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Nvidia’s Profit Doubles as A.I. Chip Sales Soar

NYT Technology - Wed, 11/20/2024 - 16:48
The company, which dominates the market for chips used to build artificial intelligence, expects another big jump in the current quarter.

People are importing their lame tweets to Bluesky

Mashable - Wed, 11/20/2024 - 16:47

No, babe, your posts on X are so funny! You should totally post whatever you tweeted four years ago on a new platform in 2024. Everyone is going to love that!

A post from an unofficial "Bluesky Support" account says otherwise: "Stop importing your old tweets! they sucked the first time too!"

Some Bluesky users are reading a lot into the mere idea of importing old tweets to a new platform, saying it's a sign of narcissism or implying that people who choose to import their old tweets are living in fear of the unknown. While we all must take a deep breath and recognize that nothing is that deep, it does seem to be a trend.

SEE ALSO: I've barely used Bluesky, and the engagement already feels more real

One Bluesky user posted, "Stop importing your old tweets from 2015. No one needs to read your jokes about Taken 3, and I am trying to post! "

"In theory i support people importing their old tweets but it should only allow you to import the absolute bangers. i want that good shit ONLY," one user posted, reasonably.

"Instead of importing my old tweets, i will be posting your old bangers as though they are my own," another user joked.

SEE ALSO: Will Bluesky train gen AI with your posts? The X rival addressed concerns.

If you decide to make moves against the haters, you can import all of your old tweets — with the exception of retweets, replies, and reposts — by using the Porto Chrome extension.

As Bluesky surpasses 20 million users, beware the fake accounts

Mashable - Wed, 11/20/2024 - 16:46

Bluesky has been experiencing nonstop growth ever since election day. The alternative social media platform is starting to stand out above all of the others as users flee Elon Musk's X, formerly known as Twitter, due to changes at X as well as Musk's role in the incoming Trump administration. 

On Tuesday, Bluesky announced that it had hit 20 million users. It has also begun surpassing another big X competitor, Meta's Threads, in some key statistics as well.

SEE ALSO: I've barely used Bluesky, and the engagement already feels more real

As Bluesky continues to grow, scammers and other bad actors are going to take notice. In fact, some have already. 

Fake accounts on Bluesky

On Wednesday, for example, an account claiming to be billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman went viral on Bluesky after it published a post suggesting that Bluesky should be acquired in order to stop the user exodus from Musk's X. It was a fake. There have already been fake Gaza fundraiser accounts and fake accounts falsely claiming to be British MPs.

Of course, fake accounts are not unique to Bluesky. If you'll recall, Musk's X had to temporarily shut down its paid verification system when it first launched due to an influx of paid fake accounts. And Bluesky has been pretty good so far at quickly shutting down accounts that have been reported for breaking the platform's rules. 

However, Bluesky is fairly new. 20 million users is a lot, but it's still only 20 million users, and a lot of well-known individuals on other similar platforms are not yet on Bluesky. When an account claims to be a notable individual from another platform, even though — or perhaps because — that individual is not already established on Bluesky, users are often fooled.

No Bluesky verification

Unlike most major social media platforms, Bluesky does not currently have an identity verification system. 

Before Musk's takeover, the verified blue checkmark on Twitter was a sign of authenticity. An account was indeed who it claimed to be or represented. With the roll out of paid verification on platforms like X and Meta's Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, the trustworthiness of the verification mark has been diluted. However, seeing the value in verifying noteworthy users, many big accounts on these platforms are still provided with free verification.

Some may argue that no verification is better than a system that sells it. That may very well be the case. However, Bluesky does have a problem unique to its platform when it comes to fake accounts: Custom domains.

Bluesky's custom domain problem

When signing up for Bluesky, users pick a username which appears on the platform as "@yourname.bsky.social". Many users choose usernames that correlate with their handle on other platforms.

