Bluesky

[MrHereWriting]

https://help.x.com/en/using-x/blocking-and-unblocking-accounts​

​

Blocking on X​

Block is a feature that helps you control how you interact with other accounts on X. This feature helps people in restricting specific accounts from following, Direct Messaging, and engaging with them.
Important things to know about using block:

• If your posts are set to public, accounts you have blocked can see your posts. However, they cannot engage (like, reply, repost, etc.) with your posts.
• Accounts you have blocked cannot follow you, and you cannot follow an account you have blocked.
• Blocking an account you are currently following will cause you to unfollow that account (and them to unfollow you). If you decide to unblock that account, you will have to follow that account again.
• If your posts are set to protected, blocked accounts will not be able to see your posts since they are shown to only your followers.
• Blocked accounts do not receive a notification alerting them that their account has been blocked. However, if a blocked account visits the profile of an account that has blocked them, they will see they have been blocked (unlike mute, which is invisible to muted accounts).
• You will not receive notifications from accounts you block, or accounts that you do not follow who mention you in conversations started by accounts that you block. You will, however, see notifications from accounts you follow when they mention you in a conversation started by an account you block. If you’d like to view all of your mentions, you can do so by searching your username.

Blocked accounts cannot:

• Engage with your posts, such as like, reply, repost, etc
• Follow you
• Send Direct Messages to you
• Add your X account to their lists
• Tag you in a photo
  

Posts from blocked accounts will not appear in your timeline. However, you may see posts or notifications in your timeline for the following:

1. Posts from others you follow that mention accounts you have blocked.
2. Posts that mention you, along with an account you have blocked.

 

[lilshymynx]

I'm a bit confused why a platform like Twitter would even need the user-blocking feature to apply to publicly posted content (as opposed to direct interactions).

The follower-followed relationship is unidirectional and opt-in; your feed is what you make it yourself. If you don't like what someone posts, simply unfollow them. Assuming a blocked person is indeed prevented from direct interactions with you (messages, notifications about @-mentions, etc.), like @cadeauxxx suggests they are, I'm not sure where's the problem.

Because algorithms exist that have the express purpose of showing you content from people you don't follow, but might be related to things you do follow, in case you might be interested in that too.

Not to mention the fact that replies are a thing and somebody you may not want to hear from might just be responding to someone you DO follow.

 

[cadeauxxx]

Paywalled, but from the headline that seems to be discussing what will happen post-election, which wouldn't be relevant to your claim that profits have already gone up.



Cool, let's look at that article...


View attachment 2428261


Since you only quoted the first half of that sentence, I'm guessing you didn't see or didn't understand the second half of the sentence, so I'll explain it for you:

Musk bought Twitter in October 2022, so the performance for 2022 is mostly pre-Musk and 2023 is the first full year of his ownership.

A "decrease" means that a thing went down. Twitter earned less money in 2023, under Musk, than it did in the previous year. People were buying fewer ads there.

Of course, "revenue" and "profits" aren't the same thing. Profit is the difference between revenue and costs. Musk did fire a lot of people, which reduced Twitter's staffing costs, and he might also have managed to reduce hosting/bandwidth costs by driving users away. OTOH, the company also took on a lot of debt, which added something like $1.2 billion annually in interest costs IIRC. We don't have full profits data post-Musk, because as a private company Twitter no longer has to do the same level of public reporting that it used to.

But this article certainly doesn't provide much evidence to support your claim.
https://www.businessofapps.com/data/twitter-statistics/


Sources for what?

3.4 billion is a lot of money. Advertisers returning means that Twitter will make more money next year.

This coming from you who tried to insist that I wanted CSAM on a website, I'm not surprised you twist words to try and push your arguments. You are the most smug, condescending poster I've ever dealt with on here, which is why I normally just laugh at your posts.

 

[Bazzle]

3.4 billion is a lot of money. Advertisers returning means that Twitter will make more money next year.

This coming from you who tried to insist that I wanted CSAM on a website, I'm not surprised you twist words to try and push your arguments. You are the most smug, condescending poster I've ever dealt with on here, which is why I normally just laugh at your posts.

Finance 101 revenue is not profit.

 

[Plathfan]

3.4 billion is a lot of money. Advertisers returning means that Twitter will make more money next year.

This coming from you who tried to insist that I wanted CSAM on a website, I'm not surprised you twist words to try and push your arguments. You are the most smug, condescending poster I've ever dealt with on here, which is why I normally just laugh at your posts.

He conveniently "forgot" to mention that Elon fired 70% of the ridiculously inefficient staff (who excelled at arbitrarily banning anyone expressing the "wrong" ideas) and slashed expenses by more than half.

Besides, what’s wrong with these people? Don’t they know the hottest platform today is Telegram?

