File this under great issues. Bluesky is growing up like a gangbuster. But if you look at Twitter’s history, you’ll see that beneath that great problem lies a viperhole of trouble.
Social media underdogs like Twitter (an underdog, judging by its logo) topped 20 million users last week, with more than a quarter of its users arriving after the U.S. election. An election in which the owner of Twitter/X gave Donald Trump a big thumbs up and subsequently made billions of dollars in a single day. These are the events that led to the events that are currently underway and can be called the X Odus. Now sailing from Musk’s sinking ship to the blue sky: Taylor Swift Stan.
More importantly, new user activity is high and shows no signs of slowing down. According to live counter The service, built on Bluesky’s API, is approaching the 23 million user mark, a number it could surpass by the time American families sit down to their Thanksgiving meals. The growth rate is 4 to 8 new users per second. This number could easily go up as the crazy Republican uncles of the world unload on their distraught Democratic relatives.
Leaving X for greener pastures? What you need to know about Bluesky’s ownership and policies.
So what’s the problem? Let’s say it now: Content management. Not only does Bluesky have to take advantage of the lack of account verification to deal with disinformation coming from fake accounts, but it also has to deal with an explosion in child sexual abuse material (CSAM) . In 2023, there were 2 confirmed cases posted and 8 cases per day. -election.
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What exactly did Twitter do when it found itself in this position? In a word: nothing.
Twitter’s early history was one of chaotic growth, name changes, excessive “failure whale” downtime, and ego clashes among the shy male nerds lucky enough to run Twitter. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg famously described rival social media services as “clown cars in a goldmine.”
As a result, there is little data on early account growth. Twitter was born in 2006. It won’t reach its first 600,000 users until 2008. According to field reports, in April 2010, the company boasted 105.8 million accounts.
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“We are not very good at responding to abuse.”
And when did Twitter start cracking down on hate speech and other criminal activity? Before 2014, the company didn’t even offer a way to report abuse on its platform, and its tools were slow and It was famous. In 2015, in the early days of the targeted harassment campaign known as Gamergate. Twitter CEO Dick Costolo writes serious charges Here’s how this hurt the company:
We are bad at dealing with abuse and trolling on our platforms, and have been for years. It’s no secret, the world is talking about it every day. You’re losing core users one by one by not addressing the simple trolling problems that your core users face every day.
Disney CEO Bob Iger agreed to this when he signed a deal to acquire Twitter in 2016 with the support of both companies’ boards. reason? Iger’s “discomfort” and “hate speech” In his 2019 autobiography, he wrote:.
That didn’t upset Elon Musk, or did it? After all, even Mr. Musk tried to back out of his highly speculative $44 billion offer for Twitter in 2022 before he could be questioned in court for the truth of his public statements. At that point, Twitter Belatedly introducing content moderation (It started with the permanent suspension of conspiracy master Alex Jones’ account in 2018).
The moderation team, which had grown under Aaron Roderix, was disbanded during Musk’s first year. His “Content Moderation Council,” which was supposed to decide whether to reinstate accounts like Trump’s (which were banned because they were used to lead an insurrection), never materialized. And what happened? Since then, the flow of users toward the exit has continued unabated.
In contrast, Bluesky plans to quadruple the size of its content management team from 25 to 100 people. “We have a lot of users,” said Roderix — now Trust and Safety Officer At Blue Sky after the Mask banishes him from X — told the platformer.
There are many challenges ahead for Rodericks and everyone at Bluesky as they aim to build trust among new users. The biggest concern right now is fake accounts. Twitter introduced the verification badge, the famous blue check, in 2009. At this stage of growth, it’s right in line with Bluesky.
Furthermore, European Union leaders said this week: The platform is technically in violation of regulations. However, the compliance issue is minor. There is no indication yet that Mr. Bluesky intends to follow Mr. Musk into the ongoing state of war with the EU. The problem simply seems to be that Bluesky is growing so fast that they don’t even have a European representative.
Again, good questions.