After signing up, Bluesky users can further alter their username by connecting their own domain name to use. When doing this, user's Bluesky usernames then become "@yourname.com". This helps customize a user's experience and, if the domain name is representative of that user, can serve as a form of verification itself. In fact, that's how Bluesky itself promotes it – a way to "self-verify."

But, when using your own custom domain name as a Bluesky username, Bluesky releases the originally registered "@yourname.bsky.social" username back into the wild, available for anyone to register. 

Some have taken the extra step of registering a separate account with that handle in order to deter bad actors from grabbing the username. However, Bluesky is fairly new, so even some of the most tech-savvy users may not realize that their original "@yourname.bsky.social" is no longer reserved for them once they set up their own custom domain username.

The takeaway, then, is that Bluesky may not be as saturated with scammers, bots, and trolls as X, but it's still just a platform on the internet, and if you're planning on spending time there, you'd better keep an eye out for frauds.

I've barely used Bluesky, and the engagement already feels more real

Mashable - Wed, 11/20/2024 - 15:46

Bluesky is still in its infancy, but the social media platform is growing fast. And it might already be a more engaging place to post than Elon Musk's X.

In case you missed it, Bluesky's growth has skyrocketed since the election. It shot to the top of the App Store and nearly doubled in growth to some 20 million users and counting. On Wednesday, it added about 8 users per second.

SEE ALSO: X users are fleeing to Bluesky: Here’s a quick-start guide on how to sign up

With that growth has come an interesting development: Bluesky might be a better place for actual engagement than X, the website formerly known as Twitter. With its choose-your-own-algorithm model, users can opt to follow the app's Discover feed, chronological Following feed, or one of the many feeds curated by other users — a formula for a better, more real experience.

I was, by most metrics, a Twitter power user. I've posted more than 28,000 times since joining in 2012 and, as a digital journalist, have used the site as a key part of my job. And, as recently as October, I wrote that while Musk's version of X sucked, I would not be leaving. I'm no longer so sure.

SEE ALSO: Elon Musk's X sucks and I'm not leaving

Setting aside moral qualms about using X — though those exist — it's become increasingly difficult to enjoy using the platform. If you refuse to pay the world's richest man for a blue check, then you'll see your engagement get throttled. God forbid, though, you have a post break through. Then your replies will be a flood of blue check replies, most of which read like bots or trolls.

Still, most of the time, posting on X seems like talking into the void. I have a few thousand followers on X, but most posts these day get very few, if any, likes. That wasn't the norm pre-Elon. And, importantly, any engagement I have gotten often sucks. A recent post that did well I pretty much immediately muted due to annoying replies. A social media site can only be flooded with spammy flotsam for so long before it takes over the experience.

On Bluesky, anecdotally, I feel like I get roughly the same amount of engagement as on X: very little. But I've barely used the platform and have just 75 followers. But any likes and replies I have gotten have been from real human beings. And my new followers? Ditto. Meanwhile, on X, my latest mention is a crypto scam and my last three follows are spammy bots.

Other folks have noticed that perhaps engagement is better on Bluesky. Here's NBC tech and culture reporter Kat Tenbarge, for instance.

Credit: Screenshot: Bluesky / @kattenbarge.bsky.social

I asked around at Mashable, as well, among folks who've used Bluesky often.

"On Twitter, I've got more than 7,000 followers. On Bluesky, I've got fewer than 2,000. But my posts feel like a ghost town on the former, while consistently getting at least a little bit of engagement on the latter," said Mashable tech and video games reporter Alex Perry. "It should also be noted that 100 percent of replies I get on Bluesky are from real people, and not blue check bots."

Mashable reporter Matt Binder, meanwhile, noted that Bluesky felt a lot like old Twitter.

"Replying to an account actually has meaning and can find you new followers and engagement. Now, on [X], it doesn't matter," Binder said. "Replies are all just blue checkmarks getting prioritized and AI-generated replies to get engagement. But the content of replies on Bluesky matters like how they did on old Twitter."

Sure, migrating to Bluesky means starting from scratch. But it also might mean more genuine engagement and using a social media site actually functioning for its users.

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