> likely because the site was just one big echo chamber of far left American politics around that time.

The US does not have a "far left" in any significant numbers, and never has. At least not in a self-aware sense.

Maybe you meant to say liberal, to which I'd agree.

That's not to say there isn't a "left" or "far left" on Bluesky, but there's no way it's a majority.

I agree echo chambers are a problem there, which is why I only posted there briefly before leaving. One feature that seemed to exacerbate the formation of echo chambers was users sharing and blindly trusting mass block lists to silence things they didn't want to hear (leftists and liberals alike).

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superxpro12 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Meanwhile my facebook feed is nothing but clickbait engagement with local nazis. It's such a hard right echo chamber now, it makes me sick. Clear evidence of multiple international bot accounts flooding groups with propaganda every 30 minutes. It's a flood.

There's really a problem that needs to be solved here. I really think anonymous or phony posting needs to stop. It's not helpful here. All it does is amplify false talking points with a "Fake it til you make it", "the loudest voice wins" methodology.

But unfortunately, engagement is financially incentivized now. So the big corps reap $$$$$ while the public burns itself down.

	▲	swed420 8 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Agreed. There is hope, but it requires enough people to care and act accordingly: https://www.noemamag.com/the-last-days-of-social-media/
	▲	tokyobreakfast 8 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> my facebook feed is nothing but clickbait engagement with local nazis Can you explain what exactly you mean by "local nazis"? Are you getting ads for Nazi barber shops? Sieg Heil Heating & Cooling? Hitler Juice Bar and Bubble Tea? If this was such a huge problem I'm sure we would have heard of it before.

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frumplestlatz 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> The US does not have a "far left" in any significant numbers, and never has.

Bluesky does, however. Clearly they've made that their target market, but that's also why growing beyond that base seems to be difficult for them,

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swed420 7 hours ago | parent [-]

No. Pre-Musk twitter was a liberal cesspool (and now it's a conservative one). Most of those liberals jumped ship to Bluesky.

Again, that's not to say lefists don't exist, but they are a tiny fraction, and always were a tiny fraction no matter what platform.

Don't rule out bots that exist in numbers to make the actual left appear like a deranged spectacle as a form of controlled opposition. Both parties of capital interests have a role in and benefit from these.

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frumplestlatz 5 hours ago | parent [-]

The issue isn’t whether “the far left” exists in large numbers in the abstract; it’s how platform design, moderation norms, and social incentives shape which views are amplified -- and which are penalized. On Bluesky, the boundaries of acceptable discourse are unusually narrow and strongly enforced, which predictably produces ideological clustering.

As for bots or “controlled opposition”: you don’t need conspiracy theories to explain why a heavily moderated platform with explicit cultural norms converges on a particular worldview. I’m disinclined to apply anything beyond Occam’s razor when accounting for “deranged spectacle” behavior; ordinary selection effects are sufficient.

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swed420 5 hours ago | parent [-]

> On Bluesky, the boundaries of acceptable discourse are unusually narrow and strongly enforced, which predictably produces ideological clustering.

This isn't in conflict with my original comment.

> As for bots or “controlled opposition”: you don’t need conspiracy theories to explain why a heavily moderated platform with explicit cultural norms converges on a particular worldview. I’m disinclined to apply anything beyond Occam’s razor when accounting for “deranged spectacle” behavior; ordinary selection effects are sufficient.

These aren't conspiracy theories, and they pre-date and extend beyond Bluesky. They are easily observable patterns in most modern news media and social media. For one, silos are much easier to advertise to. Follow the money, like everything else.

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frumplestlatz 5 hours ago | parent [-]

I’ve encountered the same rhetoric, tactics, and moral framing in offline activist spaces for years, long before Bluesky or current platform dynamics. Online platforms don’t invent this; they surface and concentrate it. The underlying attitudes -- maximalism, moral absolutism, tolerance for disruption, and readiness to analogize opponents to historical evil -- are not artifacts of bots or manipulation. They’re characteristic features of a political subculture.

If anything, the mistake is treating the "reasonable", aspirational version as more real than the people who consistently show up, organize, and speak — and then assuming the most visible expressions must be "controlled opposition."

	▲	swed420 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> I’ve encountered the same rhetoric, tactics, and moral framing in offline activist spaces for years, long before Bluesky or current platform dynamics. Online platforms don’t invent this; they surface and concentrate it. Once again, we seem to be in agreement on this. > The underlying attitudes -- maximalism, moral absolutism, tolerance for disruption, and readiness to analogize opponents to historical evil -- are not artifacts of bots or manipulation. They’re characteristic features of a political subculture. These things are not mutually exclusive. It's both, and people (and their bots) across the entire political spectrum are guilty of involvement.

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kgwxd 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Not welcoming assholes into your space isn't "far left" or an "echo chamber", it's just basic spam filtering.

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bakugo 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Labeling everyone you don't agree with as an "asshole" is the sort of thing that usually leads to echo chambers forming.

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frumplestlatz 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

When everyone they disagree with on anything substantive is an asshole, while accepting the same or worse behavior and tone if it aligns with their views, it's absolutely not "basic spam filtering".

	▲	kgwxd 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		"disagree", another one of those words.

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swed420 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

You've missed the original point.

From the left's perspective, the liberals deserve muting and are spam, and same from the other way around. It's siloed echo chambers everywhere.

Part of it is unrealistic expectations of users thinking they're right about their world views. But part of it is platforms making features that amplify the former.

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Levitz 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

>The US does not have a "far left" in any significant numbers, and never has. At least not in a self-aware sense.

Are they just disproportionately powerful then? Because the US does definitely have consistent far left trends and movements that overtake the mainstream. The OK hand gesture hysteria is maybe an evident example, but land acknowledgments? DEI statements? Fatphobia? Defund the police? All of these originate from far left positions.

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swed420 7 hours ago | parent [-]

No. Once again you're referring to liberals even if you don't know it.

You might be confused because several forces want you to be exactly that:

1) The right lumps/conflates everything from centrist liberal to far left as "the far radical left" with no in-between, which blurs many lines.

2) Center liberals who want a social media veneer they can feel good about will literally pose as leftists/marxists, but if you look at their other beliefs and behaviors (were they trying to sink Bernie, or not?) then it becomes immediately obvious they're ultimately loyal to the Dem party, and that means center liberals serving capital interests.

But I can't blame you or anyone else for falling for the above unless you've seen enough to know, like following both of Bernie's presidential runs and how he was systematically smeared by both liberals and their corporate media.

Identity politics / DEI / etc are a liberal obsession. Class politics is the focus of the actual far left.

	▲	Levitz 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		>but if you look at their other beliefs and behaviors (were they trying to sink Bernie, or not?) ...No? Bernie was super popular specifically with this audience. The more liberal people described themselves as, the more they supported Bernie: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-defines-the-sander... You can take the stance that nobody knows what any of these terms mean I guess, but then the picture gets kind of absurd, left-wing materialism loses all meaning, the church loses all relationship with the right, hell, from that standpoint Donald Trump campaigned as a leftist I guess? He did have a recurrent discourse around jobs and the working class.