Social Truth? X? Threads? Nay! The social network that has been blossoming in recent weeks is called Bluesky. Launched in 2021 by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, Bluesky is these days full of people sickened by the heaviness of X, by the political ambitions of its owner, Elon Musk, or, quite simply, by the election of Donald Trump .
Published at 7:00 a.m.
This sudden surge in popularity couldn’t come at a better time for the platform led by former Twitter executive Jay Graber and Jeremie Miller, a programmer known for developing the universal messaging protocol Jabber/XMPP. Bluesky announced at the end of October that it had completed a financing round of US$15 million. Its management said it added 3 million users in October, then 700,000 more in the last week.
At 14.5 million users in total, Bluesky is still a lightweight next to X (580 million accounts), Threads (285 million), TikTok (1 billion) and Instagram (2 billion). But its emergence testifies to a more serious trend, notes professor at the Media School of the University of Quebec in Montreal and digital media specialist Patrick White: social networks are in full burst and are increasingly aligned more on current political trends.
People visit social networks according to their interests, this contributes to polarization.
Patrick White, professor at the UQAM Media School
“Bluesky is an epiphenomenon which well embodies the growing distrust of a part of the population towards billionaires like Musk with [Mark] Zuckerberg with Meta. Bluesky is not owned by a billionaire, does not try to influence people with its algorithm, it is a form of kindness that attracts people. »
Safe from hate speech
The rise of Bluesky also coincides with a strong return to hate speech about X in connection with the election of Donald Trump, which anti-abortion activists are delighted with. Since the end of October, misogynistic slogans like “go back to the kitchen” and “your body, my choice” have taken over Elon Musk’s network. Others call for the abolition of the 19e amendment to the American Constitution, which guaranteed women the right to vote.
According to the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, an organization fighting the polarization of political discourse, this trend is stimulated by the election of Trump and is present mainly on X, but is also spreading on TikTok and Facebook.
X has also loosened its rules regarding respect for the privacy of its users. Third-party companies can now use Internet users’ posts to train their generative artificial intelligence (AI). X has also decided that everyone can see its users’ publications, including accounts blocked by these same users.
Elon Musk also uses X to promote the Republican Party in general and Donald Trump in particular. Its publication rate on X has jumped from 9 messages on average per day in 2019 to 61 messages per day since the start of 2024.
This leaning towards a more radical right scares away some users. Since the end of the summer, X has also lost 20 to 30% of its visitors in Europe and the United States.
This is not the end of X, however, Patrick White notes. “X is not doing well, but it could bounce back on the advertising side with Trump winning,” he said. “There is even talk of a merger with Truth Social”, the network created by Trump’s team. “Social networks are becoming politicized,” concludes the Montreal professor.
Kindness
Through it all, Bluesky presents itself as a caring platform. This network was created to embody this idea of a social network respectful of the diversity of opinions and audiences, but severe with regard to fake accounts and misleading or offensive publications.
Its technology is also open-code and decentralized, like other social networks, such as Mastodon, which itself experienced significant growth in the weeks following Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter at the end of 2022.
With this new funding in hand, Bluesky management indicated that it wanted to develop a paid subscription formula which would not offer any preferential treatment compared to a free subscription, but which would offer more cosmetic customization and distribution of photos and videos. of better quality.
Bluesky added that the company does not intend to sell its user data to third parties, but rather will create voluntary payment tools so that users can support artists or content creators who are present on the platform and that they appreciate.
“We do not want to create just another social network, but a complete network that provides a feeling of freedom and choice to its users,” summarized Bluesky’s chief operating officer, Rose Wang, in a press release.
