For many, Donald Trump’s re-election was the straw that broke the camel’s back. In the days after Trump won a second term in the White House, Bluesky picked up over 1m users. A growing dissatisfaction with X’s proliferation of disinformation and abuse on the platform since Elon Musk’s takeover motivated user migration to Bluesky.
Since then, there has been discussion over whether Bluesky could in time rival X as the main online "town square” or whether it risks becoming an echo chamber for those on the political left.
However, swathes of users reaching the end of their tether with X also provides a different opportunity. An opportunity to leave behind a form of social media that has overall done more harm than good. Sit back and ponder for a moment, what use has Twitter/X actually provided over the years? Yes, it has undoubtedly increased the speed of breaking news. But this comes with its own risks, as unverified reports which later turn out to contain inaccuracies can spread rapidly and lead to conspiracy theories snowballing. And how often do we really need to know about a piece of news instantly? Very rarely, perhaps in the case of a local emergency, but in the digital age information will likely find a way to reach those affected.
For some communities, X has provided a space to forge connections and discuss niche topics. As a forum to, say, discuss sport or gaming, it has allowed likeminded people to interact and debate, opening users up to new perspectives.
But in the political realm it has increased polarisation and created an inflammatory environment. There are several theories as to why this happened. Some argue that, due to the mythical, omniscient algorithm, social media users have been increasingly fed content that aligns with their political positions, further shielding them from views that challenge their beliefs and trapping them in echo chambers. Over time, this has caused people to believe they are right with greater certainty as they consistently receive positive feedback from others.
However, this doesn’t quite stand up against current evidence. In recent years, X pile ons often arise when an otherwise harmless tweet draws attention from an audience beyond its original target. Take the recent explosion of fury at Dr Ally Louks’ tweet celebrating the completion of her PhD. Dr Louks has since written about how her post initially “gained traction among kind strangers celebrating [her] achievement.” For whatever reason (presumably, again, the algorithm) it eventually reached “a much more hostile audience,” after which she received rape and death threats. In this instance, it seems precisely because people have been exposed to views outside of their usual bubbles that a frenzy ensued.
A recent article in The Times proposed that it might be beneficial for us to be less “connected” to each other as “online rage results not from liberals and conservatives complacently agreeing with one another but from people seeing too much of their maddest political opponents.” In other words, the issue with X is that we’re constantly exposed to views we are diametrically opposed to, but otherwise would encounter with far less regularity. When the main source of news was which newspaper someone read, or TV station they watched, people remained in their chosen bubbles. By bringing everyone onto an interactive platform, X provided an endless stream of opinions to argue about.
There is also the issue of tone and nuance. Whereas an article or TV segment can allow for a subject to be explored in some depth, with the appropriate balance given to different sides of a debate, X has always lent itself to oversimplification due to its character limit. A few 280 character tweets will never substitute for in-depth reading on complex political and scientific topics. However, in the world of X, where anyone can be a self-appointed expert on anything, this is exactly what happens. In most areas of life this is frustrating, but perhaps harmless. Tragically, as evidenced by the recent UK riots or COVID-19 conspiracies, political and scientific disinformation can have drastic consequences. Would anti-vax and far-right ideologies have reached as many without X? Mainstream news, for all its detractors, employs fact-checking and must publish corrections when it makes mistakes. In the wild west of X, no such processes exist. Instead, the more outlandish the claim or extreme the opinion, the more likely it seems it will receive traction.
The writer, Robert Wright, noted the issue of character limits over a decade ago, long before the arrival of Musk. Not only do these limits constrain nuance, they create an environment in which it is easier to resort to ad hominem attacks than to respectfully debate with one another. Tone can already easily be lost in digital communication, let alone in online conversations about sensitive topics. Do we really need another X-like forum for this?
Bluesky may be largely free of these issues for now, but a similar format to X will in time lead to similar issues, with or without Musk. In a world determined to offer shorter and shorter streams of content so that we’re never bored, never without some form of stimulation, we must recognise the need for depth. Platforms like X and Bluesky with short character limits and endless streams of opinions will always encourage oversimplification, disinformation and inflammatory rhetoric. Now is the chance to leave this all behind.
Image: Flickr/Alpha Photo
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