By Laura Harris
Users and advertisers who have left X, formerly Twitter, for Bluesky, a platform co-founded by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, have overwhelmed the site with mass censorship demands.
Since Elon Musk took over X in 2022, the platform has undergone policy changes. Leftists viewed many of the changes as being more advantageous to conservatives and people supportive of free speech, leading to a dramatic decline in liberal users and advertisers alike. (Related: Major advertisers in the “censorship cartel” set to return to Elon Musk’s X as they seek to curry favor with Trump.)
A host of high-profile celebrities and publishers have already migrated to Bluesky, a competing social media micro-blogging platform similar to X, due to the unpopular changes on X. These include Stephen King, Jaime Lee Curtis, Guillermo del Toro, Mark Hamill, Lizzo, George Takei, Don Lemon, Joy Reid and the official news account of The Guardian.
According to the Bluesky users, the platform, unlike X, allows them to customize their timelines with tailored feeds while introducing a federated server model. This gives users a significant degree of flexibility regarding the kind of content they consume.
Bluesky, which offers a Twitter-like experience with some notable enhancements, was initially launched as an invite-only platform. However, when Bluesky opened its platform to the public in February, it reported a significant surge in user activity, gaining three million new users in October and reaching 15 million by November, specifically after Trump won the election.
However, this influx has been inundated with content moderation demands, with over 42,000 reports filed in a single day and flagging requests exceeding 3,000 per hour.
“The mass migration of wokes from X to Bluesky is already impacting “safety” culture and censorship on that platform,” an X user posted on Nov. 17, along with a retweet from Bluesky Safety account.
The account’s post read: “In the past 24 hours, we have received more than 42,000 reports (an all-time high for one day). We’re receiving 3,000 reports/hour. To put that into context, in all of 2023, we have received 360K reports. We’re triaging this large queue so the most harmful content such as CSAM is removed quickly.”
Durden: Leftists are leaving X because they are afraid of fair discourse on an even playing field
In a video posted by an X user on the platform, journalist Don Lemon stated that X is no longer serving the purposes of “transparency and honest debate” after it underwent several major changes.
“I once believed that it was a place for honest debate and discussion, transparency and free speech,” Lemon said in the video posted on X on Nov. 13.
However, Tyler Durden wrote in his article for the Zero Hedge the real reason for this backlash from leftists.
“What leftists are actually angry about is the fact that conservatives are suddenly free to contradict progressive claims without fear of account bans, the doxing of their homes and workplaces and cancel culture in general,” Durden wrote.
“Leftists enjoyed a double standard at Twitter that worked aggressively in their favor. Even if their arguments were devoid of facts and evidence, the Terms of Service system Twitter put in place was specifically hostile to conservative ideals. Progressive members knew this and exploited it often to silence dissent. The only thing that might save an account was its size, with the biggest right-leaning users sometimes getting a pass.”
Durden concluded that leftists have been leaving the platform because they are afraid of fair discourse on an even playing field. “They refuse open debate unless the game is rigged in their favor,” he wrote.
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Watch this Oct. 22 episode of “Coach Dave Live!” as host Coach Dave Daubenmire discusses in detail the actual difference between mis-, mal- and disinformation.