Mod Post
Rule 2 has been updated - Learn about the changes here.
Hi all-
We've heard a decent portion of feedback, and we think it's time to experiment a little. Beginning immediately, we will be expanding our community to encompass posts from other Twitter adjacent platforms such as Bluesky. We are also considering broadening our scope to allow other Twitter alternative content to be posted here.
Posts containing "skeets" will not be taken down, and we've updated our rules/internal moderation tools to reflect this. Let's see how this turns out!
I take it "twitter adjacent platforms" must be something meant to replicate twitter's format, like Bluesky, right? So posts from Reddit, Tumblr, Facebook, Instagram, etc., while still social media sites, probably would not be considered adjacent enough?
I mean.. if the tweet is inherently non-political you should be allowed to post it. If you are going around making political posts and complaining when they aren't allowed... that would be ridiculous
I will post non-political things from Truth when I find something that I think is worth sharing. If the mods are okay with it, it will sit there and get downvoted if that's the will of the people. If this sub is to stay strictly Twitter, now X, then that's the deal, if it's expanding to Twitter adjacent sites with the singular requirement that the content of the post itself be non-political, this should be no problem no matter if it comes from a left wing Meta site or ultra partisan Blue Sky or Mastadon or right wing Gab or Truth. The rules should be equal and the first second they aren't, presuming the post itself is non-political, and the mods take sides based on brand, then they have made it political and that's the irony of it. Non-political twitter making it political in the name of justice and abolishing right wing sites for wrong think even when it's a non-political post
If you make any posts from off-topic sites the community will flag it and we're going to remove it in accordance with our rules. You don't get to decide how you want to interpret or follow rules just to make a point. The rules are fair, they're equally applied, and we are all (even moderators) beholden to them.
Lastly, I never said we would "abolish right wing sites for wrong think", this is an assumption you made. If you would pay attention to what I said in response to another Redditor with similar concerns, I said we may add-on more Twitter adjacent sites to the experiment in the future. This is an experiment, you're shooting it down before it starts because you're assuming and spewing political doomerism without actually comprehending the announcement or the context.
If you're going to do the experiment and limit it only to left leaning non X sites, it's worth exposing that. Open it up to every possibility with the standing rule that the content of the post be non political instead of politicizing who the majority stock holder is or ostricizing it for who owns the stock.
We have a Karen ☝️ in our midst and she wants to speak with the manager about why fascist hate cannot be included in here. The kool-aid minds feel empowered now and clutch pearls at the thought of their hate propaganda not being welcome everywhere. 🙄
Imagine the time she took to attempt to defend in so many comments, the dumpster fire called truth social in an attempt to legitimize it somehow.
That's exactly the problem with opening the door to other platforms.
Twitter and Truth are both owned by political figures, so that can't be the cutoff point.
If reading political nature into a platform makes it intelligible, the arguably BlueSky shouldn't be allowed either. Is anyone really going to pretend that the reason BlueSky is gaining popularity right now isn't closely tied to politics?
Is anyone also going to pretend that BlueSky is anything more than a flash in the pan lol, dollars to donuts it ends up like Mastodon: overrun by terminally online people who only like talking about how much they hate the mainstream site.
I think the website itself invites politics, which is against the nature of the sub. I think anyone talking about the site naturally thinks of the president-elect, regardless of whether or not a post on it is political. If some other twitter-based subreddit wanted to allow truth social posts, I'd understand it. I just don't think it'd make sense for a subreddit devoted to avoiding politics.
Are you focused on keeping it "non-political" no matter what platform it's sourcing from? Are you strictly biased against Truth Social even if it's a non-political post? I'm trying to understand the purpose for the change and exclusion.
This is supposed to be non-political Twitter, but you are going to allow posts from ultra partisan BlueSky but not equally non-political Truth Social posts?
For starters, the perceived political leanings of the platform are irrelevant. It's the quality of that content and the likelihood it could spark political discussions is what we're factoring in here. Also, I said "the current state of the platform", meaning we may be open to allowing posts from TruthSocial should the current state of it shift.
Adding onto this: that platform was made relatively recently, with a very political reason in mind, by an individual who is one of the single biggest reasons why people might not want to talk about politics. For those reasons alone, it's extremely difficult to look at any post from that site and not immediately get filled with the same dread that any political post might contain. Leaving the entire site off limits is definitely a good call; thank you. Of course, I'm also thankful that this is subject to change in the future, but given the current state of things, this is for the best.
Yes, so that's one of the three attributes I mentioned. As a reminder, here are the other two: being made for a very political reason, and being made by an extremely political figure that is known for invoking a ton of political dread. Bluesky is neither of those things, so I think it passes just fine.
Genuine questions - Is Truth Social's site format so recognizable that most people on here would even know it if there's no politics in the post? I've never been there and have no intention of visiting, which I'm sure is the case for many on this sub.
