This was originally posted on June 19, 2025 on an incarnation of one of my several blog manifestations this last almost year-and-a-half. It was the first post made after all of my blogs and sites went down for a bit. Now it is presented here once again:
On October 18th, 2024, or at some point around there I opened a BlueSky account at the following address:
https://bsky.app/profile/asherwolfstein.bsky.social
Eventually, I changed the handle to asher.wolfste.in so it was then:
https://bsky.app/profile/asher.wolfste.in
Not only was I fed up with Twitter because OMG… I’m not even sure what would be a good place to start. I mean, there isn’t a good place to start, it’s all bad.
However, on May 24, 2025 at 7:01 PM I was temporarily suspended from BlueSky for 72 hours.
Here was the e-mail I received:
Hi there,
A Bluesky account you control (@asher.wolfste.in) has been suspended for 72 hours.
Bluesky explicitly prohibits harassment. This includes harassment or abuse directed at a specific person or group, including sexual harassment and gender identity-based harassment. You cannot use Bluesky to break the law or cause harm to others. All users must be treated with respect.
Thank you for doing your part to keep Bluesky a welcoming and empowering place for all users. If you have any additional questions or wish to appeal this decision please email moderation@blueskyweb.xyz.
Bluesky Moderation Team
Then, shortly after that, I started experiencing posts of mine being deleted without even being notified of it like I was before, which is really underhanded. I changed my account access, unable to determine if BlueSky moderation was doing it, or someone had mysteriously gained access to my account (yikes!)
After pointing this out, and complaining about it publicly, on BlueSky, I found that I was quickly permanently suspended and told to not make any further accounts on the BlueSky service.
Was it moderation? A compromised account? Some glitch? Who knows! No further violations had been reported, my posts just disappeared and I had the audacity to say something about them disappearing at random. And then, I couldn’t post. I was just banned.
I haven’t since create any new accounts since I was permanently suspended on May 31, 2025 at 7:18 AM. Here was the e-mail I received:
Hi there,
A Bluesky account you control (@asher.wolfste.in) has been taken down for Harassment.
This takedown is not a temporary suspension. Please do not create additional accounts on our service. We will take action against any additional accounts as we become aware of them.If you have any additional questions or wish to appeal this decision please email moderation@blueskyweb.xyz.
Bluesky Moderation Team
I took their advice and attempted an appeal at that address. I have received zero response, no yes or no, no rationale, no review, not even a copy-paste rejection. Not a single reply, just silence.
I have never been suspended from any legitimate website in my life, despite posting just like I posted on my BlueSky account. It’s a very strange decision on their part.
As an example of the strangeness, here’s an e-mail I received from BlueSky on May 23rd, 2025 at 5:25 PM, one day prior to the temporary suspension. It miraculously included the content of the post I made. It was the only one that did that, and it made no sense:
Hi there,
A Bluesky account you control (@asher.wolfste.in) posted: “Well, @wyles.bsky.social, you’re right and wrong: I’m not a “basement dwelling inceloid” (is this a portmanteau of incel and mongoloid as in mongoloid idiot?), AND, I wasn’t trying to ‘hurt’ you… I was treating you like you decided to treat me. That is, unless you were trying to ‘hurt’ me?”.
This post was reviewed by Bluesky content moderators and it was identified as harassment, which is in violation of our Community Guidelines. As a result, the post has been taken down.
You cannot use Bluesky to break the law or cause harm to others. All users must be treated with respect.
Thank you for doing your part to keep Bluesky a welcoming and empowering place for all users. If you have any additional questions or wish to appeal this decision please email moderation@blueskyweb.xyz.
Bluesky Moderation Team
Hmmm… I wonder who could be complaining about that post? It’s a mystery!
My suspension, as I have expressed on Twitter, came at a very odd time narrative wise. There were a lot of various possible reasons, people, and motivations that could be behind it, and because BlueSky has remained completely opaque and haven’t responded to the numerous requests for clarification I’ve sent them, I just have to guess.
Whether anyone consciously meant to or not, I found it particularly odd that my permanent suspension came after I believe (at the time of this writing) I repeated that I was going to be uploading my entire social media archive: everything I have ever posted on social media that was recoverable. And I have just about everything.
And then boom, BlueSky permanently suspended, and lo and behold websites in disarray (deactivated). But, once again, “I’m back,” and here I am, starting slightly anew. Some would you have you believe this is another example of me shooting myself in the foot, as I always do, because I can’t get anything done to my instability.
But they’re wrong now. That may have happened to a degree in the past, but what’s happening now (or happened, and won’t again) is that I’m literally being pushed modern off “speech platforms” because people are abusing the harassment reports and other mechanisms, all while they complain that I’m “hindering their free speech rights.”
Not hyperbole, unfortunately.
That is not me shooting myself in the foot. You can go the extra mile and say that I’m ‘suffering the consequences of my speech’ and so I am ‘shooting myself in the foot,’ but that’s just a very round-about way to call for more normative compliance without looking like you are. If people hadn’t reported me repeatedly en masse for a harassment that wasn’t there (and one they themselves engage in) then I’d still be on BlueSky.
It’s the abuse of moderation systems by the very people who weaponize victimhood while accusing me of being a threat to their speech. This isn’t paranoia, hyperbole, ‘schizoposting’ rantings and ravings, or (phhsbhbhsbthbhbsttthb).
It’s the highly documented arc of what happened, and how it continues to unfurl itself.
If I’m “suffering the consequences of my speech,” it’s only because others are willing to lie about what I said in order to make those consequences happen. And frankly, if that’s the standard, then “don’t shoot yourself in the foot” as peer counselors seem to keep trying to advise their vague yet highly specific former friends (and the public, about their friend with Borderline Personality Disorder) as if they’re actually listening to be advised?
