Today the Norwegian GDPR regulator announced a fine against the surveillance advertising company Xandr for unlawfully transmitting data on Norwegian Grindr users to "potentially thousands of companies", based on an investigation I spent a lot of time on in 2019: www.forbrukerradet.no/side/microso...
TodayStory on Bluesky
- Posts
- 142
- People
- 138
- Time
- –
- Mostly
- Tech
142 of the story’s 205 posts, best first: each person’s best post, then their other posts. We leave out exact copies and posts from people whose settings keep them off pages like this one. Page 1 of 3. The title is the name people mention most, or the opening line of the best post.
This doesn’t make me angry, but it does surprise me that it is apparently possible to exist on X today so far outside of the horrorscape that you might genuinely believe it’s not there. Perhaps the Musk algorithm has indeed gone down a bit. But let me tell you, X is *not* a cheerful place.
"The culture on X today is remarkably friendly and inclusive." If you're a middle aged white dude whose entire personality is reading Infinite Jest once a year then, sure, it's probably never been more welcoming to you. Why that might be is a mystery that no one could possibly explain.
I lurked on twitter before finally deleting the app so I could check in on friends who hadn’t gone to Bluesky and they’d all just become husks of themselves angrily replying to very obvious rage baiting bots. No idea who they’re arguing with now that Ukraine destroyed that data center
Yeah, I don't really give a shit if Merriam-Webster posts slightly more frequently on X, it's an abuse factory owned by a nazi. Bullshit the culture on X is "remarkably friendly and inclusive" when revenge porn is still being posted there. When asmondgold-types are still there. Common, get real.
In Antebellum America, there was a genre of white Northern writer who went south on river boats carrying black Americans in chains, sat at tables served by folks whose lighter skin spoke to the routine rape of Black women, and came back to swoon appreciatvely over Southern chivalry and charm.
I mean, even if you ignore all the bad shit, no one sees your posts anymore. I’d get 200 likes or reply out of 1200 followers on early Twitter, but 7 likes out of 4K people at the end. I was talking to myself, looking at an endless flux of crap. I sure as shit didn’t lose anything by leaving.
Let's go ahead and log into twitter for the first time in a few months, what do we see... 1. Add for a blue checkmark 2. Please turn on notifications 3. A hundred stories regarding James Talarico speculating if he did or didnt check into to a metal health facility. What a site!!
I walked away from Facebook last year when Meta's super-geniuses proclaimed that, despite my 16-year posting record, they had concluded that I was a bot, and needed to verify my humanity for them. My life has turned out to be much better without it.
bluesky isn’t beating the “methadone twitter” allegations, but real twitter died a long time ago. X is fantastic if you want to keep relitigating the same beef about podcast personalities and movement politics we were having a decade ago. i want to look to the future; there is no future for X
I think the wildest thing about being post-twitter is that you can tell, just in regular conversation, when someone still uses it. There’s an underlying anger and a like… disconnect regarding what people actually think/care about?
John Gruber attacked an extremely well respected OSS maintainer by name months ago; he’s sucked for a while and I don’t think any serious person gives his opinions much weight these days
I loved Twitter a lot (and Bluesky even more) but I also think the 'follower count' mindset has been bad for a lot of journalists, who get the false notion that 'followers' are like an auditorium filled with eager listeners When Musk carried his dumb sink into Twitter hq that was it for me
Exiting Twitter was one of the best decisions of my life. I am close to doing the same with Threads, which I barely use and has quickly become Zuck's downscale version of ragebait-filled X. Bluesky and Instagram has been good experiences.
V2.41 of the Microsoft Graph #PowerShell SDK introduced some problems for Azure Automation runbooks. Here's how to maintain production runtime environments and update different versions of the Graph SDK modules with PowerShell. office365itpros.com/2026/10/12/m... #Microsoft365
Can echo this sentiment (though at a much smaller, more niche scale)! I thought leaving Twitter would impact my reach and my livelihood. Nope! Turns out organic engagement still wins out over bot-bloat.
I took a risk completely leaving twitter (it's where i made my following first) but it was 100% the right call. I've not lost any traffic to my Patreon/commissions, i've grown my twitch following AND my mental health has improved so much!
I had posts that supposedly had over a million impressions. Several dozen national reporters followed me For a few years it may have been worth fighting it out on the Musk site But his increased Nazism & the increasingly malevolent algorithms made it pointless to stay there
Twitter is the only app where folks and bots have actively organized to dox and work to get Lydia and myself fired from our brokerage. Also I don't concede the framing.
i’ve been saying for months that the experience at x dot com the everything app is *much* different than you remember—but while all the horrible shit is no longer surfaced for you, it’s all still there (and much worse and more plentiful), never more than the wrong click or search away
Engh, the racism and nazi stuff on Twitter are still right there, but I do think Twitter will outlast the exodus. Threads took the FB/IG crowd (along with a lot of slop). And BlueSky took a lot of politics, but too many news & sports outlets were too lazy to leave so people are going back.
> The culture on X today is remarkably friendly and inclusive. It is a cheerful place. That cheerfulness is another differentiator. bluesky has a lot of problems but twitter is the only place i really see people running around calling people trannies in public. must be nice tho to be welcomed by X
There’s context missing here, which is that a whole clique of Apple influencers (macstories, marco arment and so on) have been quietly going back to the everything app after very loudly leaving a couple years ago. Gruber is just giving his friends a permission slip
I'd argue that they should have run a tender with rules and deadlines if they want it hosted externally, but that's just details. The bottomline is the missing transparency in the decision making.
