Updated on October 18, 2024: X Creative Community Faces Exodus! Bluesky User Base Grows Over 100,000
Elon Musk recently announced his plan to create the “most powerful AI” by the end of this year. In light of this, social platform X has recently announced modifications to its user privacy policy, sparking an exodus from the X creative community.
The new policy is set to take effect on November 15th and will default to “users uploading content unconditionally agreeing to allow X to provide it for AI training.” This means that after these adjustments, the works of creators on the platform may be imitated by AI, prompting many Japanese illustrators, VTubers, voice actors, and game developers who cannot tolerate this to seek refuge in the new social community platform “Bluesky” or other platforms resembling Twitter.
Bluesky has reportedly gained over 100,000 users within 12 hours and continues to grow at a rate of 10 registered users per second. Many users on the platform have reported encountering login issues due to the influx of users, with the login screen displaying “Unable to connect to the service, please check your internet connection,” and users from around the world reporting difficulties logging in.
The following is the original article dated May 4, 2023.
Is Selling Twitter to Musk Good or Bad? How does the co-founder view him?
Since selling Twitter to Musk, co-founder Jack Dorsey has expressed his views on whether Musk is the best manager for Twitter:
“I don’t think so. And I don’t think he took the right action after realizing the timing wasn’t right.”
Although Dorsey criticized Musk, he also mentioned that as a publicly traded company, Twitter could not escape the influence of Wall Street financial giants.
A user on Bluesky asked Dorsey a question.
Image / TechCrunch
According to TechCrunch, a user named Jason Goldman from the decentralized social community media platform Bluesky asked Dorsey on the platform, “Do you think Musk has proven to be the best manager for Twitter?” Dorsey replied, “No, and I don’t think he took the right action after realizing the timing wasn’t right.” This indicates that he believes Musk’s decisions after taking over Twitter did not help the company move in the right direction.
However, there are also differing opinions. The Washington Post believes that Dorsey’s comments were made to avoid self-blame, which Dorsey strongly opposes, as he has previously apologized for Twitter multiple times.
Although Dorsey believes Twitter’s performance under Musk’s leadership has been subpar, he also points fingers at the Twitter board, accusing the forced sale as one of the main reasons for Twitter’s current situation. Dorsey wrote on Bluesky, “Twitter couldn’t survive as a publicly traded company unless you’re willing to let hedge funds and Wall Street radicals own it.”
Read More:
After nearly four years! Why is the decentralized community “Bluesky” backed by Twitter not well-received in the market?
Why did Dorsey change his opinion on Musk, whom he previously regarded as the only answer?
Dorsey’s evaluation of Musk has taken a turn.
On April 26th of last year, Dorsey wrote on Twitter that he believed Musk was the only answer he trusted. He supported Musk’s various visions for Twitter, including reaching 1 billion users, fighting fake accounts and misinformation, open algorithms, and becoming a super platform like WeChat. However, Dorsey later responded to that tweet, indicating that he made that statement to prevent Twitter from falling into the hands of more aggressive hedge fund managers.
The tweet that once considered Musk the only answer for Twitter now appears ironic.
Although the acquisition process was turbulent, and Musk could have paid $1 billion to terminate the acquisition, the deal was eventually completed in October last year for $44 billion. After Musk took over, he made various changes to Twitter, including cost-cutting measures, launching various subscription plans, and open algorithms. While achieving cost reduction, these controversies also led to the departure of many celebrity users.
According to Business Insider, hate speech on Twitter has increased since the acquisition. Although Musk promised to establish a content moderation committee to determine how and whether harmful posts should be deleted, it has yet to be established to this day. He also conducted a poll asking users if he should resign, stating that he would abide by the results of the survey. However, as the current CEO of Twitter, he remains highly active.
What is Bluesky and how is it different from Twitter?
Bluesky is an application developed by Dorsey during his time at Twitter, operating independently of Twitter. Similar to the previously popular Clubhouse, Bluesky also requires an invitation code to use, which increases users’ desire for the platform because “seeing it doesn’t necessarily mean you can use it.”
According to Bloomberg, Bluesky’s appearance and usage are similar to Twitter, with a similar interface. The difference lies in the fact that it is a “decentralized” social media platform.
Bluesky is not a platform like Facebook or Twitter but rather a backend interface that allows any social media plug-in, enabling users to maintain their identity and connections across services. This means that users can switch from one hosting service to another while retaining their followers and content.
The idea of decentralization is to allow users to compare different platforms and choose the best interface or preferred content moderation options, reducing their reliance on any single service provider and giving them more control over their data.
Dorsey previously wrote on Twitter, “In principle, I don’t think anyone should own or operate Twitter. It should be a public product at the protocol level, not a company.” Perhaps this idea could be realized in Bluesky.
Sources: Washington Post, Bloomberg, TechCrunch, Business Insider, USAToday, Edited by: Lin Meixin
