Bluesky and Community – Keeping The Social Skies Clear

 
The Chains of The Past

People who have not been in “social media” for more than 30 years often think that anti-social behavior online is relatively new, sparked by /some event/. This is simply not true.

In 2011 I wrote about problem users on social media. I had already been a community manager for 20 years at that point. In OnlineCommunities 103: Problem Users and the Problems They Cause, I explicitly discuss how certain behaviors are common, regardless of the platform.

Social media is…people. People behave in certain ways. Look back to broadsheets in the 18^th century, you see the same kind of pundits railing against social progress and being dismissive and insulting as you do now in the opinion sections of major media outlets. Human nature does not change, only the technology does.

For Bluesky, specifically, this means that many users are coming to the platform from X. Even before it became X, Twitter had always been a bit of a problem child. In 2008 when I joined, it was a curiosity, an IRC channel grown up to be a website. It was messy. It confused people who were not used to asynchronous chat. The majority of users were people like myself – curious about new platforms and their potential for communication, community and, inevitably, marketing.

Changes in moderation and management came with increasing user numbers.  Moderation got better, then worse, then better, then much worse. By the time Twitter devolved into X, it had become the technological equivalent of a hissy fit with flailing arms. People used to the behaviors that were normal on X – sarcastic, bad faith rebuttals, mean-spirited insults, veiled threats in top posts – sometimes find it hard to let go of that.

Because I began my career in online communities when we had no tools at all for moderation, not so much as ‘mute,’ I find it easy to simply ignore people whose unregulated behavior is unhealthy or unpleasant. This is a skill I have developed. Folks joining Bluesky from X, Meta and other platforms that don’t require respectful behavior, often drag their behaviors from platform to platform, like a set of increasingly heavy chains.

Bluesky is a relatively new platform. It has yet to be sold to advertisers or private equity. For many users, this is the first time they have joined a social platform at the beginning of it’s life cycle, when there is still a chance at equity, safety and delight as the platform grows.

The problem, however, is people. So how can Bluesky avoid some of the common lifecycle issues of other platforms?

 

Community Building Tools


Starter Packs:

I have been effusive in my praise of Starter Packs. These are curated lists of up to 150 accounts that can be themed however a user likes. Other users can follow all the accounts on a list with a single click. (You can search for Starter Packs to follow on this unofficial search: https://blueskydirectory.com/starter-packs/all)

Building communities is hard. I’ve written (on this very blog (!) in 2012 Creating an Amazing Social Network on Twitter WithoutSpamming the Universe, a step-by-step guide to how to build your community on a Twitter that did not yet have (and honestly, never has had,) a functioning curation algorithm. Starter Packs on Bluesky short-cut this process. Follow a source you respect, follow the people they respect – with one click. Or one account at a time…

 

Feeds:

…or not at all, with a Feed. When someone curates a Feed on Bluesky, you can scroll through posts that fit the Feed’s criteria without needing to follow any of the users. Of course you can follow from the feed or through an account directly, but Feeds allow you to see folks’ art and writing and news and commentary without having to also see their posts about topics you aren’t interested in.

Speaking of “topics you aren’t interested in,” let’s take a look at some of Bluesky’s useful moderation tools.

You can search for Feeds to follow directly on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/feeds

 

 

Moderation Tools

Moderation on Bluesky comes in several forms, several designed to help you curate your feed pre-emptively.

 
Muted Words & Tags

Ragebait relies on you having key words, concepts and topics that instantly set your blood pressure to overdrive.

For instance, you may dislike a topic – and by “dislike” I mean that you loathe it and wish it did not exist and would burn in fire. With Muted Words & Tags, you can cut down the likelihood that you will see that term (and any synonyms or related terms you add) in your feed. This is an imperfect solution. I cannot find all posts that imply the thing, use conceptual language about the thing, or do not mention the thing when they post pictures. If this seems complicated, it is. Human communication is very complicated. ^_^

As an example, let’s say you try to block something very common – cat pictures.
You can mute common words: cat, kitty, kitten in posts and tags. But if a person you follow posts cat pictures with text like “Look at this fine fellow” those will not be caught. You will see fewer cat pictures, but they will not be eliminated.