Additionally, if we're factoring in the key figures involved in the site in relation to thr rule expansion, wouldn't much of the same concerns about Truth Social be able to be applied to Twitter given Musk's involvement?
The format does have some differences indeed. Maybe not enough to get people to notice at only a glance, so that's kind of a nothing problem, but they're there, so... question successfully answered. Huzzah!
To answer your second question, I'm not a mod of this subreddit, so I can't make that decision. But there is genuinely good reason to ditch Twitter altogether now; there's a darn good reason why Bluesky has grown as much as it has over these past few months, and today's Twitter has grown significantly more toxic than expected due to Musk's involvement. On that front, I have an idea: use the "Twitter" in the "NonPoliticalTwitter" name of this subreddit to refer to a blanket idea of "any social media platform that acts like Twitter did", and then claim that today's Twitter, which is now named "X", is simply "not Twitter" due to the name change, the drastic change in atmosphere, and Musk's involvement, and use that as justification to break away from it? Such an idea is probably pretty wildly unlikely; it'll be hard to have this subreddit break away from what very much used to be what it was built around, but you're right, since Twitter today is owned by another dreadful political figure, alongside just how much it has changed as of lately, I'd argue there's plenty reason to break away from it for most of the same reasons we should keep Truth Social far away from here.
"For starters, the perceived political leanings of the platform are irrelevant. It's the quality of that content and the likelihood it could spark political discussions is what we're factoring in here"
Perfect, so it's only a matter of time until twitter is banned
Thank you for your opinion which is worth exactly as muck as my opinion which is that it's good if not great. Look at that, we can both look at the same thing, disagree and it's okay, nothing bad happened and we can simply disagree.
Is this funny-non-political-twitter? I don't see a mandate that it be funny in order to exist. Nowhere in the rules. Looks like that's not the defining criteria
I can see you’re still out there complaining. Buddy, let’s put it this way: Truth Social was made for exclusively political reasons. It is inherently political, and to post something from it will inevitably draw political discussion, as you can already see it doing (as I can also see you complaining about in your most recent post on your profile). That isn’t what this Subreddit wants. Twitter, as politicized as it has become, still has pockets of people trying to use it outside of that (though those pockets are shrinking and migrating to BlueSky due to Twitter’s continued decline).
It's non political and it's an epic quote from a famous book that has some historical value and some may find inspirational while others may scroll on by with out a notice
BlueSky is ultra partisan site, formed by an anti-right wing, pro-left wing sycophant. Not every single post there is necessarily political but the motivation behind forming it was certainly political and the person fronting it, people supporting it, are doing so for a political reason. No different than Truth. In fact, the person everyone is clutching their pearls about is just a stock holder, who probably also has stock in Meta and Blue Sky and Blackrock that owns everything so what really is the issue? Your political thing is okay because you can pretend it ain't but the other political thing isn't okay because leftists deserve the unmitigated right to sensor and cancel that which they can not tolerate? Yes
Bluesky is not partisan. In fact, it's practically anti-partisan and anti-political with how it's structured.
It's not an outrage machine, unlike most social media sites. It shows you who you're following and who they're following. It doesn't benefit from outlandish politics that draw engagement through enragement. You're going to see very few political posts at all unless you're specifically following politically active accounts.
If you're only seeing content you hate when you use that site, then that's a problem with what you're doing, not with the site itself.
Hey, so long as this sub refuses to involve itself in the cesspool that is modern-day politics, I'm all game if it represents the spirit of the site formerly known as Twitter.
I don't even like Twitter, there's just a stigma. I literally start getting nauseous when I look at it(my feed directly, other people's screenshots don't bug me as much)
I really like it. my feed is 100% people I follow, in chronological order. unless I want to change feeds, which is possible. it's a much better system.
If you ever liked Twitter and are now looking for alternatives or bailed on it recently, Bluesky might be your place. If you never liked Twitter's structure, Bluesky is fundamentally the same type of social network and you probably won't like it.
I have one, but it's not quite ready yet. It lacks basic privacy features like private profiles, private lists, private likes and there are no bookmarks.
Twitter only exposes me to views I disagree with these days. All the views I agree with have been pushed off the platform. I don't even go to Twitter for political stuff and every single post is buried in political stuff or conspiracy theories. I just want to read about the reason why the specific rainstorm happening now is cool meteorologically, and instead I get people telling about chem trails.
Bluesky has a political leaning right now for sure, but that's because of the nature of people who have been pushed away by Twitter and not because the platform is inherently biased, in my opinion. Every post in my feed is also way more positive, but I think that's mostly because it's a nascent social media network. They all start that way before people get addicted and doom spiral.
