I actually don't know what you are talking about.

I presume he’s saying that Bluesky’s a very left wing social media platform.

Calling NYT left wing is patently absurd.

They've spent the past 4-8 years platforming writers to say absolute horseshit about trans people and equivocate between Biden having like 6 leftover classified documents in his house vs Trumps bathroom of for sale state secrets.

Everything that doesn't worship the Emperor is left wing these days.

Believe it or not, plenty of left wingers have a bone to pick with the East Coast traditional media establishment as well, NY Times in particular.

And the traditional media also seems to have a symbiotic relationship with Trump, whose chaos drives news ratings.

NYT journalists are in a different class from random Bluesky users — if they spread unfounded conspiracy theories on their corporate-approved account, they can be fired from their jobs.

Put another way, a Bluesky post saying "BREAKING: Trump dies from natural causes" from an employed NYT journo carries a different salience than the same post from a random Bluesky user.

>if they spread unfounded conspiracy theories on their corporate-approved account, they can be fired from their jobs.

Or… you know… win a Pulitzer.

Correct. I'd like the example of NYT as a verifying authority better if I trusted the Times more than I trusted some of their journalists (blessed few, mind you).

I think it's pretty hilarious that the Times, of all people, count as 'trusted'. It makes me automatically distrust BlueSky verification, which doesn't sound like the intention.

It’s not that you need to trust the New York Times as a whole, it’s that you can trust that account is linked to that organisation. A verification tick does not imply endorsement, just that they are who they say they are.

That would be nice, I guess. In normie world a blue tick is supposed to mean 'vouched for and trustworthy, also high status so you should maybe show deference'. You can say it means whatever you want, but then watch how people fight for these things and argue about/rebel against them.

In practical terms, no, they are status markers.

If you're treating a "this person is who they say they are" checkmark as a status symbol, that's a you problem.

That’s the problem with a lot of people, tho. They DO give deference to the checkmark.

> I think it's pretty hilarious that the Times, of all people, count as 'trusted'.

Why? Who do you trust?

I look at all media organizations skeptically. There are so many ways to distort the truth besides outright lying, and I notice this with the Times - both in what they choose to cover and their tone when covering.

With that said, the Times is one of the better media orgs. But IMO they should very much not be trusted blindly.

My media diet is a blend of various sources: The Atlantic, The Economist, The Free Press, Reason, Semaphore, Politico, New Statesman, and Axios. Even the Drudge Report sometimes.

I wish I had more right-leaning sources to follow, but I often find their content inflammatory and rage-bait-ey (before anyone complains that liberal media does this too, yes, I agree. HuffPo and similar are cancer.)

I agree in that it's important to take it all skeptically. Also I avoid anything that exists to further a particular cause.

> I wish I had more right-leaning sources to follow, but I often find their content inflammatory and rage-bait-ey

Agreed. I recommend David French, the NYT columnist; easily the best I've read.

From my experience you can better spent time reading history than news.