There’s a new phenomenon sweeping across the social media platform, BlueSky: lists. Lots of lists.
The way this works is that anyone can make a list of other BlueSky users and post about its existence — then everyone who sees it can click on the list and follow, or block, all the people on the list. For instance, here’s a list called “Bug Macrophotography” which contains the names and BlueSky accounts of people who do macrophotography of insects. Handy! With a single click you can subscribe to all of their feeds…or if you’re horrified at bug closeups, block them all. It’s a way to quickly fill up with people you follow.
I mostly like it, except for the fact that, a while ago, the only content you’d see is people posting their lists. I haven’t made any lists, because as some of you may know, I have an aversion to List Lords dating back to my old talk.origins days. Peter Nyikos left scars.
Anyway, there is also a tool called ClearSky.app that lets you see who you, or anybody for that matter, has blocked. Here’s everyone I have blocked in my short tenure on BlueSky:
Pitiful. I have to do better.
I can also see a list of all the people who have blocked me. It’s much longer so I won’t post it here; just go to ClearSky.app and enter my user name, pzmyers.bsky.social for yourself and you can see how many people dislike me. I don’t mind being blocked at all, I encourage more to shut me off.
You can also see a list of lists, all the lists that have my name on them. Some of them are from people encouraging more people to follow me, some are lists encouraging more people to block me. I discovered that there is a list called “FtBullies” that brought back old memories. It’s been years since all the bloggers here were called “FtBullies,” I guess the slymepitters have found a new home.
Still, I think it’s a good development that BlueSky has tools to help you curate your social media feed.
One thing about block lists – they stay updated with the maintainer’s additions. We are seeing a few bad actors, who have talked (on Twitter and elsewhere) about their explicit intent to begin with a clean-looking block list of people like, say, MAGA trolls, and later add some group like trans posters. So if you’re using block lists to not think about your own troll problem, great, but BlueSky leaves zero reminders of blocked people, so curate your lists occasionally to make sure you aren’t getting caught by any bad-faith actors.
Elsewhere on the Interwebs:
Elon Musk Says He Owns Everyone’s Twitter Account in Bizarre Alex Jones Court Filing
I want to see a list of lists that do not list themselves… :)
You might want to subscribe to some Trump/MAGA blocklists. They help.
Peter Nyikos? The same guy who once posted very long, incessant comments on Ed Brayton’s blog pretending to prove ID and refute “Darwinism?”