Bluesky — is everyone getting along?
Spoiler — no.
There is a lot of animosity going on, and the skies don’t look so blue anymore. Maybe a shade of navy blue, with a small dash of blood red.
For this small analysis, I did not spend countless hours looking at my timeline (skyline) — I got the metrics from Bluesky’s underlying tech, the AT Protocol.
Let’s start with the pros and cons of ATProto.
It’s sort of public and open. I say “sort of”, because things like “Who is that user muting”? are hidden, and even extracting the block list for a user can take up to 80 seconds (!) if the account is following a lot of users.
I’m not sure if this is by design, to make some things “public” yet so painful to retrieve that it becomes untenable, or just part of the “it’s beta” stance, which albeit true, has become almost like an “excuse for everything” motto.
But enough of that, let’s take a look at some numbers.
Right now, Bluesky has 93338 users, and there are 105156 blocks. If we consider that “only” 9193 accounts are blocking someone, with an average of 11.4 blocks per account… there are some really hardcore players.
Let’s see:
handle | follows | followers | posts | unique_blocks
-----------------------------+---------+-----------+-------+---------------
bungoman.com | 155 | 474 | 644 | 2143
davidgerard.co.uk | 210 | 355 | 1692 | 905
who.bsky.social | 1 | 47 | 30 | 828
devotion.bsky.social | 37 | 42 | 61 | 657
vetyyr.bsky.social | 113 | 243 | 118 | 580
maf.tech | 208 | 66 | 0 | 554
kristen.bsky.social | 149 | 164 | 19 | 502
maeveynot.bsky.social | 205 | 122 | 515 | 445
ricky.bsky.social | 61 | 68 | 25 | 411
bsky.boo | 80 | 84 | 249 | 357
resultsphase.com | 288 | 138 | 318 | 268
mimi10v3.com | 1216 | 1650 | 4625 | 248
cageyratfish.bsky.social | 354 | 186 | 597 | 247
snubs.bsky.social | 115 | 290 | 43 | 244
surrealistship.bsky.social | 311 | 302 | 1048 | 229
awildsalem.gay | 116 | 157 | 950 | 223
melkat.blue | 17 | 4 | 2 | 214
annaressman.bsky.social | 436 | 128 | 185 | 212
estrogenenjoyer.bsky.social | 416 | 1011 | 5072 | 207
kaeru.bsky.social | 187 | 188 | 936 | 199Here we start to see some explanations for the big numbers. There is someone who is blocking 2143 accounts (I’m going to call these accounts “haters”) and some others who have 0 and 2 posts, and are blocking 554/214 accounts. Or the account that only follows 1, but blocks 828. Haters, I tell you.
When you have 66 followers and zero posts (so you’re effectively a Bluesky tourist), you surely had to spend a lot of time blocking 554 accounts. Maybe you could have spent that time posting (skeeting) and contributing. Just sayin’.
I’m not saying blocks are unwarranted — not at all. If we look at the top accounts getting blocked:
blocks | count
---------------------------+------
martinshkreli.bsky.social | 1534
gpte.bsky.social | 1431
georgesantos.bsky.social | 1190
nature.bsky.social | 1110
ohflock.me (banned) | 1079
54m.bsky.social | 984
oof.bsky.social | 975
amigarob.bsky.social | 963
discovery.bsky.social | 956
funny.bsky.social | 952
cats.bsky.social | 884
vishal.bsky.social | 872
trippy.bsky.social | 794It seems some celebrities will have a hard time with Bluesky, along with accounts that post generic images of nature, discovery (nature pics, not a Discovery official account), funny, and cats. Ah, come on, NOT CATS!
There’s a concerning and generalized feeling of “if you follow me and I don’t know you, I won’t follow back, and I will likely block you.”
Seriously — what the fuck? A new social media tool in Beta (yeah I’m abusing it too) should have people willing to try new things, and meet new people, not do the same shit that made Twitter the toxic (caustic!) environment that it is today. But instead, haters created tools to “block whoever is following more than X accounts”.
But, automated or not, it’s normal to see bursts of blocking rage if you follow the AT Proto stream (I do, sometimes — just to remind myself of how shit humans can be):
2023-05-26 10:12:42.835639 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED karlmarx.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:12:47.999470 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED tonin.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:12:51.551573 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED stephenoss.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:12:59.589888 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED larsvontrash.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:13:03.761334 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED mtfoxtrot.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:13:15.389844 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED mtfoxtrot.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:13:22.009163 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED xolomu.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:13:26.711363 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED samanthaaa.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:13:30.914133 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED pijrrh.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:14:28.762303 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED flavio.boo
2023-05-26 10:14:33.038863 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED yuion.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:14:37.695118 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED coyota.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:14:45.827793 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED mestrebuda.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:14:49.883052 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED lsanoj.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:15:18.534058 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED comradethroatzilla.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:15:54.496119 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED dammitdani.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:17:12.587904 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED cranil.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:17:22.452354 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED mustbethehero.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:17:27.605128 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED sheilaandressa.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:17:30.884730 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED luiscarlosvalois.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:17:34.796764 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED joaovitor.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:17:42.529198 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED thestarraiser.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:17:47.065096 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED jll.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:17:51.100669 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED linguaadefora.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:17:54.921128 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED lucasatayde.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:18:51.737423 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED rnraimundo0.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:19:15.059605 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED rafinha.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:23:34.615670 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED thimartinelli.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:23:38.764077 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED prx7.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:23:43.293444 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED jondagda.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:24:42.524605 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED asialeeds.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:24:50.580438 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED jaybeware.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:24:55.253036 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED queersocialism.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:25:11.377170 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED zukosmadre.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:25:16.293657 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED that-gai-gai.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:25:21.753577 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED marty.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:25:28.006077 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED marty.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:25:38.617811 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED ashoncrawley.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:25:45.413537 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:25:51.936469 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED prisonculture.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:26:28.553616 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED cbyago.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:26:32.322274 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED segunda.tech
2023-05-26 10:26:35.956437 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED pajamawitch.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:26:40.017066 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED micka.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:26:44.009978 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED buddyhead.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:26:48.743859 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED fabriciosantos.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:26:52.343681 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED fenguel.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:26:56.279156 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED theghettomonk.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:27:59.336716 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED warsaw.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:28:05.845820 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED sleepisocialist.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:28:09.542958 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED dumplingqueen.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:28:14.446037 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED somethingawful.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:28:24.409230 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED dearsarah.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:28:28.454264 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED bonner.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:28:32.195173 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED grateful42069.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:28:36.198016 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED jenniekimruby.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:28:40.654523 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED gren.is.sleepy.fyi
2023-05-26 10:28:46.771057 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED artsymarxist.bsky.social
2023-05-26 10:29:55.333653 = cererean.bsky.social BLOCKED faineg.bsky.socialAnother thing I found when looking at the above tables with the top 100+ (which I won’t share here), is that the LGBTQ+/Queer/Gay clusters of Bluesky are very visible in both lists: the ones who are blocked the most, and the ones who block the most. As opposed to, let’s say, accounts on the Japanese cluster, who don’t follow back, but also don’t block much.
It’s not all “fun and love”. As I said at the start, there is a lot of underlying animosity, and if that is clear with only 93k users, when/if Bluesky reaches 500k/1 million, things will get (more) bloody.
In the last five days, 20382 blocks were created on Bluesky.
You can always fix tech, but you can’t fix people’s innate hatred toward one another.