 

[lovecraft68]

For anyone there who are truly delusional

You realize that just going to any site that has CSAM in order to grab it then run and post it somewhere else is risking being caught with possession of it, being arrested and being a registered sex offender for the rest of their lives?

And people in droves are going to do this to attack the new bastion of self-proclaimed moral superiority because its a threat?

More farfetched than most stories here.

 

[lovecraft68]

He conveniently "forgot" to mention that Elon fired 70% of the ridiculously inefficient staff (who excelled at arbitrarily banning anyone expressing the wrong ideas) and slashed expenses by more than half.

Besides, what’s wrong with these people? Don’t they know the hottest platform today is Telegram?

He also got rid of a lot of the 'work from home' crowd who weren't working on anything.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I'm a bit confused why a platform like Twitter would even need the user-blocking feature to apply to publicly posted content (as opposed to direct interactions).

The follower-followed relationship is unidirectional and opt-in; your feed is what you make it yourself.

Twitter's timeline is not merely "people you follow", and hasn't been for many years. Twitter pushes non-followed material into people's timeline as a matter of course, including advertisers, blue ticks, and anything else that they think might boost engagement.

My partner is now seeing posts in her Twitter timeline from people she has blocked. Anybody who continues to insist that people just need to use the block button doesn't know what they're talking about.

Assuming a blocked person is indeed prevented from direct interactions with you (messages, notifications about @-mentions, etc.), like @cadeauxxx suggests they are, I'm not sure where's the problem.

The problem is indirect interactions.

The pattern goes something like this: John Smith sets up an account "MeatEatersSuck" that he uses for spotlighting people who've tweeted about eating meat. His followers then go harass those people. (John Smith doesn't encourage or condone that in any way! Perish the thought! No, he's merely providing information, nudge nudge, wink wink.) If the followers go too far, their accounts might be suspended, but they can just set up new ones and get right back to it.

People who are aware of this and want to be able to post a photo of a BBQ without being flooded with "kill yourself" messages might opt to block MeatEatersSuck. Under the old system, John Smith would no longer be able to see their posts while logged in as MeatEatersSuck, which would make it harder for him to spotlight them. Not impossible - he could set up an alt account and use that to find targets, then post the screenshots to MeatEatersSuck - but it does at least impede them a bit.

Under the new system, he just needs to run one account and he can go find targets directly from that account, even if they've blocked him.

 

[TheLobster]

Twitter's timeline is not merely "people you follow", and hasn't been for many years.

Ah, that makes some sense then. I have never used Twitter all that much, and basically stopped using it long before it changed to X, so I didn't know it had been going through the typical enshittification process for years now.

The pattern goes something like this: (...)

This isn't how I'd expect blocking users to work. If user A blocks user B, user B should not be able to interact with user A; additionally, as you seem to suggest above, user A shouldn't see public content posted by user B that is sneaking through some backchannels to A's personal feed.

In contrast, what you do describe here as "blocking" is actually controlling the visibility of your content. I may be misremembering but I'm pretty sure Twitter never had visibility controls like that, and it was sort of a point of the whole site from the beginning (since it was about broadcasting "what's happening" in the widest possible sense). That was one of the differences between it and Facebook, where user-to-user connections required the consent of both parties and post visibility can be limited.

 

[Bramblethorn]

3.4 billion is a lot of money. Advertisers returning means that Twitter will make more money next year.

Moving the goalposts.

Your claim was that "profits had went up", and your "evidence" for that was (a) speculation about what might happen to future profits, and a page stating that revenue had gone down.

This coming from you who tried to insist that I wanted CSAM on a website,

Nope. I asked you to clarify what your point was in posting that screenshot. It wasn't clear to me whether you knew what "CSAM" meant, or if you were seriously arguing that censoring CSAM was an unusual thing for a social media site to be doing.

I'm not surprised you twist words to try and push your arguments.

*looks up at cadeauxxx trying to insist that "22% drop in revenue" and "increase in profits" are the same thing*

*looks at cadeauxxx throwing around fancy words like "correlate" without knowing what the fuck they mean*

You are the most smug, condescending poster I've ever dealt with on here,

Woo! I'm the best!

If you don't like being mocked for your ignorance, try being less ignorant.

 

[AwkwardMD]

Depressing to see all this support for Twitter in the same thread where Melissa's experience is so painfully laid out. Not even a "I'm sorry that happened to you, no one deserves that."

 

[cadeauxxx]

Nope. I asked you to clarify what your point was in posting that screenshot. It wasn't clear to me whether you knew what "CSAM" meant, or if you were seriously arguing that censoring CSAM was an unusual thing for a social media site to be doing.

And I clarified it, and did you backtrack your claims? No, because you're still attacking my character, cause that's how you are on here. You think you are morally superior to people and have a god given right to make accusations like that.

