Bluesky was supposed to be different—a fresh start, a reinvention of good-old Twitter without the trolls and toxicity of X, a digital paradise free from Musk’s chaos or Zuckerberg’s greed. But here we are, barely a few months into its boom, and the cracks are already showing. Bots are everywhere, political grifters are gaming the system, and misinformation is spreading just as fast as it did on the hellsites we fled. Remember when we thought Mastodon was the answer? Or that deleting Facebook would fix everything? This is just another round of the same game—new platform, same addiction, same mess. Instead of searching for the next social media “fix,” maybe it’s time we stop letting tech billionaires decide how we connect, think, and live.
Bluesky’s approach, with its focus on user-driven moderation, safety tools, and easily customizable feeds, suggests a well-intentioned effort to empower users and provide an alternative to the toxic hellscape formerly known as Twitter or to Zuckerberg’s Facebook, Instagram and Threads. As described by its CEO Jay Graber, it is as “social media built for the people by the people.” Promising decentralized control, Bluesky in fact do little to solve the root problem of ever-growing dependency on digital spaces to shape our social, political and cultural lives. Instead, its impressive success illustrates how the fundamental issues of social media—from AI-generated content to societal polarization—persist even under new governance models.
Seen as a user-friendly utopia that looks like X but feels much safer, the platform has experienced significant growth, doubling its user numbers since the election to over 27 million registered users. However, this influx has led to technical challenges and a rise in bots creating partisan divisions and directing users to junk websites. The small team has worked on improving moderation tools, including detecting impersonation and integrating unique features like “starter packs,” which provide lists of topically curated feeds.
Yet these features fail to address the structural incentives that drive platforms to prioritize engagement over accuracy and well-being. While it is currently ad-free, Bluesky is exploring new ways to monetize its platform, including selling subscriptions, domain names and personalized ads.
To be sure, Bluesky’s swift growth is a testament to user demand for alternatives. However, this spike in user activity has overwhelmed the small team and outpaced its capacity to effectively moderate content and ensure user safety. This reflects a broader industry trend where the drive for expansion often supersedes the development of robust safeguards against abuse and exploitation. The core problem, however, lies not in the specific features or governance models of these platforms but in the fundamental nature of social media itself, where promises of decentralization and strict privacy protections quickly give way to consolidation and monetization.
By pouring our time, energy, and attention into social media, we once again buy into the illusion that digital platforms should be the dominant model for human relationships. What we need instead is real investment in moving people and conversations offline. To resist the billionaires who sold our democracy, we must expose and dismantle the lie they have been selling us: that their technologies are making our lives better. To fight Elon Musk and its political ambitions, we need to pursue affordable, communal ways to get involved in local politics. To fight Jeff Bezos and Amazon’s $40 million deal with Melania Trump, we need to cancel our Amazon Prime subscription and support local businesses. To fight Zuckerberg’s greed, we should prioritize meeting friends IRL.
For now, Bluesky provides a much-needed sanctuary from the toxicity of X or Instagram. Its success, however, is likely to lead to excessive screen time, filter bubbles, and AI-generated garbage. To begin dismantling the harms of social media, we should be using this rare moment of disapproval, anger and reflection to reassess our habitual behavior. Instead of flocking to new echo chambers, we should pay for well-researched and highly curated content, make time for in person conversations and build communal networks of care. A platform designed to sustain our attention and increase our screen time can doubtfully help us dismantle the demuskracy.