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Summary of a news piece in Science on an alternative for Twitter for scientific researchers quoting Prof Tulio de Oliveira view on the use of X and Bluesky.

Adam Kucharski asked his Twitter followers: What platform do you think you will be spending the most time on a year from now? Like many scientists on Twitter, Kucharski, a mathematical modeler of infectious diseases, was increasingly frustrated with changes to the platform since Elon Musk bought it in October 2022. But of the more than 1300 people who responded to his poll, the vast majority expected to keep posting on Twitter, which was renamed X just 2 weeks later. About one-quarter were banking on Threads, Meta’s Twitter rival. Only about 7% chose Bluesky.

Now, that has changed, in a big way. Although academics mostly stuck with X in the year after the poll, Bluesky has rapidly emerged as the new online gathering place for researchers, Kucharski among them. They are drawn by its Twitterlike feel, welcoming features, and, increasingly, the critical mass of scientists in many fields who have already made the move. “The majority has spoken, and researchers are moving en masse” to Bluesky, says De-Shaine Murray, a neuroscientist at Yale University who has also migrated to Bluesky.

Bluesky started as a research project at Twitter, but after Musk’s takeover it severed all ties with the company and launched as a social app in February 2023. At first, it could only be joined by invitation and growth was slow. When it opened to the public this February, Bluesky had

3 million users. But by 5 November, the day of the U.S. elections, the platform had nearly 14 million users. Two weeks later it has passed 20 million. (X has more than 500 million.)

For scientists the network is starting to look like home. Academic institutions, scientific journals and conferences, and international organizations such as the World Health Organization have established a presence there in recent days. The platform has become so popular that on Monday, Altmetric, a company that tracks where published research is mentioned online, urged publishers to implement a “share to Bluesky” button like those to share content to Facebook, X, or LinkedIn that many websites feature.

“Old Twitter” refers to the platform’s earlier role as a hub where scientists could talk to one another, distribute and discuss preprints and published papers, post job openings and conference invitations, and communicate their research to the public. “I could go on there for 15 minutes and I would know what the trending papers in infectious diseases and virology were just by looking at the timeline,” says Emory University virologist Boghuma Titanji.

Some early adopters of the platform also laid the groundwork for specific communities to thrive, Murray says. One user, Rudy Fraser, started blacksky, a collection of Black-centered feeds that uses volunteer and automated moderation to filter out racist posts, for instance, and neuropharmacologist Monica Javidnia helped build the

Not everyone supports the flight to bluer skies. “Some people feel like we’re ceding ground to disinformation and we’re abandoning the people that need to have voices countering misinformation,” Schwartz says. Tulio de Oliveira, an infectious disease researcher based in South Africa, is staying put. “I am staying on X, because I believe that it is important to still have scientific views and information on the platform.”

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, a particle physicist and writer at the University of New Hampshire, understands that concern. “I do see why some people focused on public health and the environment might feel they have to stay and try,” she says. But with X’s changing algorithms, “It is pretty difficult to challenge disinformation and get in front of the eyes of people who are susceptible to it.”

Most researchers leaving X are keeping their accounts there for now, in part to keep their usernames from being taken up by others and used to spread more misinformation. Hayhoe says she occasionally logs into X, mostly to invite some remaining colleagues to move to Bluesky. The last time she checked, half her messages were from people saying they had abandoned ship, she says. “It’s a ghost town.”

Read full article: https://www.science.org/content/article/old-twitter-scientificcommunity-finds-new-home-bluesky

This news piece was published in the gem, January 2025

Click on the image above to read the gem, genomics, epidemics & microbes Vol 8 Issue 1, Jan 2025, or scan the qrcode.

News date: 2025-02-09

Links:

https://issuu.com/the.gem/docs/the_gem_-_african_stars_fellowship_-_vol_8_-_issu?fr=xKAE9_zU1NQ