it's also the premium users who help subsidise the rest of us; the ones to whom "if you're not paying for the product, you are the product" doesn't apply.
Some examples include:
Scott Alexander
Richard Dawkins
The Free Speech Union
Paul Graham (tech guru and interesting thinker whose essays I've been following since about 2005)
Allison Pearson (Telegraph journalist who helped publicise the NCHI issue after being impacted by it herself)
Devon Eriksen (sci-fi author whose posts include long, controversial, often strikingly eloquent political commentary)
Douglas Murray (Spectator columnist, bestselling/controversial author)
various MPs
various tech CEOs
(fairly random selection gathered from various places; not meant to be especially representative of anything)
I agree not everyone with a blue tick is a bad person. Some of the blue tick advantages are unproblematic (e.g. no adverts, ability to write longer posts). But everyone with one is having their posts/replies boosted more than they should be.
This probably doesn't matter too much for big individuals such as Dawkins or Murray, whose posts would be widely shared regardless. But for people with few followers who post drivel, it means that things that would sink without trace instead get much more traction.
Re your point on then subsidising the rest of us, this gets to the heart of what I think makes a good freemium model. For me, it's one where the premium subscribers get a better experience but not in a way that impairs the experience of the ordinary users.
To choose a slightly silly example, it's great on Youtube Music/Spotify that users can pay for premium and get to listen without adds; it would be bad if they could insert songs in other people's play lists.
A more realistic example is computer gaming. Freemium models where the core game is good, but Premium users get access to better skins, new maps, extra scenarios and so forth are good. Freemium models which are 'pay to win' - where the game is a horrible grind without paying, or (in a PvP game) you get in-game advantages by buying it are bad.
A very specific example is that over the last couple of years I've played a few games of the very fun multiplayer space strategy game Neptune's Pride (https://np.ironhelmet.com/#main_menu). It's free to play, but Premium users get some cosmetic benefits (ability to change the names of planets, name carriers, more choice of race avatar) and some tangible benefits, including the ability to start a private game with friends, to play in more games simultaneously or to play in games with custom rules (such as dark galaxy, wormholes, different tech options). But in a game, Premium players get no advantage. If the Premium players got in-game advantages like improved ship production or research speed bonuses, then the game would suck and I wouldn't play it.
I feel the Twitter Freemium model has gone too far to the bad side of Freemium.
I found this a bit surprising to be honest. Generally, I don't understand when people complain about seeing lots of bad/nasty/racist etc content on Twitter because (a) it is very easy to restrict only to those you Follow and (b) it is easy to unfollow/mute/block people and so remove that stuff from your feed. Perhaps it is because your content is more overtly political or politics-adjacent that the crappy stuff is unavoidable; the majority of those I follow are either physics or poetry people and my feed is perfectly civil.
I'm on Bluesky but find it a bit dull and with too many people talking about how lovely they are compared to all the horrible people over there on twitter. I am also a bit put off when people talk about how nice 'old Twitter' was; I didn't really post then but can well remember during Covid the number of people on Twitter extremely keen on using the full compulsive power of the state to ensure that e.g. families with several children and a toddler with a cough should stay locked up in small flats for weeks.
I suspect you're right that some of it is that professionally I follow a broader range of people, including plenty I disagree with, on the political/culture war/politics-adjacent space, which attracts more spammy/unpleasant people (some of which then get retweeted into my feed).
I agree Bluesky is a little dull right now, but I'm hoping a good influx will improve that.