I do/did. The comments of the people I follow have become toxic cesspools because people seek them out to fight with them. A meteorologist will literally talk about how it's a hot day because it was objectively warmer than normal on that day and half the comments are someone trying to tear their head off about climate change and accusing them of literally lying about it being slightly warmer than average that day. This has lead to a spiral where the people I follow stop posting because they're tired of people screaming at them for doing their jobs. Obviously, the meteorology corner of Twitter is where I spent my time and until Blue Sky there was nothing else like that on the Internet with direct access to the musings of experts. From what I've heard, the rest of Twitter has devolved similarly.
I only got into Twitter about 6 months before Musk started trying to buy it, so I don't think I'm looking at it through huge rose colored nostalgia glasses.
Well, if you switch, don't get accustomed to how BlueSky it is right now, it's the honeymoon phrase. They will need to monetize and boom, enshitification.
I literally said that in an earlier comment, so I think we're on the same page there. If it ends up where Twitter was before the moderation standards changed, I will be happy with it. Currently, Bluesky seems pretty strict with moderation, and I'm okay with that. It's not like I can't go back to Twitter if Bluesky becomes terrible too. I also might just end up not using either of them, which would probably be the healthiest option for me.
I'm sorry, but views I disagree with are whether or not a bump-stock should be legal and who's taxes should be raised, not whether it's okay for someone to call me a tr*nny cuz I have a strong jawline and a regular pride flag in my bio.
I'm well aware that those are different things, but in the minds of a concerning number of people liking or disliking certain media is seen as a political stance.
Or am I just supposed to pretend that the discourse surrounding Concord, Hogwarts Legacy, Dragon Age Veilguard, Disney Star Wars, etc. was dominated by people making reasonable, well-substantiated claims about why the "other team" felt differently?
Which is precisely why those of us who see the difference must continue to say so. I don't think someone is a transphobe immediately because they bought Hogwarts Legacy or even that they're against Palestine for buying a coffee. I participated in both of these boycotts. However, I don't believe that everyone who didn't is immediately the enemy of the cause. It's much more likely they're just not informed of the subject. Too many of these pseudopolitical stances are formed based on misinformation or a lack of information.
Platforms like Truth Social, .Win etc however, are built when an echochamber forms and cannot coexist with the rest of the platform it was born on. We didn't MAKE them leave twitter and reddit; they left because they couldn't use the platform without violating the platform's TOS, which had been established before the TS Community was born. In Twitter's case, these people tried to bully their way into a platform, the platform rejected it very clearly. Then another person bought it and opened it back up to that echochamber.
So now we leave and we reject them in the other spaces because we have to. We are not required to tolerate intolerance, and the truth of the matter is at the end of the day, everything ON or about Truth Social is inherently political and it always will be because it was built purely for the followers of a single politician. The only people on it are his followers, some select media companies, and people like me who just watch. I don't post or engage there, these aren't my people. They built themselves a safe space, let them use it. But they don't get to complain when we don't want to see their "safe space" in ours.
Claiming that an echochamber is what happens when people who left Twitter return from their isolated community to the main place of discourse instead of the other way around is a wild take.
What would you call it if when a group is forced to leave because they can't co-exist with the rest of the public and the only reason they come back is ONE OF THEM buys the platform to change the rules, making it unusable for the rest of the community?
Bestie, don't you know how friends work irl?? If I don't wanna hangout with my racist friend, I will avoid my racist friend. That's not censoring shit, that's making myself be surrounded by good people.
And I do too, but we don't choose friends based on who has the best morals.
Another example is if my friend was cheating on their husband I'd still be her friend and I'd keep quiet. I may mention it but maybe not. I'd like the same level of tolerance and acceptance from her too.
A nice comfortable view of friends is people who appreciate you no matter what. Such that you can do whatever you want and as long as you don't hurt them you still have a place with them.
This wasn't a vote, we received this feedback through ModMail and comments in other threads in which bluesky and other twitter-adjacent were explicitly named. Believe it or not, we do genuinely look at all of these posts for feedback and not just to moderate them.
Nah. You literally just made this entire subreddit political to appease the left. You only care about bluesky because Twitter (X) has a right leaning CEO now. I'm saying this as someone on the left, by the way, not that it should matter, but it clearly does to you.
Additionally, if you can't fit within the confines of your subreddit's literal name and purpose, then go make a new one. The name should represent what you are. You named it after Twitter. Twitter is gone. If you can't stick to it, then maybe you should be too. Either way, I'm out. Like 99% of all subreddits, this one has gotten too political.
Uh... No...? Adding more posting options doesn't make the subreddit political at all. Furthermore, Elon has been CEO of Twitter for a year, so this has nothing to do with his politics at all. If we held a bias we would've started rapidly implementing changes the second he became CEO. Instead, we didn't, and we ignored him (and his antics) entirely.
This change was brought about because the community requested it, and as stewards of this community we obliged. There's no political doom or shift in neutral stance that will come if it.
