How is you experience using them ? (I know BlueSky is invite only, but perhaps someone got lucky) I registered in Mastodon recently and i’m getting the same feeling(and problems) when started using lemmy.

  • @[email protected]English
    6•9 months ago

    Bluesky doesn’t have hashtags, but the algorithmic feeds are supposed to pick up on keywords that it deems relevant to the feed you’re subscribed to.

    The problem with that is you will often get posts which are nothing to do with the topic of the feed, but they use a word which the algorithm thinks is relevant. I was subscribed to a general Gaming feed, and I would often see posts about Donald Trump, just because someone used the word “game” or “playing” in the post.

    Another silly one was in a PlayStation feed, where I kept seeing posts from sex workers selling their content on a site called Clips4Sale. Because the URL has “ps4” written in the middle of it, it was added to the feed. 🤷

      • comfy
        1•9 months ago

        I’m not sure if that’s really how the US propaganda model works (that is, the one defined in Manufacturing Consent). It’s an element of it, you’re right about that, but I think ultimately the issue is that they’re a for-profit information platform. And, as a result of that and the system we’re in, they’re affected by at least four of the five filters of bias that the authors proposed:

        • They’re filtered by the investor demands to censor.
        • They’re filtered by advertising demands to censor.
        • They’re vulnerable to mass-media flak against their reputation.
        • They’re vulnerable to anti-[flavour-of-the-month] red-scare hysteria.

        Mastodon, like Lemmy, can basically ignore the first two filters, and established communities which don’t mind being smaller than mainstream are unaffected by the remaining two.

          • comfy
            1•9 months ago

            Ah, I see what you mean. Yeah, that is a major issue.

            An interesting part of it is that I’m not use how much of that is the service working as intended (even in abstract ways, like promoting interest-grabbing things) and how much is abuse of the service (basically SEO for social media posts, using botfarms to promote content, etc.). And just to be clear, it’s still a fault of the platform if it’s being abused by organized think-tanks and advertisers. Whereas in Lemmy and Mastodon, the openness and customisability would communities to adjust ‘the algorithm’ that decides which posts to promote, or just block things that are unwelcome in their community.