Why BlueSky is Nice: You Can Have Discussions Without Having to Deal with Dishonest People
- john raymond
- May 29
- 2 min read
In the era of algorithmic distortion and performative discourse, finding an online space where meaningful conversations can happen without interference from dishonest actors feels like a small miracle. BlueSky, the decentralized social media platform built on the AT Protocol, offers precisely this kind of reprieve—not because it has magically solved all problems of online interaction, but because it has made one key function simple, intuitive, and powerful: the block button.
At first glance, this might seem like a minor feature. Most social platforms have a block function, after all. But what sets BlueSky apart is the way its block feature functions in concert with the platform’s underlying principles. In a decentralized environment, where users control their identity and moderation services can be community-defined, the ability to quickly and easily remove bad-faith actors from your line of sight is not just useful—it’s essential. On BlueSky, blocking someone doesn’t just silence their voice to you; it recalibrates the space, preserving it as a zone for sincerity and constructive exchange.
One of the largest drains on the vitality of traditional platforms like Twitter and Facebook is the asymmetry between signal and noise. Honest users attempting to engage in thoughtful discussion are routinely interrupted, provoked, or derailed by trolls, bots, and manipulators who are incentivized by attention, not truth. Algorithms often reward these interruptions. They confuse engagement with value and allow dishonest discourse to flourish. BlueSky, by contrast, empowers users to cut through that fog—not by silencing disagreement, but by protecting the right to set the terms of your own participation.
It’s worth emphasizing: blocking on BlueSky doesn’t mean you’ve “lost an argument.” It means you refuse to be gaslit. It means you’ve decided that time and emotional bandwidth are worth protecting. It means you're curating your space, not retreating from the battlefield of ideas. In a decentralized and federated network, this is not censorship—it is sovereignty.
This is what makes BlueSky nice: not that it is utopian, but that it offers the tools necessary for users to maintain good-faith communities without constantly being pulled into conflict with the dishonest and the destructive. Civil discourse, like a garden, requires boundaries. Thank you, block function, for helping us build better ones.
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