Hey there, Mr. Blue Sky: The Rise of Bluesky and Downfall of X
Photo Courtesy: Julian Christ via Unsplash
It is without doubt that Elon Musk influenced America’s recent election results, using the social media site X, formerly Twitter, as a tool to do so. From publicly endorsing Donald Trump on his X profile, to privately financing his campaign, to spreading misinformation about Kamala Harris through (Musk-funded) conservative coalitions, to actively changing the X algorithm to increase his own tweets by a factor of 1000, Musk has done all in his power to fiddle with the election.
By pushing his conspiracy theories – such as the false claim that ABC offered Harris debate questions ahead of time, an obsession with the false theory that Democrats are using immigrants to peddle votes, claims that ‘The Dems want to take your kids’, and a litany of other falsities – to the forefront of users’ feeds (who don’t even follow him), the question arises: has Musk’s election interference been done, as he asserts, in favour of ‘free speech’?
Or has X, formerly a space for journalists to convene and share contrasting insights on breaking news stories, become a mere tool for the world’s richest man to have power over his own regulators? It appears so. Musk’s presence on X has become increasingly omniscient since his takeover in 2020. In his expedition for a ‘politically neutral’ social media app, hoping that ‘even my worst critics remain on Twitter’, he successfully banned multiple high-profile journalists who spoke out against him, even banning an account which tracked his jet usage using public data. This, paired with the inflation of his own tweet-factor, paints a rather self-serving picture.
It seems that decisions regarding the app continue to be made with one individual in mind. Therefore, X exists as Musk’s tool. But how might this tool function in a post-election world?
Following his initial takeover, Musk removed significant X guidelines, causing members of Twitter’s ‘Trust and Safety Council’ to resign (before he dissolved the council entirely). By telling those concerned with harmful speech to ‘Go fuck yourself. Go. Fuck. Yourself. Is that clear?’, and ironically silencing those whose ‘speech’ he claimed should be ‘free’ in the first instance, we can see a fundamental tension between the idea of ‘free speech’ and the right to ‘freedom from harmful speech’ on the platform. This has since allowed alt-right conspiracies, attitudes, and propaganda to thrive on the app.
This ‘politically neutral’ climate, promised by Musk, has since been proven impossible, especially considering Musk’s involvement in Trump’s administration. As a result, users have begun to look elsewhere.
Bluesky, developed by Twitter in 2019, has been gaining traction in recent days. Their CEO reported a growth of 10,000 users every 10-15 minutes, while many are actively denouncing their X profiles. While a loss of X users can be attributed to changing privacy policies, these losses come directly after election day, when 116,000 users deactivated X, and Bluesky received 1.2 million visitors. It can also be noted that, since the election, Threads has also received over 15 million new users.
Bluesky is actively positioned as an ‘anti-X’, with their brand image even reminiscent of the old Twitter bird. In another case, Bluesky amassed approximately three million new users after X experienced a three-week ban in Brazil for hate speech moderation.
Despite these user losses, Musk’s net worth has grown by $50 billion in the aftermath of Trump’s election.
Since Twitter was designed as a space for spreading news through user neutrality, Musk’s monopolising of the app, particularly as a way of pushing election coverage, has ultimately made it an unsuitable space to conduct healthy debate. ‘Free speech’ is instead an encouragement to be hateful, ‘free’ of consequence. Twitter fostered discussions of differing opinions, whereas X is incentivised to be politically biased – even if that means spreading misinformation and conspiracy.
While winning the election has perhaps cost Musk X, for users, the grass might be greener, and the sky might be bluer, elsewhere.