Good read, as someone who mains Bluesky and fedi. People need to step away from social media in general (including Twitter) and step into reality, and both Bluesky and fedi made me realise I should. I also know a good friend who was on fedi and Bluesky, and ended up using Twitter instead.
White guy: “The culture at the Nazi bar today is remarkably friendly and inclusive.” No it isn’t. There are non-Nazis having “normal” conversations there, but they’re choosing to do so in a Nazi bar. If you like hanging out in a Nazi bar, don’t be surprised when people judge you for it.
So many talented indie devs are here on BlueSky. I think John Gruber could amplify them. Instead, he promotes X as a platform with “more action”. It’s disappointing. I deleted my 5K-followers account on X after Elon’s (double!) Nazi salute. My great-grandparents were killed by Nazis during WW2.
Privacy win: Norwegian Authority fines Microsoft’s Xandr € 8.5 Million
Longtime reader of DF, and I _get_ that X is where some vital conversations about tech are happening. It is what it is. But to borrow & tweak the words of a friend: not everyone on X is a Nazi. All of them are people for whom the Nazism isn’t a dealbreaker.
So, yes, the ethical case for leaving Twitter was what convinced me, but honestly I probably would have slipped and succumbed to temptation to return by now if I hadn't put in the effort to go and get myself banned:
The reason Gruber likes Twitter is because he’s a fascist-sympathizing cunt. A month ago he also said that Apple & Google were not in the wrong when they followed Trumps “declaration” to change the name of Lake Ontario. If you *go back* to Twitter at this point youre either evil, a grifter, or both
I'll believe that Twitter has regained its juice of yore when I see tweets escape velocity again by being posted outside Twitter. Ten years ago you'd see main character/funny tweets on reddit, Facebook, Instagram, message boards, etc.
This is absurd. Twitter is far worse now than prior to Musk's takeover, even if you ignore how the site's demographics have changed. Far more arbitrary suspensions and now you basically need to use a mobile phone to sign up, which is ridiculous.
As a former Image Board creature, there are things I saw on X regulary browsing before I left that I would have considered a shocking lack of moderation on most 4chan boards in 2009. I think people have frog boiled themselves into thinking things that are unacceptable are normal.
"Oh no, it turns out someone called you potentially maybe not cis as a joke when you are cis" what the fuck are you even saying man shut the gfuck up as opposed to what? Intentionally calling a trans woman a man or a trans man a woman? Gtfo with this bullshit dude
It's not even the ethics of it. My career, my hobbies, my free time, hell, my whole life took off once I fully left Twitter. It is a place to go if you want to be stuck in a neverending race war feedback loop. Like not using ChatGPT, not using Twitter is a superpower. Remain employable; stay off it.
Quite obvious to me and apparently not those who remain on that site they are in an actual bubble because they want be told what they want to hear and want the attention for it. Their accusations about us being in a bubble is them projecting their shit onto us. There’s no free thought on that site.
My question to anyone who chooses to be on X remains: Is there anything Elon Musk can do *outside of his capacity of CEO of X* that would cause you to stop using the site? Does a red line exist for you or do you find the question nonsensical?
“Leaving won't change anything." Researchers found nearly half of Instagram users would be better off if it didn't exist, and they'd pay to have everyone quit together. Most people want out. They’re waiting for someone to go first. #DeleteMeta bfi.uchicago.edu/insight/rese...
Twitter was my favourite platform and I didn't hesitate to leave as soon as Musk stepped in. I could see where it was going and it amazingly got worse. I also have no time for authors who mainly post there.
last time I tooled around on a brand new X account it took me less than a minute to hit a high-octane slur, but I thought, hey, maybe John’s right and it’s changed. had a stopwatch going this time, 73 seconds
One of the frustrating things about Bluesky*, is that for all the correct posts about Twitter being a misinformaiton hellscape is that users here are often just as bad about sharing misinformation. It's just that it aligns to their views instead. *Or the entire internet, I guess. 🫠
I can’t imagine how bad X is doing financially. At least half the ads are house ads for Starlink and SpaceX merch. The other half is mostly DTC products. The only mainstream brand I’ve seen is the Wall Street Journal. I even saw one for a tobacco product.
100% this. Twitter was my LinkedIn - I was on it from not long after launch - and leaving had a tangible negative effect on my livelihood. But the more time passes, the more I'm left with absolutely zero doubt that it was the right decision.
I know a LOT of Black, trans, disabled, fat, and ND people who still use X & who are absolutely far stronger pracitioners of revolutionary and liberatory politics than many of the folks on Bluesky. It might be that some of us have a lot more experience living & thriving under oppression.
Congrats I guess. Enjoy feeding Elon’s CSAM generator your data. Instead of actually using your position of influence to help push more of a defection, you’re declaring victory for X and acting like it’s diagnosis rather than exactly the kind of thing that produces the reality.
The owner of X, and its most-followed individual, posts extremely hateful and racist content near-daily. Seems pretty dishonest to not even acknowledge that and how, outside of your personal feed and outside your lived experience, it may be significantly harming people that you do not see.
It's really not hard to just not use things, I stopped using Twitter in like 2020 or so, I don't use insta or facebook or tiktok at all, I'm only really here because it's got trans people and sportsball posting...
I run a science communication consulting business. I built it on Twitter. Since Musk took over, it’s been professionally unusable and unpleasant. Getting off of there has been an easy ethical and professional choice.
I agree with this, but it’s astonishing that we’re still having this conversation. Musk’s X is the losers lunch-table, occupied only by Nazis and try-hard desperados.
