CEO @ The Atlantic | Co-Founder, Keynote Speaker
The most interesting thing in tech: the wild, recent growth of Bluesky as liberals have turned against X and its politics. It’s a peculiar company: founded as an independent decentralized side project inside of Twitter. But it’s changing political social media more quickly than anything I’ve seen before and may break the hold that X has had as the town square for political social media for the last decade.
Logging into Bluesky today, I noticed it’s starting to feel a bit like an echo chamber leaning heavily to the left. It was mostly political commentary (often lacking nuance or factuality) interspersed with the occasional striking photo of a snow owl. It makes me wonder about the platform’s trajectory and diversity of discourse.
- meanwhile - im watching the game behind you - 😜! Ok - ill go check out bluesky. While we’re on it, what happened to threads?
Nicholas Thompson, decentralization sparks dynamic shifts in tech landscapes. Eye-opening perspectives emerge.
Will Page
3w
Nicholas Thompson wait a minute. I don't buy the X (and Threads) pain is Bluesky Social gain narrative. Based on SensorTower, global MAU is down 25% globally (ditto US) but it is still 80 times the size of Bluesky Social - whose global MAU is still below the adult population of Scotland. Meanwhile Threads IS growing faster. Now remember Elon ripped out the bots that were cooking X books - how much of that decline was bots. We have to be careful about assuming the downward trend is deserters. Quality not quantity - average sessions per week on Blue Sky are just above 30, whereas on X they're closer to 60. I think there are two things happening: one, is revealed preference - do you want to be a big fish in a small pool or a small fish in a big pool. Two, in response to 'woe is me' stories of increased polarisation, the US cure is more increased polarisation - don't join a big network, join a small echo chamber. Each to their own, and I dig your closing remarks about finding a lot of value from "all of these platforms" (including this one, where you rock it) but I also worry about your use and abuse of the words "left" and "right" - being in favour of free speech is *not* imply "move to the right". Learn history.
Bluesky has been a breath of fresh air with the choice of feeds and lack of ads. Far fewer bots and much better community engagement. The best part is that links to outside content are not algorithmically throttled back the way they are on other platforms.
I've abandoned X. I don't mind rational conservative commentary, but I do mind the racism and evil-mindedness of the Russian, Chinese, Iranian and North Korean bots and trolls. Easy to stop. Require personal identification before you're given account, and you're responsible personally for what you post. Social media is not 'the press' and giving Walter Benjaminesque reproductive capabilities to some of the most evil people on the planet only makes sense if you're convinced we should commit national suicide. I am not convinced that we should do that.
Ned Newhouse
3w
X is a cesspool. We are leaving for Blueskies not just liberals but from right wing nuts. Nednewhouse.bsky.social
Lisa Nirell
3w
We need to invest more time and money supporting balanced tier 1 journalism and media platforms. My clients are also investing more heavily in face-to-face gatherings and cohorts to share knowledge and wisdom. More time on social media only stokes the loneliness fires. Do we really need one more social media platform?
Bluesky does not determine your timeline - you do. So if your timeline is too “name any topic“ that’s because you follow people who talk about that topic. It does not have to be an echo chamber - totally up to you.
CEO @ The Atlantic | Co-Founder, Keynote Speaker
3wThis is me there: https://bsky.app/profile/nxthompson.bsky.social