Then the advice is essentially polite authoritarianism with better manners.
I’m not the cause of The Problem™. Regarding this situation, I was never truly the cause of any problem. And that’s my singular issue with all of it. I have other issues with it, but they’re not all mine.
Anyways, as I have also mentioned on Twitter, it was all for nothing. It’s just manipulative busywork on their end (whoever they may happen to be) because it doesn’t accomplish anything of any value in the long run.
Their frantic little purge didn’t erase the data. They silenced me on that platform. That’s it. Unlike how it might to them, that doesn’t erase any of my data. I am not someone who has ever relied on someone else’s platform to achieve my goals, because, at the drop of the the proverbial hat, it could all be taken away from me in an instant.
And it was!
Given that, I have pretty much everything I’ve ever posted, right up until the suspension. Literally, moments before the suspension. I’ve lost nothing, maybe an accidental %0.1 that’s not very significant.
So, as promised, I’m republishing it. Everything I posted to BlueSky, beginning with my first post from October 2024. The format may be a little compressed—many of these are concatenated threads, because frankly some of them ran 180+ posts long, and I’m not here to inflict that on anyone unless they ask for it.
This is the beginning of that series.
Here we go.
October 18, 2024 at 1:22 PM – Non-Intimidating Ayn Rand Quote 1
…/asher.wolfste.in/post/3l6sowt3jzk2n
“Devotion to the truth is the hallmark of morality; there is no greater, nobler, more heroic form of devotion than the act of a man who assumes the responsibility of thinking.”
Ayn Rand
(NOTE: Some might tell you this is menacing and using an Ayn Rand quote to intimidate people. And it’s because, in my opinion, they’re wanting to shove into a narrative that doesn’t fit by claiming it lines up with a message I never sent. But in this first post I didn’t reply to or tag anyone. I often lead with Ayn Rand quotes on other platforms to introduce myself. You’re not special. All I have to say about that is to remind people that not every single thing somebody does is always about you, especially when it’s this generalized. Something someone does could be about you, but you do not know this for a fact. It’s not “physiologically/psychologically impossible” for this to not be true. I know 9.9)
October 18, 2024 at 1:23 PM – Non-Intimidating Ayn Rand Quote 2
…/asher.wolfste.in/post/3l6soykwqlk2m
“People think that a liar gains a victory over his victim. What I’ve learned is that a lie is an act of self-abdication because one surrenders one’s reality to the person to whom one lies, making that person one’s master, condemning oneself from then on to faking the sort of reality that person’s view requires to be faked. The man who lies to the world is the world’s slave from then on. There are no white lies. There is only the blackest of destruction, and a white lie is the blackest of all.”
Ayn Rand
October 18, 2024 at 1:34 PM – Second Life Handle
…/asher.wolfste.in/post/3l6spmkrzzh2r
kadar.talbot
(NOTE: This was in response to someone asking for Second Life handles. This is my Second Life handle.)
The Longer Threads
Some of these threads are quite verbose but pack a lot of information (despite what anyone says). Some of them deserve their own post on their own, so I’m going to honor that. This is the first of those BlueSky posts, so I’m ending it with this thread:
October 18, 2024 at 2:56 PM – Deliberate Harm (And By Extension Cruelty)
…/asher.wolfste.in/post/3l6su6qwfor2k
I’m always frustrated by individuals who claim that it isn’t in them to deliberately cause harm (to someone): it’s not part of their personality, they would never do that, they’re not capable, it’s against their nature, or it doesn’t exist within them.
If you’re a human, this is profoundly false.
Every human being is capable of deliberately causing harm given the right input: circumstances, feelings, justifications, thoughts, beliefs, etc. We choose not to deliberately cause harm (that’s the deliberate part) because it repulses us, disappoints us, we don’t believe in it, etc.
The key here is that it is a choice. It’s always a choice. Always. It’s profound when people consistently choose not to do it for whatever reason they have, perhaps their entire life. That’s profound, and that profundity is stripped away when you’re ‘incapable’ of choosing to do the ‘right’ thing.
And, you are capable of deliberately hurting people. Stop it. You are. The sooner you admit it to yourself, the sooner you can have true moral accountability and recognize your choices, because it is a choice. It’s always a choice.
For those still on the fence I present some interesting juxtapositions you might want to ponder:
You’re not capable of murdering someone, but, you are capable of shooting someone in self-defense?
You’re not capable of deliberate harm, but, you are capable of eating steak at a restaurant and generating profit for multiple companies?
You’re not capable of deliberate harm, but, you are capable of sniping back at bullies and trolls with insults?
You’re not capable of deliberate harm, but, you are capable of doing things, intentional or not, that clearly ‘harms’ someone and then never owning it, but instead ending the relationship on that note because they’re ‘toxic’?
Is it possible you’re incapable of deliberate harm because that would mean that sometimes the damage you might cause wasn’t an accident, and you can’t be the victim of various circumstances that forced that accident to happen?
Really think about it. Is it better if it’s always accidental because that means you’re a good person by ‘nature’ even though there aren’t ‘good’ and ‘bad’ people? Or is it better that you made a choice and can admit a mistake, whether the damage you caused was intentional or not?
I’m ‘that guy.’ Everything’s a choice. Everything you do while fully conscious is a choice. You don’t ‘have’ to do anything, even live. Some of us have been known to lie down and starve ourselves to death.
And your choices matter, always.
On a side note: I used to think this of myself a couple decades ago. I thought I couldn’t hurt anyone and that was at once both a weakness and some kind of moral strength, but it wasn’t. It was just avoidance of the reality that I must stand behind my choices and be responsible for them.