The Patriot Post® · The 'Rise' of Bluesky, the Left-Wing X Knockoff

The social media platform Bluesky is having a moment, at least among the speech-suppressing, social-warrior enclave.

What is Bluesky? Well, it’s a creation of Jack Dorsey, former owner/creator of Twitter (now X). He no longer runs the site, which went public in February, but his involvement is why it’s so similar to X.

Bluesky has received a lot of new members since November 5, election day — a day that will live in leftist infamy. In fact, it hit 20 million new users after the Republican sweep two weeks ago.

The platform is recruiting a ton of leftists because they want to stick it to Elon Musk, the current owner of X, who endorsed and campaigned for Donald Trump. Musk is also co-running the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and no leftist wants government efficiency.

Some leftists, such as novelist Steven King, claim that X has a toxic atmosphere.

Others, such as “journalist” Don Lemon, laughably claim that X is no longer a haven for free speech (ironically, speech suppression was the reason Musk purchased X) and that it has turned into a conservative hub.

While there is plenty of nastiness on all of the social media platforms, today’s X is unique in the way it handles freedom of speech. It allows both left, right, and center perspectives to be voiced while also encouraging Community Notes to add context. It’s a solid practice that, for the most part, both nurtures freedom of speech and keeps peddlers of dis- and misinformation accountable. Other platforms, like Facebook, either put you in cyber prison for wrongthink or add strikes to your account, limiting reach. According to CNN, Republicans and Democrats are fairly evenly represented on X. Users also have the power to mute or block those voices they don’t want to interact with. So Lemon’s and King’s reasons fall flat.

What really is the issue? It’s that X has broken up the chokehold on social media speech suppression. Leftists no longer control the public square, nor do they control curating the top app users go to when they are looking for down-to-the-minute news.

As conservative commentator David Strom points out, “I rarely run across something so far outside my Overton Window that I am truly repelled, and dealing with such things is easy enough: mute or block what is beyond the pale. That’s why liberals falling onto their fainting couches are gaslighting you: their problem is not Nazi or Russian propaganda but ordinary people expressing differing opinions. They are appalled that they no longer dominate the conversation and control the flow of information.”

On the other hand, why is Bluesky ostensibly so much better than X? For leftists, it’s the fact that the platform is an echo chamber. They can censor and kick off anyone who says the politically incorrect thing du jour.

Even Washington Post columnist Megan McArdle says that the current conversations happening on Bluesky are really only appealing to a small percentage of even the leftist crowd. She explained:

1) I am possibly the most conservative person on the site, and I voted for Harris.
2) Group dynamics make it hard to voice dissent. (I got blocked by someone for noting that in 2019, just under 3,000 females were victims of homicide, which means the overwhelming majority of women are, thankfully, at low risk of being killed by a man in their life.)
3) Founder effects mean this dynamic will be hard to change. The libertarians I see there mostly seem to be posting on issues where they agree with progressives, not ones where they disagree. Progressives who point out that, say, it’s actually really hard to denaturalize a citizen and this is probably not a big risk, even under Trump, are getting dragged.
4) I’m not sure there’s Twitter-level demand for a conversation that is restricted to agreeing with the leftmost 7% of the electorate.

While Bluesky is a haven for leftists who only want to hear their own propaganda spewed back at them 24/7, ultimately, that’s not where the broader public square is. More than likely, they’ll come back to X after the election loss pain becomes less intense. In the meantime, they can enjoy random nature pictures interspersed with hateful rants against conservatives all they like. Perhaps their leaving X will make it a slightly more pleasant place for everyone else who just wants to have a conversation.