I'm Having a Good Time Over Here, Actually, p2: Excited for BlackSky

BlackSky is an offshoot of BlueSky, using ATProto. I won't go all up in the technical details and just tell you what the fuck is up. And frankly it's the only reason I'm even back over there bumping against bsky.app accounts.

You can view BlackSky's Official Site here.

Y'all know why I'm excited.

It's F.U.B.U., baby!

There's a Black team behind it and on a separate server from BlueSky's flagship instance. You know what that means? The same shit I'm always harping on about.

There's tools in place to actually protect marginalized identities (and in this case, Black ones). We're not an afterthought and won't be betrayed by capitalism.

And also: You can say shit with much less risk of getting shadow-perma-something-banned and otherwise silenced. Observe:

Meanwhile, vanilla!BlueSky suspends trans people if they're even .01% negative about TERF Wizard Bitch.

And also, some sorta dude died and a lot of people were understandably indifferent or even unsympathetic because he was a real piece of shit. The BlueSky mod team or whatever figure now is the time to actually moderate, nevermind all the other shit that happened or been happening.

I'm very happy where I am now, thank you. And if I ever want to roll my own? I can do that.

Also, now that "Cathy Brennan" bit makes sense– terrible person gets dunked on, censorship happens.

"WAIT I'M WHITE"

There's hope for y'all, too! Before I was blessed with an invite I also considered Wafrn. It has native BlueSky support (no bridges here) and the dev team appears to give a shit about social justice and things.

And to get back on my ActivityPub Bullshit, GoToSocial is looking pretty fab (and it is in beta at this time of writing, so they are working on things!). It helps that not only does the dev team appear to give a shit about social justice and things, but I've seen them go to bat for marginalized folx (and yes that includes the oft-neglected BIPOC, especially on Mastodon, as I've stated before).

Or You Can Just--

opt-out of the whole social media thing and just don't. Sometimes the only way to win is to not play at all, and you gotta respect that!

As for me, I like my little microblogs and sending mindpoison to my mutuals in the form of Riverdale quotes en masse, so I'll continue to look for where I can hang.

Seriously, No Excuse

Am I occasionally being an absolute dick about this? Yeah, it is very likely.

I acknowledge all the edge cases and whatnot, and there is something that needs to be said about learning curves and ease of use and friction and trying to survive in CapitalismLand. There are certainly barriers!

But otherwise?

We've grown so complacent on how we show up and handle social media that it did give me a legit headache when I first began switching away from the Big Tech things. But the thing about headaches, is that they eventually go away. (Hopefully.)

And sometimes, you don't know what you don't know! So here I am, telling you, in varying degrees and mix of excitement and frustration (mostly the former, I promise):

There is no fucking excuse to remain on Twitter anymore while other, better options exist. And hell, quit giving BlueSky your attention too; we been told you about that BS and most of us knew it was gonna be more of the same ol' shit. I even got my boxers in a wad over it before ragequitting and deleting my first account.

Note that I didn't say ignore ATProto– that is the tech BlueSky uses. And what BlackSky uses. But only the latter I'll give the time of day to.

One more for the books:

Get off Facebook, Insta and Twitter and join Mastodon and/or Bluesky – not because you can disenshittify the internet by switching to federated social media, but because you, personally can have a less shitty time if you get away from the zuckermuskian rot economy.

Wallet Voting (and emphasis is mine)

And I can vouch for that.

Now, go. Do better for yourself.