Why BlueSky is the Next Step for Preserving American Democracy
It's time to establish a new public square
As we digest the deluge of shocking news from the incoming Trump administration, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed about what to do first to protect American democracy.
What are the most important collective steps we can take to protect and preserve democracy as well as empower ourselves?
I believe that the mass migration already underway to Twitter/X alternative BlueSky qualifies as one of the most important collective actions right now for a number of reasons that I want to explore here.
First, it’s noteworthy that the momentum behind this move is already remarkable. BlueSky reached the milestone of 20 million users on Nov. 19 after a 5 million user after the election and just crossed 30 million level this week. If we extend the current rate of 1.89 new users per second, we’d be looking at over 50 million people on the platform in 122 days. Doubling the current adoption rates puts us on track for closer to 100 million in that same timespan. Given that 40% of the users of Bluesky are in the United States, that gives us a platform to match Twitter’s current US reach of 50 million users by sometime later this year. Once we reach that tipping point it becomes THE public square Twitter once was.
The goal of having BlueSky supplant Twitter/X soon is thus achievable without a dramatic acceleration from what is already underway.
Why is it so important that we get on board?
First, it’s clear that we need a short-format public square for the rapid exchange of information, which creates an ability to organize. Because of network effects, it has to be big in order to have a critical mass of citizens on it. There’s a reason that Twitter grew rapidly to become indispensable to global culture, particularly media, political operatives and professionals at the leading edge of the news. But Musk’s takeover two years ago has led it to become far less trusted for a number of reasons.
First, he has turned it into a personal megaphone, prioritizing his content over anyone else in the algorithm. Second, he has turned it into the largest single source for misinformation, which can amplify quickly and without moderation. This corrodes trust. Third, he has emboldened a culture of aggression and diminished safety in a way that scares off thoughtful, open-minded exchanges. And fourth, he has mobilized the platform fully behind Donald Trump. Given his proximity to Trump now - many are calling him effectively a co-President - we can assume he will further utilize Twitter/X in service to Trump’s political goals if for no other reason that he wins more business for his other companies by doing so.
It’s particularly sobering when people such as Sam Harris, a once long-term friend of Musk, wrote in a piece called “The Trouble with Elon” that Musk does not care whether what he amplifies on his platform is based on facts. Nor does he care about the damage in people’s lives when he amplifies misinformation. Basically, he is using the platform to enhance his power and is willing to corrode the quality of public discourse whenever it amplifies his power.
Structurally, what Musk has done is to undermine the ability for the platform to support true democracy by making too heavily biased to a single man’s worldview and agenda. Effectively, it’s an autocracy or informational dictatorship where a single person’s whims can become the law of the network and a single voice can drown out others. An autocracy can’t support a healthy and vibrant democracy or a trustworthy public square. His corruption of Twitter’s town square function for a global culture is a threat to democracy not just in the United States but around the world.
One way to think of it is as trending towards a kind of micro-fascism - a merger of the power of the state and the power of big business - in a way that diminishes the healthy exchange of ideas. Given Musk’s role in the administration it is likely to be increasingly used as a state arm of propaganda. It’s provably more toxic and filled with trolls, botfarms, and disinformation than in the past, all amplified by the autocrat owner’s self-privileging in the algorithm. Simply put, putting attention or content into X supports Musk’s goals over the goals of those who want a vibrant democracy of ideas.
For two years, people lamented these developments and made periodic attempts to migrate the town square function elsewhere, from Threads to Mastodon. But each has had its downsides and there wasn’t a singular enough focus for the migration of collective conversation to happen. Time and again there was an attempt that didn’t succeed.
Now, though, is a unique moment. The shock of Trump’s re-election and the need to build more robust defenses against his assaults against American democracy are driving a timeline that can motivate bigger players in the information economy to make the move happen. The faster it happens, the more likely it will happen.
Basically, if virtually everyone hears from many directions that the people they most trust are closing their X accounts and moving to BlueSky, the eventual collapse of Twitter/X’s function as a town square will be complete.
The issues with Twitter/X are also compounded by the recent change in the Terms of Service for it to include the training of Elon Musk’s xAI on the data, a further concentration of power in the hands of one man. Basically, X users consent to having their data harvested to train a next generation AI, which will again amasses more power in the hands of one person with clearly problematic ethics.
If you have concerns about Musk’s behaviors or worldview, imagine how much more dangerous those behaviors can become with a weaponizable AI in the next election? Musk spent $240M to effectively purchase this election (and made $65 billion in the stock market the day after the win). What’s to say he won’t drop $10 billion on the next, powered by a next generation AI agent system designed to study and manipulate every voter on the platform?
Basically, nothing. The future of democracy is at serious risk by feeding energy, attention, and money into the Musk info-sphere.
So unless you want to keep entrusting Musk with ever more power, money, and influence, keeping your thoughts, reflections and data on X from this point forward is increasingly a dangerous activity for democracy. Musk already bought a seat in the White House. What happens in two or four or eight more years with his xAI turbocharging the same ambition? I do recommend reading his ex-friend Sam Harris’ chronicle of his own experience to get a glimpse of what is coming.
