The Dawn of Decentralized Social Media
Bluesky, a decentralized social media platform, launched publicly on February 6, 2024, experiencing significant user growth, original content creation, and effective moderation against suspicious accounts and low toxicity levels.
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Bluesky, a decentralized social media platform similar to Twitter, opened to the public on February 6, 2024, after an invite-only phase. A recent study analyzed user activity during the two months surrounding this public launch, revealing significant changes in platform dynamics due to a rapid increase in users. The analysis indicated a diverse range of user activity, with a notable trend of original content creation surpassing reshared posts and a low incidence of toxic interactions. The platform saw a surge in users, particularly those posting in English and Japanese. However, the influx also included accounts exhibiting suspicious behavior, such as following numerous accounts and sharing content from unreliable news sources. Some of these accounts have been identified as spam or suspended, indicating that Bluesky has implemented effective moderation strategies. The findings suggest that while Bluesky is experiencing growth similar to established platforms, it is also facing challenges related to user behavior and content credibility.
- Bluesky is a decentralized social media platform that opened to the public on February 6, 2024.
- The platform experienced a significant increase in user activity, with more original content than reshared posts.
- User interactions on Bluesky showed low toxicity levels compared to other platforms.
- Some new accounts displayed suspicious behavior, leading to effective moderation actions.
- The platform's growth includes a notable presence of users posting in English and Japanese.
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9 commentsI have no issues with that kind of a site, I just didn't find anything there that would make the site interesting or worth returning to, for me. Spending some time on finding the "right" feeds and trying to curate my timeline didn't really help much either. Maybe the surge in popularity has helped with this issue though, with people actually posting stuff in other, non-political feeds.
It's plausible that the English vs Japanese toxicity difference also comes from this: political posts tend to be rant-y and negative even when people are agreeing with each other, and the English community developed from such a nucleus. Maybe the Japanese community didn't have any such initial influencing factors, and maybe developed more diverse, less toxic community overall.
> English content tends to have higher toxicity scores [...] on average, the toxicity of English content is three times higher than that of Japanese content
This is remarkable especially since section 4.3 says there are more Japanese posts compared to English posts after the public opening.
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