The other day, a friend said, "I'm surprised you're not on Bluesky Pete." If anything, I'm looking to downsize my Social Media presence, not increase it. One of the key features for any self-respecting Geek is the ability to use your Domain Name as your handle. I'm not going to go into details here; to be honest, for the average Joe Public, it's a bit of a faff and probably unnecessary.
I haven't bothered to change mine mainly because I already have a Federated "Instance" castlecannon.house The beauty of a Federated service is YOU are in control (Unless you sign up for someone's "Instance"). Nobody can tell you what to do or how to behave; FREEDOM! Anyway, less of the Mel Gibson. Personally, I can't see any difference between Bluesky, Mastodon, Friendica or Plemora; they all effectively use the same backend protocol.
Bluesky is being promoted (yet again) as an alternative to 𝕏 (formerly Twitter). What I find interesting is the same reasons for joining Mastodon are being promoted by the Press and media for joining Bluesky "Ooh! You've got to get away from that evil Elon Musk and that horrible Donald Trump!" Over on the Fediverse (Mastodon), we saw two mass migrations from what was then Twitter. Yet, after two or three months, people sloped back, supposedly because Mastodon was too difficult to use. It's not! I think what most people didn't like was the fact that there are no algorithms on the Fediverse, no code that says: "Oh, so they like Lady Gaga, do they? Let's show them posts by other Lady Gaga fans and related content." On the Fediverse, you have to go old school and make an effort to make friends and find interesting people to follow.
There's an article on Forbes about Bluesky https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2024/11/14/what-to-know-about-bluesky-the-buzzy-social-media-app-siphoning-users-from-elon-musks-x/ that basically trots out the same old reasons why you should leave 𝕏 or be labelled a social pariah for staying in Elon's evil lair. One paragraph that the journalist feels is the main reason to join Bluesky depressed me unutterably.
Celebrities with large followings this week, including journalist Don Lemon and actress Jamie Lee Curtis, announced they would leave X. Other celebrities left after Musk took over the platform in 2022, including Elton John, Whoopi Goldberg, Gigi Hadid and Shonda Rhimes.
It's a sad indictment of our times that people join something just because Ariana Grande or Taylor Swift is on there; these are entertainers! They're not diplomats, politicians, or professors; they sing for money. Think about that.
I'll keep the Bluesky account for a while, but I doubt I'll post much on it. I'll add it to my "Excuses" list of "I would love to delete my account, but there are two or three friends on there who refuse to join other platforms I'm on, and if I closed the account, I would lose touch with them."
My actual name is Pete. Here is why I have the username dickturpin.
| https://mastodon.org.uk/@dick_turpin | |
| https://castlecannon.house/profile/dick_turpin | |
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https://twitter.com/dick_turpin |
| https://www.facebook.com/peter.cannon3 |
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