NY Times Tech Reporter: Bluesky is Fantastic

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I have strong feelings about the beat now universally known as “tech reporter.” One thing that bothers me is the name because none of these people seem to know much about any form of actual technology. They aren’t really interested in technology, they are basically Page Six for social media. 

These positions seem to only go to too online left-wingers who have very predictable opinions about cultural issues. So it should come as no surprise that the NY Times‘ tech reporter has written a glowing article about the joys of joining Bluesky.

After an hour or so of scrolling through Bluesky the other night, I felt something I haven’t felt on social media in a long time: free.

Free from Elon Musk, and his tedious quest to turn X into a right-wing echo chamber where he and his friends are the permanent, inescapable main characters.

Two sentences in we already know a lot about this reporter. Did I mention that this is a news story, not an opinion piece? Anyway, that makes what comes next a bit confusing.

I joined the app last year, when it was an invitation-only beta product. I found some of what happened there interesting, but ultimately, I wasn’t persuaded it would ever fill the Twitter-shaped hole in my information diet. It seemed buggy and complicated, and it lacked some of the features (such as direct messages) that made Twitter useful.

It was also, frankly, kind of annoying. The most active posters on my feed were all left-wing Twitter discontents, united in their hatred of Mr. Musk yet unable to stop talking about him. My account went dormant, and I moved on to other platforms.

So Bluesky used to be an annoying anti-Musk hate fest but now it’s a freeing anti-Musk hate fest and he loves it. But getting back to my utter disrespect for tech reporters, this is what I mean. He writes, “Social media apps live and die on their vibes, and right now, Bluesky’s vibes are better than the alternatives.” If papers would just re-label their tech reporter as the “Online Vibes Reporter” I’d be fine with that. At least it tells you something about what they actually do for a living.

This news article ends with a personal recommendation that people try out Bluesky followed by three caveats. One of the caveats is basically a warning that Bluesky is a political bubble, albeit without being specific.

if what you’re looking for is a one-for-one substitute for the old Twitter — a global watering hole where celebrities, politicians, journalists, scientists and sports fans all gathered to discuss the news of the day — you won’t find it on Bluesky. (Or anywhere else, for that matter.)

We’re in an era of fractured social media now, where communities gather in different spaces for different purposes, and I suspect that Bluesky, no matter how popular it gets, will be only one part of a much larger ecosystem that includes X, Threads, group chats and more.

If you read between the lines just a bit, what he seems to be saying is that Bluesky will probably never be representative of more than a narrow fraction of the real world because it’s always going to be home to the fringe left. And that has obvious advantages if you’re on the left and are tired of being criticized. But his readers seem to understand that whatever feeling of freedom this grants is just an illusion.

All this does is create a new social media “echo chamber,” this one for people on the Left.  We will continue to isolate from each other ideologically and be more fractured than ever.  Hardly something to celebrate.

Is an ostrich with its head in the sand free?

Free? Not in terms of free speech, from what I’m hearing. But the new left, unlike the old left, seems to prefer limits on free speech, so not surprised that they are fleeing there.

An online vibes reporter who wasn’t a partisan hack might even find it slightly creepy.

The magic that upscale progressive intellectuals crave: no dissenting opinions from conservatives. They have already driven all the conservatives out of the universities, think tanks and legacy media. Only issue is that the more they isolate themselves the less their ideas resonate with the voting public.

There are some people on the left who see the danger.

I wish progressiveism were a lot less focused on these hyper-cliquish online spaces. Likes aren’t votes, and we’re not going to post our way to universal healthcare, abortion access, or trans rights. It’s increasingly a complete waste of time that just gives us the impression we are winning when we are completely failing to reach the people whose votes we need

Anyway, have fun at Bluesky, lefties. I’m glad you’ve found your safe space.