Kennedy Owens
Staff Writer
When the words “social media” are mentioned in conversation, platforms like Instagram, Facebook and X are what usually come up. Though in recent years, platforms like Bluesky and Threads have joined the digital arms race to varying success in content moderation, user privacy and regulating targeted marketing. Are these results just temporary issues or are they permanent roadblocks?
Bluesky was founded by co-founder of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, who wanted to create a “free speech” alternative to the aforementioned website. According to the technology blog How To Geek, the platform champions its Authenticated Transfer Protocol. This de-centralized protocol aims for users to own their personal data and choose what they want their feeds to look like without inorganic corporate meddling.
The company also claims not to use any data on their website to train AI. But that doesn’t make it immune to having data scraped by third parties due to its nature as a public platform, which may be a downside for users wanting to avoid nonconsensual AI training.
Standing its ground on being a public platform, the company also doesn’t allow private accounts. This makes direct messages the only private communication space on the app. This, again, may be a red flag for people who want a more lowkey internet experience.
Probably the most divisive part of Bluesky is the app’s choice to split server moderation across multiple services. This serves the purpose of preventing just one company from both hosting and checking user activity. This is meant to combat the complaints that other social media platforms violate free speech by automatically censoring unpleasant subjects regardless of context. More lax rules like this do have their upsides by creating a less restrictive environment for users on the app, but can also allow unjustifiably obscene content to skate by.
According to Business Insider, the company wanted to remain as a non-for profit which didn’t add intrusive advertisements to user feeds and rely on private investor donations to stay a float. However, that business model wasn’t turning much of a profit and did lead to the company needing to seek alternative funding. Alongside an increase in moderation tools, this ultimately led to Dorsey stepping down from the company in May 2024, for fear of the website becoming yet another Twitter clone despite receiving an initial investment of $13 million from said platform in the beginning of development.
Jay Graber filled Dorsey’s role and planned to avoid any corporate meddling. But instead, they shifted the platform towards being a subscription based service that placed specific features behind a paywall before making her exit on Mar. 9.
In concept, Bluesky sounds like a dream platform. But whenever I hear the words “subscription service,” it pushes me towards not using the app.
According to TechCrunch, it’s common for social media sites to offer subscription services as a way to “entice” users into paying additional fees for things like a verification badge, a lack of ads, further account protection and more customization. For a platform like Bluesky who’s main selling point is individuality through custom domain changes, not having ads to begin with and identity protections, it ironically cheapens the user experience to place these distinctions behind the same pay wall their competitors are using.
Threads, on the other hand, has no qualms with imitating its parent company Meta. Owner of infamous apps like Instagram and Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg’s take on Twitter is made specifically to fit within this digital family.
It allows Instagram users to import followers from their Instagram accounts, giving them a built in audience right from the jump. The platform also allows users to reply, repost and quote others. There’s no direct messaging, hashtags or pinned posts, but you can write up to 500 characters per post.
Like Instagram and Facebook, Threads can track your location and gather even more of your personal data for third party marketing agencies to make targeted advertisements towards you.
Threads uses a completely automated moderation system. This has led to unjust bans of user content because of the AI’s lack of an ability to understand context. This is one of the biggest differences between this platform and Bluesky as Bluesky often has the opposite problem with under regulated content.
Unlike Bluesky, Thread’s does allow private profiles, with this feature being set automatically for minors in certain countries. But what good does this privacy really do if the company still wants to profit off of user data behind our backs?
Threads is clearly only meant to function as an extension of its predecessors and doesn’t seem to want its own identity as an app. Bluesky does have hints of a separate identity, but will unfortunately probably have to change the aspects that made it so special in the beginning just to keep up with the competition. A new social media app sounds like a fun idea in theory. But in reality, Threads and Bluesky already have their roots so far into the current biggest social media platforms that it makes any disruption there might have been to the social media landscape minimal.
For individual users, temporarily moving to these apps could provide a more intimate space to chat with others online because of their smaller size. But as they continue to grow, these apps likely won’t provide a different enough user experience to prompt dropping all other social media entirely.