It’s thus clear that there are very real risks to democracy to keep using Twitter/X as the de facto public square.
So why should we have more trust in BlueSky instead? I think the three most important reasons are:
It is built on an AT Protocol designed to ensure that if you ever leave the App you can bring your data with you. Instead of trapping you in the ecosystem, it’s designed for migration, if need be. Portability of data means that there will always be pressure on the company to demonstrate high integrity and trustworthiness or it’s much easier for a migration to happen. It’s a more open protocol that addresses a core problem with the Twitter/X protocol.
BlueSky is a for-benefit corporation, which prevents shareholders from suing the company for pursuing a mission before profit. It’s a structure that allows for a mission to transcend and supplant financial retursn alone. That’s important in a Silicon Valley startup because investor pressures tend to trump mission.
It has a female CEO, Jay, who is also a woman of color. I think this is important for quite a number of reasons. Silicon Valley is heavily led by men, which tends to create imbalanced cultures, especially as those men amass ever greater fortunes. Women, I believe, not only should comprise closer to an equal percentage of CEOs of companies as a matter of principle, but they tend to prioritize longer term health of community exchanges better than men. An ethics of care is more intrinsically part of female culture than male culture so it’s a better bet to have a woman in the final decision-making seat to preserve the value of the platform’s role in public discourse.
For all those reasons, the migration from X to BlueSky is a vital step to preserve democracy as it pulls attention, money and power out of a corrupted communication platform and towards a constructive and collaborative solution that has more protective guardrails in place. To navigate whatever the Trump administration brings, we need a trustworthy way to communicate and find allies.
BlueSky may not be perfect but it is the best candidate for this moment.
The next question becomes, what else can be done to make BlueSky more resilient and a better empowerment platform for a healthy democratic town square?
First, I think they need to monetize the platform sooner rather than later but in a novel way. This could ensure that they can scale up from revenues in a way that has integrity rather than monetize later in ways that compromise the mission.
My concept is that they start with a voluntary “citizenship” level of membership that is $10/month and which earns a badge of citizenship but nothing else. To be a citizen is the opposite of being a consumer. Citizens are investing in the co-creation of something. They are contributors. It takes money to run and grow a powerful social media platform so a citizen is announcing that they are voluntarily contributing to the creation of that network.
My experience with Substack and tracking writers is that even if there are NO extra benefits associated with paid subscription, a certain percentage of people will choose to do that for writers they believe in, especially when the amounts are small. For my work, that is about 2%.
What happens is if let’s say 2% of users voluntarily choose to become citizens of BlueSky and it scales to 100M users in the next year? That would create $240M of annual revenues for running and developing the platform. That’s a very healthy team of people continuing to work on growing the platform. Tripling from there over the subsequent years would put it in the ballpark of Twitter’s current size and reach and just under $1 billion in annual revenue, which heavily depends on ads.
By making it a voluntary but public status and associating it with the civic virtues of citizenship, it makes for an easier revenue model, basically just by giving people an optional link for monthly contribution, without all the complexities and ethical problems of advertising or paid membership benefits/perks.
So I think that’s the next key for BlueSky to avoid long-term corruption of the public square: make an easy, fast, and aspirational way for people to become contributing citizens of the network, which might also come with an additional set of value commitments as well - a kind of code of conduct for citizens that can ensure better behavior.
An additional benefit of collapsing Twitter’s role is that it would tie Musk’s hands a bit as he’s saddled with large debt payments for Twitter/X and it could undermine his ability to deploy more capital on democracy-capture projects he has underway. It would keep him busy, with fewer resources, and also slow down his xAI project which otherwise might outcompete some of the initiatives that are offer far better protections against rogue AI functions.
Finally, the mass migration to BlueSky and the collapsing use of Twitter/X would be a confidence builder for those who do it, helping us all remember the power of aligned collective actions to take on even the most powerful people on the planet. We do not have to give our time or our business to people who do not align with the world we want to create. The collective barnraising of a Twitter alternative on a short time-horizon is empowering. We already know that Threads has the issue of being part of the Zuckerberg empire, which is increasingly Trump centric as well. So BlueSky gives a fresh start with better initial conditions to create something that is truly pro-democracy at the core and has sufficient appeal to supplant the reach of Twitter.
It’s quick. It’s easy. And it also liberates us from so much of the aggressive energy and culture on X. It gives us an emotional “blue sky,” a fresh start and a place to envision a pro-democracy social media home that can transcend some of capitalism’s core problems, amplifying real wisdom and solutions, and create a context for the rapid exchange of ideas, perspectives, and alliances that we now need.
It takes less than five minutes to set up a BlueSky account and to announce that you are closing out of X and entering into a new future to your friends and allies. Share this article or your own reasons and help build the snowball to over 100M and you’ll be part of upgrading the information economy that powers American democracy. And you’ll probably have a lot more fun.
Follow me at stephendinan.bluesky.app and spread this article as well!