As dictator Musk storms into Twitter HQ, firing top executives left and right, ripping up the social media channel’s terms and conditions and installing a puppet board of far-right zealots, liberal Twitter has been forced to flee, leaving behind anything they couldn’t carry.
The bombed-out streets are lined with blue check marks, once indicators of authenticity and legitimacy, now mere relics of the defenders of social justice that once comprised this global town square.
Stateless and homeless, these bastions of political correctness, those who still hold onto the utopian dream of Corbyn’s Britain or Sanders’ America, are left to float through the intertubes without a platform to call their own, the cackles of dictator Musk and the orange menace following them on the winds.
Leading the exodus is the cream of the Hollywood A-list crop, the martyrs of democracy and decency who have decided to turn their backs on the bird.
Among them are Shonda Rimes (who?), Ken Olin (who?), Josh Gad (no idea) and Jameela Jamil (OK, I’ve heard of her).
Yet from the gathering storm clouds peeks a ray of light, a hint of blue.
Bluesky Social, to be more specific, the new social media platform owned by Twitter’s former Chief Twit Jack Dorsey.
To be more accurate, Bluesky Social is a Twitter spinoff announced by Dorsey in 2019 following the misinformation reckoning that almost destroyed the public’s confidence in the social media barons for good.
Bluesky’s situation is quite precarious right now: Twitter has been funding the project, which was acting as a testing ground of sorts for implementing decentralised technology into Twitter.
Now that Musk controls the purse strings, there’s no telling if he intends to keep supporting Bluesky’s development.
Thankfully he has no ownership stake, so Dorsey is free of Chairman Musk’s interference.
So could Bluesky Social be a refuge for the Twitterati who have been chased out of Twitter town with pitchforks and burning torches?
How is Bluesky Social different?
The main ethos behind Bluesky Social is decentralisation.
In the past, Jack Dorsey has expressed regret for turning Twitter into a company; “that was the original sin,” he told Musk in March.
Dorsey’s original sin has created a massive logistical nightmare for Twitter: How do you moderate the conversations of hundreds of millions of users without interfering in free speech?
Enter the ‘AT Protocol’, the technological underpinnings of Bluesky Social.
One of the key features of the AT protocol is what Bluesky calls ‘algorithmic choice’.
“Algorithms dictate what we see and who we can reach,” explains Bluesky. “We must have control over our algorithms if we're going to trust in our online spaces. The AT Protocol includes an open algorithms mode so users have more control over their experience.”
I take this as an enhanced form of content curation.
Sure, we’re able to block or mute Twitter users, but those pesky differing opinions always seem to pierce out fragile bubbles.
What if we could fortify those bubbles though? What if we could ensure that the only content to cross our screens neatly aligns with our pre-existing views?
So the Nazis could still disseminate their hate speech, but Ken Olin (still no idea) won’t have to deal with it.
Now that is some blue sky thinking.
My only hope is that Gad, Olin et al manage to get their blue check marks back, for they have suffered for too long.