Trouble Brewing at Bluesky

[ysabetwordsmith]

A number of issues at Bluesky have many members looking for a different venue, some of whom are moving to Dreamwidth. Watch for those folks and invite them here to learn more about this platform. If you have friends who are leaving Bluesky, encourage them to consider Dreamwidth -- it's not a close match but does have good privacy and moderation tools, and you can use it for short-form posting if you wish. This post contains resources about how to use Dreamwidth. You can find your Bluesky friends here. You can also export your Bluesky content to a CAR file.

Is anyone here familiar with Bluesky? We could really use a "Dreamwidth for Bluesky Users" guide post.


Bluesky Suspended Various Trans Authors Over Anti-J.K. Rowling Posts
Multiple authors were penalized for their posts on a platform once hailed as a "safe space."

Bluesky users bash CEO for not banning journalist Jesse Singal

Bluesky rolls out massive revamp to policies and Community Guidelines

Bluesky to verify ages under Ohio pornography ID law
The law that goes into effect at the end of September 2025 requires websites to verify the ages of their Ohio customers before allowing them to view content "obscene or harmful to juveniles."

Bluesky’s CEO meltdown: How leadership continues to fail its most marginalized users


Resources

ATproto Protocol
Bluesky and various other sites use this, which means you can leave Bluesky but still access your content from those other sites.

Comments

[soc_puppet]

Ah, jeez; I suppose this means that Dreamwidth will be looking into a different host for their Dreamwidth Status updates.

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

Possibly. I don't know if they care about the politics; some people don't. I'm not a fan of drama myself. However, any time a platform has multiple issues at the same time, that's a worrisome sign that it may collapse and disappear. So it would be useful to have alternatives. Hmm, that would make another good post: alternatives to Bluesky. Ideally, I'd like a Bluesky user to write that; I don't know much about it.

[kaffy_r]

I am so very tired of this kind of useful space implosion (I don't want to use the term "safe space" because I initially found some truly useful and robust debates on Bluesky, which made clear that Bluesky wasn't nearly as much of a bubblec as it was described to be.)

I left livejournal because of Moscow; I left Twitter because of the Space Nazi, I thought I found a place in Bluesky where I could do what I once did on Twitter; find word of news happening, then use links in those notifications to go to news-first sites (or what we olds call newspapers and news channels). Twitter was marvelous for that before the Space Nazi.

I'll probably put out some sort of note in my Bluesky account, but lord god of pickles this is so exhausting, [says the white old lady with tons of privilege].

Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> I am so very tired of this kind of useful space implosion <<

Me too.

It is a serious and increasing problem that does a lot more damage than most people realize. Humans tend to be very sensitive to relationship disruptions. Consider that one job loss -- which is also more common than when people often kept the same job their whole career -- tends to cause a permanent reduction in community involvement. Similarly, people who move frequently have fewer friends and often treat relationships as disposable. Creating relationships is work, maintaining them is work, and losing them is painful. So a big hit, or repeated hits, to the social network can reduce people's ability and willingness to form connections. Look around at how fragmented society is now -- that's a result of choices that society has made.

>>I'll put out some sort of note in my Bluesky account, <<

Thank you!

>>but lord god of pickles this is so exhausting, [says the white old lady with tons of privilege].<<

It frustrates me when people talk about "first world problems" like they aren't serious threats. Some are trivial, but many are contextually quite serious or tie into other human needs. Relationships are a human need, because they improve health and longevity; without a good social network, people tend to be sicker and die sooner. (With the possible exception of hermits; I suspect that people living alone in the woods have a healthier lifestyle, but I haven't found a study of that.) Or look at cars -- technically not a survival need because there are places people live without them just fine, but in America almost all places require a car to obtain food, shelter, etc. and the ones that don't are almost all ruinously expensive.

The internet is becoming less useful than it was, and less safe, and given how much people rely one it now, that's a serious problem. Look at all the things like health care that are ONLY available through a website, and it has become a means test for meeting needs and participating in society. So the more weight that people place on an social structure, the more it becomes a load-bearing fixture that will wreak havoc if it collapses.

Re: Yes ...

[kaffy_r]

I'm saving your comment here, because I think it's absolutely spot-on.

Re: Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

*bow, flourish* Happy to be of service. I may not always be able to solve problems, but I can usually figure out at least some of the root causes. Very often people can sense a problem but not define it. You have to know the parameters before you can start trying to fix it. So when I see that, I try to map it out, in hopes that will help solve at least some portion of it.