For Bluer Skies

Hi! It’s been a while, I’ve been working on some video content and applying to grad school. Let’s talk about social media [CW: Language, Discussion of Extremism].

Last week, I hopped on Bluesky for the first time. One of the least original things I’ve ever done:

For the uninitiated: Bluesky’s interface is effectively an X clone built on the AT Protocol, an open, decentralized network launched in October 2021. It promises users greater control over their social media experience, from curated feeds to public lists of blocked/muted accounts to the portable social graph. I’m hyped about it.

Admittedly, I got hyped over the launch of Threads last July, but that didn’t stick. So, yes, I’m prone to getting excited about “new” microblogging platforms, but that’s simply because text, as a medium, is fantastic. Despite the think pieces about how text on the Internet doesn’t play amongst the post-ironic meme-crazed prime-demo Zoomers, I don’t think microblogging will ever be replaced.* And that’s good. Words on the screen are powerful…like anthropologically. The ability to transport an audience to a new, unfamiliar world at the exact production cost of transporting that same audience to a familiar neighborhood is a borderline superpower.

_{* I know. For the last several months, I’ve participated in the “text exodus” (text-odus) by focusing on video, and I apologize for that.}

So, why am I more hopeful about Bluesky if it’s just another microblogging, short-form text platform? And is it meaningfully different from the others?

A Viable Alternative

Let’s start with the big, sociopolitical reason why I like Bluesky first: we need a viable alternative to X (and Meta). I like options. It doesn’t mean X will be supplanted – maybe not even close – but options are good, actually.

There have always been Twitter/X clones around, but they just never had the sort of culture that existed on Twitter. More people were on Twitter, so more communities flourished there, and more features were built for those people and those communities. I missed all of pre-2020 Twitter, but Twitter’s cultural impact was undeniable: a random person’s Tweet could end up in a breaking CNN story in place of an eyewitness account, or, in some instances, news stories were just about Twitter drama. Entire social movements played out live on the platform. The scale allowed for diverse interactions and the discovery of subcultures. Our behavior on apps today – hashtags, of course, but also how we pull down to refresh a feed - can be traced back to Twitter. Twitter wasn’t perfect then, but I will stick my neck out here and say I imagine it was better. The capital-C Culture of Twitter derived from the variety of voices on the platform, the designers who built for them, and the relative even-handedness of the moderation.

In any event, that’s all gone. The owner’s partisan cringe-core speedrun aside: It alienated journalists by rescinding verifications, sold algorithmic priority and authority for $8/month, downranked external links, and turned inward to design around the owner. The platforms are the people on them and inherently reflect their owners’ views. The election has made this fact clear(er), supercharging people’s search for an alternative. Does this mean the social media ecosystem will feature even more insular echo chambers? Likely yes. Is that bad? Not necessarily.

PITCH FOR ONION HEADLINE: Echo Chamber Fucking Awesome

— God (@godpod.bsky.social) November 22, 2024 at 10:33 PM

As the pecking order on X shifted noticeably to the right, it also became a more sympathetic place (wittingly or not) to the worst the Internet has to offer - namely, white supremacy, extremism, and hate. People who post stuff like this look for loose content moderation standards; they’re opportunists. As someone who gets a lot of political content and data visualizations in my feed, my X feed became packed with stuff that would just make my world much darker. “These people really don’t like that I…y’know…exist. They don’t dislike what I’m saying, they dislike that I’m saying anything at all.” And that’s all I would see when I launched the app: weird (misleading) takes about race, crime, and immigration statistics, then probably some crypto promo. Concerning. It's better to leave that app unopened at this rate. I would like an alternative (one where the creators and community understand the “paradox of tolerance,” ideally), so I feel less compelled to open that app because it’s just “where people are.”

Now, I should pause and say that X is under no legal obligation to moderate hate off its platform. No matter how loudly millions of people - including myself - unequivocally condemn the inaction. Factually speaking, the First Amendment mostly protects hate speech, and platforms can host it without liability as long as it doesn’t violate other laws (see Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act - it’s short, I promise). Aside from moderating to prevent copyrighted material or illegal content, platforms moderate speech because without it, they just turn into spammy, abuse-laden hellscapes where Nabisco would feel uncomfortable advertising Oreos or whatever. X can moderate how it sees fit without “becoming a publisher” and doesn’t need to remain neutral in its decisions – Section 230 protections stay with them all the same (for now, at least). As a result, I am – and my peers making the migration likely are – pretty uncomfortable with how much power has been consolidated into a few dudes’ (and they are dudes) hands. That is directly related to what content we see. And while that may legally be ok, if I have a viable alternative, I will exercise my First Amendment right to take my attention to one that doesn’t sympathize with hate.

This reminds me of when I started this newsletter. I was choosing a vendor. Substack still, in the year of our lord 2023, had a distinct white supremacy problem, which it has decided to ignore and, indeed, profit from. So, this newsletter isn’t on Substack. Why? Because I could choose a viable alternative and didn’t want to use a provider that’s effectively taken a “meh on N*zis” stance.

Frankly, the value proposition of a viable alternative is enough for me at this point.

Viability

I used the word “viable” a lot, so we should talk about that briefly. Setting up a new Threads or X account is likely simpler than opening a Bluesky account, with less of a learning curve and more features. However, I get the most anodyne engagement bait imaginable on Threads because they’re on a quest to de-politicize the platform (godspeed). Meanwhile, the learning curve for Mastodon, a more meaningfully decentralized social network, will likely be much steeper with its decentralization jargon, nodes/instances, and ActivityPub. Additionally, Mastodon has had some false starts; there are 800,000 daily active users, but it hasn’t built on the momentum it captured briefly in 2022 (for context, Bluesky has 3.5M now).

There are centralized components like DMs and an out-of-the-box discovery feed created by Bluesky’s dev team. Still, you’ll be introduced to unfamiliar concepts like multiple feeds, starter packs for who to follow, block/mute lists, and maybe even the open-source moderation tool Ozone. All while having a more distinct culture reminiscent of old Twitter - that is to say, kind of eclectic and weird in a good way - than Threads (does Threads have a culture? Let me know) or Mastodon. This feels like a microblogging experience in which the community has more control but doesn’t feel overwhelmed by a brand-new experience. So Bluesky sits in the middle for me, something new but familiar, a sweet spot, a viable alternative.

It’s Not Perfect But…

It doesn’t need to be perfect at this moment. I’m happy to see the momentum Bluesky has. There’s a lot I worry about: is this just post-election momentum that will peter out? Newer communities need people to be involved and contribute, so will we? How will a relatively small dev team deal with the influx of users and likely trolls/bots? I’m not sure, but this surge of momentum definitely seems to have more staying power than Threads last year or Mastodon the year before.

It’s not perfect…but it’s viable. I recommend it.

Of course, if you join, you’ll have a friend there who’s willing to show you around: https://bsky.app/profile/thearmanmadani.bsky.social. At a minimum, we’ll see where this goes together.

If you enjoyed this article, please consider subscribing to the newsletter! I’m dedicated to producing analytical essays about policy, tech, media, and the unhinged.

You can support my work here as well:

• YouTube

• Patreon

• Bluesky