Woo! I'm the best!

If you don't like being mocked for your ignorance, try being less ignorant.

Coming from you who quotes little things, takes them out of context, and then builds strawman arguments to twist yourself into a pretzel.


Let's take a look at your recent strawman

The pattern goes something like this: John Smith sets up an account "MeatEatersSuck" that he uses for spotlighting people who've tweeted about eating meat. His followers then go harass those people. (John Smith doesn't encourage or condone that in any way! Perish the thought! No, he's merely providing information, nudge nudge, wink wink.) If the followers go too far, their accounts might be suspended, but they can just set up new ones and get right back to it.

People who are aware of this and want to be able to post a photo of a BBQ without being flooded with "kill yourself" messages might opt to block MeatEatersSuck. Under the old system, John Smith would no longer be able to see their posts while logged in as MeatEatersSuck, which would make it harder for him to spotlight them. Not impossible - he could set up an alt account and use that to find targets, then post the screenshots to MeatEatersSuck - but it does at least impede them a bit.

Under the new system, he just needs to run one account and he can go find targets directly from that account, even if they've blocked him.

This could happen on any site. When you log out of an account, you can see people's posts if they were set to public. It happens on Reddit all the time. If the person logs out after you blocked them, they can still view your profile. It happens on Facebook too, but neither of those sites are owned by Elon Musk, so they don't get the same criticisms here.


Someone else posted the Twitter block here:

https://help.x.com/en/using-x/blocking-and-unblocking-accounts​

​

Blocking on X​

Block is a feature that helps you control how you interact with other accounts on X. This feature helps people in restricting specific accounts from following, Direct Messaging, and engaging with them.
Important things to know about using block:

• If your posts are set to public, accounts you have blocked can see your posts. However, they cannot engage (like, reply, repost, etc.) with your posts.

 

[NoTalentHack]

About censorship...

View attachment 2428222

Oh yeah, god forbid they try to get rid of Child Sexual Abuse Material. Curse the woke mob!

 

[Bramblethorn]

He conveniently "forgot" to mention that Elon fired 70% of the ridiculously inefficient staff (who excelled at arbitrarily banning anyone expressing the "wrong" ideas) and slashed expenses by more than half.

Tilan, it's not on me to provide evidence for cadeauxxx's claim. He wants to claim profits went up, he's the one who needs to substantiate that. If he chooses to offer nonsense "evidence" that doesn't support his claims, that deserves to be mocked; it's not my job to fix his argument for him.

Noting lack of sources for that "slashed expenses by more than half"; as Twitter is now a private company, I rather doubt you or anybody here has a good idea of their actual expenses.

 

[AllenWoody]

Off topic; I tip my hat to you with the Sticky Fingers album cover. One of my favorite rock albums. The weather is finally cold enough to play Moonlight Mile.

Thank you! I confess that I ditched my vinyl years ago and have no plans to return However I kept Brain Salad Surgery (Emerson, Lake, and Palmer) and Sticky Fingers (original with the zipper). Proudly displaying both in the gaps in my bookshelf.

 

[Plathfan]

And I clarified it, and did you backtrack your claims? No, because you're still attacking my character, cause that's how you are on here. You think you are morally superior to people and have a god given right to make accusations like that.




Coming from you who quotes little things, takes them out of context, and then builds strawman arguments to twist yourself into a pretzel.


Let's take a look at your recent strawman




This could happen on any site. When you log out of an account, you can see people's posts if they were set to public. It happens on Reddit all the time. If the person logs out after you blocked them, they can still view your profile. It happens on Facebook too, but neither of those sites are owned by Elon Musk, so they don't get the same criticisms here.


Someone else posted the Twitter block here:

He’s a jester and one of my favorite toys. Don’t take him too seriously.

The title says Bluesky, but they can't stop talking about Elon—the inventor, the conqueror, the one who keeps reminding them how ugly they truly are.

 

[cadeauxxx]

Tilan, it's not on me to provide evidence for cadeauxxx's claim. He wants to claim profits went up, he's the one who needs to substantiate that. If he chooses to offer nonsense "evidence" that doesn't support his claims, that deserves to be mocked; it's not my job to fix his argument for him.

Noting lack of sources for that "slashed expenses by more than half"; as Twitter is now a private company, I rather doubt you or anybody here has a good idea of their actual expenses.

Conveniently leaving out where I mentioned advertisers came back, and sent you a link to that (which you complained about it being paywalled lmao). Advertisers coming back means 2025 is going to be a good year for X. You're twisting yourself into a pretzel to make an argument about something else related to it.

You like to argue, so have fun lol. I got better things to do.

 

[cadeauxxx]

Oh yeah, god forbid they try to get rid of Child Sexual Abuse Material. Curse the woke mob!

