Finding a social home

Bluesky and Mastodon both compete to be the next Twitter

I've been playing with Bluesky these last few days, and I'll start by saying the obvious: It's Twitter, at least like an idealized version of Twitter that we remember and want back.

Mastodon has been an amazing place to be this past year. I've been using the platform. I didn't join during the first two major incidents that led people to the app. In fact, I was pretty adamant about not joining it as long as there was some chance Musk would get bored and move on.

I can't remember the exact moment, but I realized that Musk was turning X into this untenable platform that was clearly biased towards a certain worldview and political standpoint. One of extremism, hate, and division. I didn't want a part of that.

The most frustrating thing for me was that when Musk was beginning to tear Twitter apart, I had just hit my stride and had over 1,000 followers. I was excited because I wanted an audience I could talk to that enjoyed my writing at AppleInsider and wanted to interact with me more beyond the available forums.

Mastodon took some work, but I hit 1,000 followers within a few months, and part of that was spurred by the attention I got from Flipboard as it shared accounts to follow. That made me more interested in the platform, but it hit a wall as Threads began to grow. I tried Threads and saw it for what it was – another Facebook that's mediocre. So I deleted it.

Now for Bluesky

I didn't want another social media website. I knew about Bluesky and what it was trying to do, but I just wanted Mastodon to succeed. It seemed to come and go in the news until after the election, and a lot of people realized it was much closer to Twitter than Threads or other options.

A good start on followers

I finally gave in and decided to try it out. I made an account with the username HilliTech@bsky or whatever those handles are and started looking for people. The first thing I noticed is all the people that were on Bluesky that I had seen on Twitter but not on Mastodon – Patton Oswalt, Gary Whitta, and an active Darth.

My user name did change too. I discovered that since I have a domain for my blog, I could use it for my user name with a simple bit of code added to Hover. Now I've got @hilli.tech. Pretty cool.

Then I stumbled into my first starter pack featuring Apple devs. I followed the pack, then one for designers. I quickly found new and old people all involved in my hobby of following Apple, plus fellow tech journalists. It quickly started feeling like the feed of people I used to have.

Here are some starter packs:

If I can continue to grow my account and find more people I want to follow, it could quickly overshadow Mastodon. But that's not the only cool trick Bluesky offers. I found a list for blocking or muting known extremists like MAGA cultists, make that two lists. I clicked mute and automatically made the potential for seeing something terrible much lower.

There's also a labeling tool users can make. I added one that labels accounts that are anti-trans or exhibit other kinds of hate.

Update: I'd like to note that the labelers aren't perfect, so if you see a label for "transphobic" on someone while using this, be sure to understand that they may have reposted something transphobic to comment, or said something ironically. It isn't a perfect system, but it at least gives users the ability to keep an eye out for such behavior from a labeled account.

I think it is also important to note that perhaps some people don't want to ever see transphobic content, even if it is part of reporting. For example, if Kara Swisher is talking a lot about how Elon Musk is deadnaming and misgendering his daughter, it may be triggering for some. That doesn't make Swisher transphobic, but the content of some of her posts contain transphobia. That's an important distinction to understand when using these tools. At the end of the day, labelers can help inform users.

There has been evidence of some people and entities creating block lists and labeler that are meant to harm or isolate people, or act as a guise to block one thing, but actually block people that support that thing. Just always be aware of who made something and if it can be trusted.

In any case, these tools are amazing. Social media companies should take note.

I have no idea what the future holds, but I want to keep growing my presence at Bluesky. I don't want to abandon Mastodon and likely won't as long as it offers a unique group of people to follow and be followed by. We'll see how it goes.

My first goal is to see if I can get Bluesky to at least reach a similar 1,400 followers or so that I've got on Mastodon. After that, it'll depend on the services themselves and what people decide to use.

Right now, I think Bluesky will be the winner of "basically Twitter." Now, if only we could get a good third-party app.