Following Donald Trump’s election win, many users have abandoned Elon Musk’s platform, X (formerly Twitter), in favor of Bluesky, a social media alternative that emphasizes user control and privacy. With a 500% surge in traffic, Bluesky offers a customizable and ad-free experience that has resonated with those seeking an escape from misinformation, hate speech, and data exploitation. This lesson examines Bluesky’s appeal, its challenges in maintaining growth, and its potential as a “billionaire-proof” social media model in a highly competitive landscape.
| Bluesky, a social media alternative to X, sees huge growth after Trump’s election win |
Warm-up question: Have you ever left one social media platform for another? Why did you make the change?
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Hundreds of thousands have left Elon Musk’s social media site, X, since President-elect Donald Trump’s victory. X has become a go-to place for fans of Musk and Trump, and those who don’t want that are looking for an alternative social media site. For many, that has meant jumping to an app called Bluesky. NPR’s Bobby Allyn takes a closer look at what the company is all about.
BOBBY ALLYN, BYLINE: David Karpf’s day job is a public affairs professor at George Washington University, but he’s also a social media fanatic. He was an early adopter of Bluesky, a small rival to X, formerly Twitter. He was using both platforms when something clicked for him.
DAVID KARPF: After a few months, I realized that I was going on Bluesky and laughing, and then I was going on Twitter and obsessively blocking annoying people.
ALLYN: Blocking annoying people, seeing a flood of misinformation and hate speech, being overwhelmed with pro-Trump and pro-Musk content – these have all been reasons why thousands have fled X. In fact, data tracker Sensor Tower found that more than 100,000 people deactivated their X accounts after the election. That’s been welcome news to Jay Graber. She’s the CEO of Bluesky and has seen traffic jump 500% since the election.
JAY GRABER: We’re definitely in a David-versus-Goliath situation here. We’re taking on very large companies with a very small team.
ALLYN: Indeed, Bluesky is very small, recently surpassing 20 million users, compared to the hundreds of millions on X and Meta-owned Threads. And Bluesky has just 20 full-time employees. But many users are excited about it, and here’s why. At first, Bluesky looks and feels like X. But under the hood, it is quite different. Instead of having one central feed of posts, on Bluesky, you can choose your own adventure. You can pick from three main feeds or search more than 50,000 other feeds people have created.
GRABER: My concern with the internet is it’s just become too controlled by a few powerful interests, and people don’t have enough ability to control their own fate. And so we wanted to build social that’s built by the people for the people.
ALLYN: There are no advertisements on Bluesky, and it doesn’t suck up your data to train AI systems. While privacy-conscious users have celebrated this, ads and data are ways of making money. And Karpf says that’s the big question facing Bluesky – how do they plan to cover their expenses?
KARPF: Eventually, they need to figure out, you know, how do we pay for the servers? How do we pay for our employees? How do we sustain this growth?
ALLYN: Bluesky was dreamed up by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey. He gave Bluesky a grant and a small team to come up with a social media site that has no masters and is controlled by users. Dorsey eventually got annoyed that Bluesky management created what he said were too many rules, and he quit the board. Now, Bluesky is operating from venture-capital funding and is hoping to launch a subscription service to charge people for premium features like the ability to upload higher-quality videos. But Graber says the focus now is staying steady with all the new growth. She says one important facet of Bluesky – it’s billionaire-proof since the underlying technology is open-sourced and owned by nobody.
GRABER: We can’t ever be fully taken over by a billionaire because, even if, you know, something happened to Bluesky, the company, people can always run their own version of the site.
ALLYN: Experts say Bluesky could face stress tests as it grows – problems like bots, spam, hate speech – because, like all things on the internet, when something gets popular enough, lots of issues follow.
Vocabulary and Phrases:
- Day job: A person’s primary employment or occupation that provides regular income.
- Fanatic: Someone who is extremely enthusiastic or obsessed about a particular activity or topic.
- Something clicked: An expression describing a moment of sudden understanding or realization.
- Obsessively: In a manner showing excessive or unhealthy preoccupation with something.
- Fled: Escaped or left a place quickly, often due to discomfort or danger.
- Under the hood: Refers to the hidden or underlying mechanics of a system or technology.
- Choose your own adventure: A situation or format offering multiple pathways or options to follow.
- Grant: A sum of money given for a specific purpose, typically by an organization or institution.
- Venture-capital: Funding provided by private investors to support startups or growing companies in exchange for equity.
- Facet: A particular aspect or side of something complex or multifaceted.
Comprehension Questions:
- Why have users left X (formerly Twitter) for Bluesky?
- How does Bluesky differ from X in terms of user experience and control?
- What challenges does Bluesky face in maintaining its operations and growth?
- What is the significance of Bluesky being “billionaire-proof”?
- How does Bluesky plan to sustain itself financially without relying on ads?
Discussion Questions:
- What do you value most in a social media platform, and why?
- How do you feel about platforms that give users more control, like Bluesky?
- Do you believe social media platforms can succeed without advertising? Why or why not?
- How important is privacy to you when choosing a social media app?
- What might smaller platforms like Bluesky need to do to compete with larger companies like Meta or X?
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