No where did I say that it was wrong to get rid of CSAM. The post says they are triaging the large queue reports so they can get to CSAM. Nor did I accuse them of being 'woke', your guess is as good as mine what all those reports are.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Conveniently leaving out where I mentioned advertisers came back, and sent you a link to that (which you complained about it being paywalled lmao). Advertisers coming back means 2025 is going to be a good year for X.

Okay, so you still don't understand why an article saying "advertisers will come back" isn't evidence for your claim that they had already come back. In that case, I don't think anybody can help you.

 

[StillStunned]

Do you people really think you're going to convince each other? You've laid out your arguments, you still disagree, anything you say now is just going to drive you further apart.

 

[cadeauxxx]

Do you people really think you're going to convince each other? You've laid out your arguments, you still disagree, anything you say now is just going to drive you further apart.

There's no effort at convincing on here. It's really two sides yelling at each other, and I will admit, I am guilty of this myself with clashing with Bramblethorn.

Apologies to the original poster who started this thread. Sorry your discussion was hijacked with all of us yelling at each other and arguing over nothing. Part of it is my fault, so I will subtract myself from here. Best of luck on the new site if it does manage to take off.

 

[AllenWoody]

Do you people really think you're going to convince each other? You've laid out your arguments, you still disagree, anything you say now is just going to drive you further apart.

Yep. This was a great thread (at the start) which introduced me to Bluesky and the Lit starter pack. I'd like to thank @MelissaBaby and @EmilyMiller for getting that ball rolling. I never used Twitter/X so I bring no bias or experience positive or negative into Bluesky. At the very, very least it's something new and fun to learn about.

Peace.

 

[lovecraft68]

There's no effort at convincing on here. It's really two sides yelling at each other, and I will admit, I am guilty of this myself with clashing with Bramblethorn.

Apologies to the original poster who started this thread. Sorry your discussion was hijacked with all of us yelling at each other and arguing over nothing. Part of it is my fault, so I will subtract myself from here. Best of luck on the new site if it does manage to take off.

This is what the OP bought and paid for. Go back to my first comment. The post wasn't "hey, new site to try out" it had to take digs at an existing site and we know why.

But as often happens, the tone of the post didn't go all their way because some here aren't just going to nod and follow the pied piper, some speak their minds and that's a good thing, at least for those looking for a legit discussion and not a one-sided propaganda fest. Let alone insinuations of people planting child porn which is one of the lowest insults one can dole out.

On one hand there was a definite political overtone to it-we can read between lines here when that transparent and people picked up the glove that was thrown down.

On the other hand, and more on topic, many of us know this is not going to be some erotic eutopia because we have been there, done that, and had our t-shirts stolen many times before.

What both dynamics here prove, is most just want to be told they're right in every way.

It's great to apologize if one feels they took something to far, we're all very different.

But for me? When I know I'm being tweaked-and also know how things work for real, and not in fantasy land and from experience-I'm not going to say sorry for giving back what was given.

 

[MelissaBaby]

This is what the OP bought and paid for. Go back to my first comment. The post wasn't "hey, new site to try out" it had to take digs at an existing site and we know why.

But as often happens, the tone of the post didn't go all their way because some here aren't just going to nod and follow the pied piper, some speak their minds and that's a good thing, at least for those looking for a legit discussion and not a one-sided propaganda fest. Let alone insinuations of people planting child porn which is one of the lowest insults one can dole out.

On one hand there was a definite political overtone to it-we can read between lines here when that transparent and people picked up the glove that was thrown down.

On the other hand, and more on topic, many of us know this is not going to be some erotic eutopia because we have been there, done that, and had our t-shirts stolen many times before.

What both dynamics here prove, is most just want to be told they're right in every way.

It's great to apologize if one feels they took something to far, we're all very different.

But for me? When I know I'm being tweaked-and also know how things work for real, and not in fantasy land and from experience-I'm not going to say sorry for giving back what was given.

I made the thread to let people who were interested in using Bluesky know that those of us who had already signed up had formed a "starter pack" that would make it easier for them to get started. If you aren't interested, then nothing you've said has any relevance for me, and I certainly don't give a fuck about whether or not you think you owe me an apology.

 

[alohadave]

This is what the OP bought and paid for. Go back to my first comment. The post wasn't "hey, new site to try out" it had to take digs at an existing site and we know why.

This is the complete text of Melissa's OP:

If anyone has, or is thinking of, setting up an account on Bluesky to promote your stories, Emily Miller has set up a "starter pack" for Lit authors.

Starter Packs are a feature on Bluesky, which allows members to create public lists of other members by any criteria they choose, making it easier for people to find those of like interests. The Literotica Authors pack currently has about thirty people listed. If you would like to be on it, contact either Emily or me.

Where are the digs?