Are we sure it’s not mostly still bots on Twitter? I deleted my account back then and have not been back.

At least, not willingly back, since some people still hyperlink to Twitter directly rather than just sharing screenshots of whatever the content was. So you click the text hyperlink thinking it’s to a web article, only for it to bring you to some random string of tweets visibly displayed in the least logical order.

Words alone aren’t really what I’m alluding to here, more so authoritarian labels. One case which caused a decent amount of friction on BlueSky was that someone was allowed on the platform that was making harassment style content about other BlueSky users, but they shared the content off of the platform.

If it was built like Lemmy, then instances could pressure each other to be more selective for who they allow on the platform.

Often mean words aren’t the core problem, but toxic individuals or people/bots with ulterior motives on a platform. Not everyone should have the privilege of being part of a community if they can’t be decent.

From what I gather, the admins could be stepping in more like they do on Lemmy for hateful behaviors/users. If BlueSky were more federated like Lemmy, I think they would have been defederated by now for not taking direct action.

The block lists themselves work great imo and should be used universally on the Fediverse, but people do have understandable gripes with admins there for not stepping in more and are instead differing moderation to the user level tools in place.

I feel that content, consistency, and having a dialogue between users is the lifeblood of these platforms.

I’m not on Lemmy, BlueSky, or the Fediverse because of Linux, open source, or anti-social behaviors. But I find some of the other parts to be interesting so I’ve stuck around. I think the first two things are interesting, but not a primary concern or need for me to at this point in time.

I mean I use Windows cause the specific games I play are only playable on Windows. I think a lot of people are in the camp of only switching when it’s not a big hindrance.

BlueSky is something I’d use more, but it’s a pretty big time investment to get started as a new user. First you need to find peers with similar interests to even get started or convince some of your friends to hop to the platform with you.

Just commenting or posting without trying to connect with others first is just not the most fun experience. It often feels like you’re speaking into the void with no assurance you’ll even get a reaction or response back. Contrast that with smaller Fediverse instances like Wafrn where engagement is much higher, albeit with a higher technical knowledge niche audience like Lemmy, which could easily be a barrier to entry.

What smaller instances do right, is that they give people more ways to express themselves, the barrier to interaction feels much lower, and I know my voice isn’t just lost in the void since I can go to the ‘active’ feed and see my post sequentially there next to other people’s posts. Sometimes it can feel a bit awkward for me if I post something light hearted and the person that posts just before/after you shares something more serious. I still mostly prefer this shared feed though that will include my friends posts as well as new posts.

Some things I wish they did a bit differently was the reply system, since if I’m scrolling through recent posts it’ll show me the same post and their reply threads back to back in reverse order. So it’s not just bumping the post to the top of the feed, which I don’t mind, but the same post may appear multiple times back to back for each back and forth reply rather than being a single continuing thread.

Teaching them about logical fallacies and how to spot them may be the best defense against these types of personalities imo. Many influencers that you’re concerned about try to prey upon these fallacies, so teaching your kids to spot them can help them to realize those people are full of shit.

Curating their content a bit to include more people you want them to be like can help as well, at least then they can have good people to look up to.

If your kids think you have their best interests in mind, I feel they’re less likely to push back and more likely to respect the boundaries you put down.