Bluesky’s user base has grown significantly since the U.S. presidential election, helped by people seeking refuge in Elon Musk’s Trump), or hoping to find an alternative, the X moves increasingly to the right.
The platform grew out of what was then known as Twitter and was championed by former CEO Jack Dorsey. Its decentralized approach to social networking ultimately aims to replace Twitter’s core mechanics. Now that the two companies have parted ways, that’s unlikely to happen. But Bluesky’s growth trajectory — its user base has more than doubled since October — could make it a serious competitor to other social platforms.
But with growth come growing pains. It’s not just human users who are flocking to Bluesky, but also bots, including those designed to sow partisan divides or direct users to spam sites.
The surge in its user base – now more than 25 million – is the biggest test yet for a relatively young platform that has established itself as a social media alternative without the problems that have plagued rivals. Bluesky’s monthly active app users on iOS and Android increased by 7.6 million in November, a 295.4% increase since October, according to research firm Similarweb. During the same period, desktop and mobile network accesses also reached 56.2 million, an increase of 189% from October.
In addition to the US election, Bluesky also got a boost when X was briefly banned in Brazil.
“They’re so focused that they’ve crossed a threshold where people can now flood the platform with spam,” said Laura Edelson, an assistant professor of computer science at Northeastern University and a member of the Issue One committee. Responsible social media. “But they don’t have the cash flow or the proven teams that the bigger platforms have, so they have to do it all very, very quickly.”
To manage the growth of its small staff, Bluesky began as an invitation-only space until it opened to the public in February. This period gives the site time to build moderation tools and other unique features to attract new users, such as a “starter pack” that provides a curated feed list of topics. Meta recently announced it was testing a similar feature.
Claire Wardle, a professor at Cornell University and an expert on misinformation, said Bluesky has a “completely different” value system than larger companies like Meta Platform or X. This includes giving users more control over their experience.
“The first generation of social media platforms connected the world, but ultimately consolidated power in the hands of a few companies and their leaders,” Bluesky said on his blog in March. “Our online experiences don’t have to rely on billionaires to make unilateral decisions about what we see. On an open social network like Bluesky, you can shape your experience for yourself.
Because of this mentality, Bluesky achieved scrappy underdog status, attracting users who were tired of the big players.
“People thought this was going to be a different kind of social network,” Waddell said. “But the fact is, when there are a lot of people in a place and eyeballs, that means it’s in other people’s interest to use bots to create information that aligns with their views.”
There is currently little data to help quantify the growth of impersonation accounts, artificial intelligence networks, and other potentially harmful content on Bluesky. But in recent weeks, users have begun reporting large numbers of apparent artificial intelligence bots stalking them, posting plagiarized articles or making seemingly automated, divisive comments in their replies.
Lion Cassens, a Bluesky user and PhD student in the Netherlands, stumbled upon one such network – a group of German-language accounts with similar bios and AI-generated profile pictures, posted in replies to three German newspapers.
“I noticed some strange replies to a news post in the German newspaper Die Ziet,” he said in an email to The Associated Press. “I have a lot of faith in Bluesky’s censorship mechanisms, especially compared to Twitter since the layoffs, and Musk’s more aggressive stance on free speech. But AI bots are a huge challenge because they will only continue to improve. I hope social media catches up with this.
Cassens said the bots’ messages so far have been relatively harmless, but he worries they could be repurposed to mislead in the future.
There are also signs that foreign disinformation has entered the blue sky. Alethea, a disinformation research organization, pointed out that a low-profile post circulating on a Russian Telegram channel shared false claims about ABC News.
Copycat accounts are another challenge. In late November, Alexios Mantzarlis, director of safety, trust and security programs at Cornell Technologies, found that 44% of the 100 most followed individuals on Bluesky had at least one duplicate account pretending to be them. Two weeks later, Manzaris said Bluesky removed about two-thirds of the duplicate accounts he initially found, suggesting the site was aware of the problem and trying to fix it.
Bluesky announced earlier this month that it had quadrupled the size of its review team to keep pace with its growing user base. The company also announced a new system to detect impersonation and is working to improve its community guidelines to provide more details about allowed behavior. Due to the way the site is built, users also have the option to subscribe to third-party “taggers” that outsource content moderation by tagging accounts with warnings and context.
The company did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this article.
Edward Perez, a board member of the nonpartisan nonprofit OSET Institute and former head of Twitter’s Civic Integrity Team, said that while Bluesky’s challenges have not yet reached the scale faced by other platforms, it is still at a “crossroads mouth”.
“Whether BlueSky likes it or not, it’s going to be pulled into the real world,” Perez said, noting that it needs to quickly prioritize threats and work to mitigate them if it hopes to continue growing.
That said, disinformation and bots won’t be the only challenges Bluesky faces in the coming months or even years. Its entire premise as a text-based social network is losing favor with the younger generation. For example, a recent Pew Research Center poll found that only 17% of U.S. teens use X, down from 23% in 2022. It’s a good place for them.
Political polarization is also not conducive to Bluesky reaching the scale of TikTok, Instagram or even X.
“Bluesky is not trying to be all things to all people,” Wardle said, adding that the days of Facebook or Instagram “trying to make everyone happy” are likely over. Social platforms are increasingly fragmented along political lines, and when they aren’t—see Meta’s platform—the companies behind them are actively working to downplay political content and news.
Published – December 23, 2024 09:42 AM (IST)