Twitter is broken
A few months ago we wrote about the unrest and turmoil on Twitter after the change in ownership. As many of you may have noticed, things have progressively gotten worse, including
Broken search function
Algorithm favoring certain POVs
Twitter conversations bumping up bluecheck replies rather than thoughtful (liked/retweeted) posts
External links are suppressed
The new ownership also let in a lot of nasty elements back in. The bot problem is a pandemic infestation with no attempts at control any more.
You might say: I will stay within my nephrology list/echo chamber.
But even within nephrology, you will get bombarded with irrelevant and annoying replies and posts. And most importantly, a lot of med twitter and neph twitter peeps have left twitter. Or are not actively posting any more. Even for NephJC chats, we have seen the participation dwindle from the many hundred to less than 50 participants. The rich educational discussions on twitter have petered away. They may never come back.
Why BlueSky?
We have tried Mastodon (clunky interface) and Threads (terrible experience with influencer boosting, suppression of outside links and much more). Why will BlueSky be any different?
To be honest, we don’t know that BlueSky will not be enshittified. However, the CEO (Jay Garber) seems to be more self aware than Dorsey ever was. And with the AT protocol, the control that the powers that be have is much less. You do seem to own your content much more than on twitter.
How to Migrate from Twitter to BlueSky and find my NephTwitter friends?
Creating an account is simple. Go to https://bsky.app/ and signup. But any social media app is only as good as the community. One of the ways you can kick start your experience is quickly find your NephTwitter tribe. This is where the starter packs are useful. We have created (and will keep updating - so check back!) Nephrology Starter packs. They allow you to follow up to 150 peeps at one click!
Or scan these QR Codes.:
There is also a pedneph starter pack: https://go.bsky.app/DEJdD5
And a Kidney/Hypertension Journals pack: https://go.bsky.app/2BG7wKr
And a Nephrology Organizations pack: https://go.bsky.app/8cNNddS
We will keep updating here as more people join in.
If you have signed up already, you may already be in some lists/starter packs. Go to https://clearsky.app/ and type your handle to see which lists you are already in! (ignore the block list).
Who else is on BlueSky?
Apart from the usual suspects, we have a lot of MedTwitter peeps you probably know. Tony Breu, the Curbsiders, Seth Trueger, Shematologist and many more. You can find them the usual way, or check out some other starter packs below. (This is not an exhaustive list at all)
Medicine Starter packs
Round 1 go.bsky.app/Qg2TA9p
Round 2 go.bsky.app/9ziyYqt
Round 3 go.bsky.app/9WQtZh6
ID Starter packs
IDSky starter pack 1 http://go.bsky.app/LnAQjdq
IDSky starter pack 2 http://go.bsky.app/JNfSvQT
Women in Medicine Starter packs
Pack 1 https://go.bsky.app/J1wqwu5
Pack 2 https://go.bsky.app/QWPZiaj
Outside Med twitter, there are many other familiar names. Prepare to feel welcomed and surprised.
Other BlueSky tips
Much of it feels like old twitter did - or even nicer as far as the interface is concerned.
The default feed is ‘Following’ but there are other feeds automatically available - ‘Discover’ is sort of the ‘recommended’ version. But you can create and add your own feeds. Mentions, Quiet posters are other available useful feeds
We have a Nephrology and an AskRenal feed already
There are ‘block lists’ - if you subscribe to them, you can block a large swathe of trolls and other peeps you don’t want to pollute your experience (one particularly useful list here)
You have gifs - but no twitter polls yet.
https://deck.blue/ is a third party app that almost recreates the old tweetdeck like experience (but no scheduling yet, without a fee).
There are DMs (chats) but no group DMs yet.
There are hashtags!
Lots to learn if you are keen https://docs.bsky.app/docs/category/tutorials
If you have any questions or things we should be adding. Let us know.
Any community is only as good as it’s individual members. To make this successful - we need you all to join in.
Swapnil Hiremath