The grass is not that much greener on the blue sky.

The grass is not that much greener on the blue sky. As much as I would say it's definitely a better option than Twitter, they're recreating the same problems that were pre-existing in Twitter on blue sky. It's just going to be a remanufacturing of the same situation. All of the operatives have been ready and waiting for the moment when the crowds would flood over to Bluesky. So, like, they're all in place. And it's not... There's not an internet of things. There's an internet of fakes. And... I see a lot of people already passing around block lists. And let me tell you, block lists are dicey because - be cautious about taking on people's block lists. What I found out is that's the way that they shadowban people, they don't want heard. That is a real thing. That's not made up. And in fact, I believe that that's why Elon Musk wanted to get rid of the block button on Twitter, because it's, I'm not sure if it's an algorithm thing that's set up purposely or if it just is a natural outcome of the block function itself. But what happens is, is if enough people block the same account, it essentially squelches that person's ability to say or get heard or get seen, whatever. So now what I saw, and this was several, several years ago, was that there were, there was somebody who was, I don't think that the person who did it was doing it maliciously, maybe. I don't know. It's hard to say. But they distributed a block list on Twitter saying that you know, this is the list you can pre-block essentially Trumpy MAGA trolls. So that's what it was advertised for. Well, when I took it on, I found out that it blocked, progressive people who were not MAGA at all, were not Trump-associated at all, and who were, these people were Democrats, progressives, they were, in one case, it was somebody who was an actual union person, who was a legitimate, I mean, because you could say, at first I thought, well, you know, okay, so I've heard about this in other lists, and occasionally you could say, well, oh, well, You know, the person who made this block list inserted these people who claim to be progressives, but really they're controlled opposition and they're inserting X, Y, Z, bad, whatever. And they're, you know, really undermining. And that does happen. There are those people out there. There are those operatives out there. Absolutely. But the problem is, is that if you're doing that covertly by inserting them into, it's just dishonest. If you're saying that it's a MAGA Trumper thing, if you add somebody, you need to explain why you're adding somebody who's a progressive. But even so, in this case, it was like that was a union person. It wasn't like one of those union paid operatives who makes money in some PR like operation that works for political campaigns or works for unions. There are those people and some of them have behavior online that, you know, I'm not going to defend at all. But in this case, it was somebody who was in a union that was, as far as I could see, legitimate. There was no reason for them to be on a MAGA Trump block list at all, at all. So I do believe that if you get these pre-made lists and or pre-made block lists or pre-made follow lists, you're likely going to be targeted. What they do is they'll make this list and say, oh, it's all things science. So if you like science, you're going to like this. And then inserted in there is some bullshit pseudoscience crap that's actually there to sell you products. But, you know, it's kind of sifted into the whole thing. You might not... necessarily reject it immediately. So then it has time to just worm its way in with a mere exposure effect. So these are the dangers and this is a danger in any, any platform that is on engagement and also anybody who makes their living off engagement and that includes that there are people who aren't you might not realize they make their money on engagement but they are in fact paid operatives because you know people with a lot of money have a lot of money to go and pay a PR outfit and what the PR outfit does is then hires basically mercenaries or people who are independent contractors or just looking, you know, actors looking for work. All of these kinds of people sign up to be basically online sock puppet trolls, control accounts, maybe even act as themselves if they're an influencer. And they pay people to go around and, you know, promote certain ideas. And then they have ways to use all these sock puppets to go around hitting like on everything and subscribe and even paid subscriptions too. That is a thing. Like paying some... corporate PR outfit to go and subscribe to the YouTube channels and substacks and whatever that they like the message coming out of there. And of course the content creators will respond to that because you're going to chase after whatever gets you the subscribes and likes and whatever. And so there, there are going to be these people who are operatives or their content creators or their influencers who are going to say, no, no, no, you can't, you can't stop engaging now because it's so important now - more important than ever to engage, engage online. Yeah, because they're making their money off of this. And I'm not saying they're all doing this like, what is that? I don't want to say it's all jaded, cynical, or that they know it. like a lot of these people truly believe what they're doing is the right thing. And I'm not saying that they're being dishonest. They really do think that they're making money in a genuine way. And some are. I'm not criticizing all news outlets or all reporters or all content creators either because many are very good. But most of the good ones aren't telling you to spend a lot of time on a social media outlet engaging with them. That's where it gets a little bit strange. If you really want to make a difference, if you really want to connect with people, out on the open internet is not where you're going to be organizing. And that's not where the right wing organizes. You may think they do, but what they post on the open internet is for you. It's to trigger the libs or own the whatever, right. All that stuff. And then they go back to their safe spaces where you aren't invited and they give each other love and support in a cozy, comfy environment where they really have community fostered. And that's what we should all be seeking out is I would highly recommend one-on-one relationships with people. If you can connect one-on-one with somebody, that's really something, and that's really powerful. And I'm not saying have to make them your best friend, but making those one-on-one connections is what makes a difference. And if somebody just wants you to subscribe or just wants you to follow them on whatever platform or if somebody just wants you in a group chat and that's it or they only want to interact with you where there's an audience… draw your own conclusions about why that might be. Paper is the technology of the future. Be careful out there.