Block Lists

Block Lists are another imperfect solution, but can be very useful. Before you subscribe to a block list check the entries, so you know you are muting or blocking people you actually want to mute and block. Yes, this requires you to actually look at some unpleasant stuff for a moment of due diligence. I caution you on block lists because, predictably, bad faith actors are copying lists and regurgitating them in ways design to confuse.  How does that work? Let’s say you created a list of your favorite writers. I despise those writers, so I copy your feed and create a block list of them, encouraging people to not follow. Or I might create a block list of you and your friends and name it something bad, “Puppy kickers who suck,” to encourage people to pre-emptively block you. Why would I do that? Because, as we remember, people are the problem.

When you click on a Block List, you will see a link to “Subscribe” in the top right. If you click that, you’ll see a choice to Mute or Block everyone on the list.

Important Note: Blocked accounts are public on Bluesky. https://docs.bsky.app/blog/block-implementation.

Muting and Blocking Individual Accounts and Posts

Muting and blocking at an account level is easy as clicking an account as on any other platform and clicking the ellipsis on the top right.

Additionally, you can Mute a Thread or Mute Tags and Words in a thread or Hide Post for You – all of these by clicking the ellipsis at the bottom right of a post.

Said something you don’t want to deal with? You can Hide Reply for or Hide Reply For Everyone by clicking the bottom right ellipsis on your reply.

 

By selectively using all of these tools, you can curate your feed on Bluesky up front and as you follow people to create an experience that works for you. 

Reporting and Community Standards

In addition to the tools on Bluesky that help community-building and functional moderation that allow you to curate your feed,  we have Community Standards, that shape best pratices.

The main Community Standard on Bluesky is: Do Not Engage With Trolls. Full stop. Don’t reply, don’t screencap and top post  nasty stuff (we’ll get to that in a bit). Just mute, block, report and ignore. Starve trolls of air and attention.

After X, many people find it almost impossible to just not, because the culture there was based around mass harassment campaigns who decided that being blocked was a “win”.

Bluesky moderation is, at the time of writing, aggressive about blocking accounts that harass, or align themselves with groups that engage in bias and harassment. When you see a post or account that is harassing, disparaging, performing harassment regalia or symbols or any other passive form of aggressive bias, prejudice or hatred – click that ellipsis and Report Post or Report Account.

Earlier I said, "don’t screencap and top post nasty stuff." On X ragebait economics makes it profitable to find something anger-inducing, screencap it, then same something snarky or passively threatening and let hordes of followers mob some person. The behavior is sometime used by famously unpleasant folks to drive harassment campaigns of often completely innocent people. On Bluesky that behavior is not appropriate, obvious and should be reported immediately. But there is also another Community Standard: Do Not Subject Your Followers To Crap from X. We left there, please don't bring it with you.Don't dig up terrible people for us to be angry about. Bluesky is about building communities and keeping them safe - that includes your own followers!

Another important Community Standard on Bluesky is that the platform is Active Accessibility. This issue deserves a whole post of its own, you can start with Veroniiiica’s Post about BlueSky Accessibility Features For Low Vision. In account settings, there is an Accessibility tab on which you can Require Alt Text Before Posting to remind you to do so or Display Larger Alt Text Badges.  

The Community Standard on Blue Sky is to include Alt Text with images. Images that are added without alt text are often not shared by community members and may not be seen by some users. This was not decided as a policy, nor was there a decision by any one human or group. It is simply a generally agreed-upon community standard.  The Bluesky community has generally agreed that active accessibility accommodation is the right way to post on Bluesky.
 

Because Social Media is people, the problem with social media is also people. Lucky for us, the joy of social media is also people! Bluesky understands that and, at this moment in its lifecycle gives us tools and standards to help us build the communities we want and need. It's up to us to leave the chins of the past where they belong and take flight.


Find Erica on Bluesky at okazu.bsky.social