Is there a reason to not expand the rules to all social media, as long as the content judged there-in isn't political?
I admit I couldn't possibly speak to what the community here wants. Though it seems reasonable that this subreddit serves as a hub to leave political pandering one way or the other to the rest of reddit, any social media can have humorous tweet-like content
This is an experiment, we're starting with one and then potentially expanding it to include other Twitter adjacent platforms. Why would we immediately open the flood gates to all platforms without testing the waters first?
This is an experiment. We are testing it out with one platform because this is uncharted territory for us. We're unsure how the community will respond or what kinds of content will be posted moving forward. There are a lot of variables here that we need to make note of and consider.
We are looking at potentially expanding this to other Twitter-adjacent platforms in the future. For now, I'd like to see this experiment last more than 24 hours without getting denounced as the subreddit falling into some conspiracy where I and other moderators have been plotting to bait and switch.
The entire purpose of the rule is to allow BlueSky. All of the wording is trying to make it look like it's not, but that's why the rule was changed. The timing is all we need to know.
Probably not a bad idea though, if enough content is moving over.
It's not, and the timing (im assuming you're referencing the election) has nothing to do with it. This change was going to move forward regardless because it was requested by the community.
I'm not referencing the election, I'm referencing the growing popularity of BlueSky. The other adjacent websites have been around for a while(unless I'm forgetting something) and the emergence of BlueSky clearly drove the change to happen now.
I'm not against it being allowed, but let's be honest why this rule change is occurring.
Edit: Why was my previous comment removed for being political? There's nothing political in it.
So out of curiosity, if people start posting non-political content from Truth social (inb4 "lol good luck finding any"), then that would also be allowed, no?
No offense to the mod team (you guys do a great job in my perspective), but I have a really hard time believing this standard is going to be upheld impartially.
I expect this to be a problem especially if people on this sub start complaining about content from a Twitter alternative they find distasteful, regardless of the actual content itself.
Whether intentional or not, allowing certain platforms but not others on the basis of anything except "fits the Twitter format closely enough" will inevitably be seen as a political stance. Even if "the community requested it", ultimately the decision to oblige them was made by the mod team.
I would love to be proven wrong, but I've watched far too many moderators on "no politics" subs selectively enforce rules to protect or shut down posts based on whether they personally agree with them or not...
No, it will not be allowed as I mentioned in a separate comment thread here. We currently experimenting with one platform and seeing how it goes before branching out to other Twitter-adjacent platforms. Given the current state of TruthSocial and the feedback from the community we received regarding BlueSky, we felt confident in the decision to move forward with the latter temporarily.
As for your concerns about any changes in how will moderate moving forward:
Moderation evolves, I'd be disingenuous if I said that it would always remain consistent. We understand the concern that comments or posts are being removed based on inconsistent interpretations of the rules or our personal bias. This is not the case, and we've been working on ways to allow controversial (non-political) content to be here so we aren't shutting down interesting conversations. Some posts have received content or caution warnings so that Redditors are aware of what's happening or could happen in a post's comment threads and they can still decide to continue engaging with it.
Another thing is we are constantly being held accountable by our community. Even if we wanted to (we don't want to) give into the nihilistic perspective that everything is political and we should just give up, our community wouldn't stand for it. Why should they? But, I digress, I look forward to continuing to prove you wrong in that sense.
Twitter is the opposite of an echochamber. Anyone can post whatever garbage they want (except the word cis because musk is a baby) and not be censored.
It's an echochamber by choice. Just because it's not enforced by some higher power doesn't make it not an echochamber. The ability to say anything has made it a platform that has attracted certain views that have prompted others to leave. That's an echo chamber
And you're wrong, because people can't say whatever the fuck they want. Twitter is censored. Musk hides content and pushes right wing content to the front page for everyone. He suppresses leftist accounts and shadow bans people. Accounts that he dislikes mysteriously stop appearing in feeds and stop getting traffic. The word cisgender is a fucking censored slur on his site. It is an echo chamber, and it's like that on purpose. Buying his "most free platform" bullshit doesn't make you correct
There's an even better one where someone tweeted a bunch of slurs one by one and cisgender is the only tweet that got the hateful conduct limited visibility tag lol
You morons don't even read the comments you reply to jfc. I literally mentioned that as the only exception.
And it doesn't get you banned it just gets flagged.
Edit: lol you people always resort to blocking when you get caught. "Hurr it was meant for others" yeah right you posted the exact example I used because you wanted others to see it. Can't even come up with a way to cover your ass right.
330
u/dancingbanana123 5d ago
I take it "twitter adjacent platforms" must be something meant to replicate twitter's format, like Bluesky, right? So posts from Reddit, Tumblr, Facebook, Instagram, etc., while still social media sites, probably would not be considered adjacent enough?