Clouds Over Bluesky: The Left's Social Media Safe Space Under Fire For Intolerant And Hateful Postings

Authored by Jonathan Turley via jonathanturley.org,

Bluesky has become a safe space for liberals seeking to avoid the triggering presence of opposing views since the Trump reelection. The relatively small site now has over 30 million followers (in comparison 260 million for X and 3 billion on Facebook). Now, however, users like billionaire Mark Cuban are complaining that Bluesky is just another intolerant echo chamber on the left and some are reportedly returning to X.

Jaap Arriens / Sipa USA via AP

Billionaire Mark Cuban was one of the early champions of the site, writing “Hello Less Hateful World” in joining the site in November 2024.

At the time, some of us criticized the premise of the Bluesky devotees. Many supported the anti-free speech and censorship efforts during the Biden Administration. Bluesky offered a replication of the echo chamber in higher education, where liberals can go unchallenged or uncontradicted. This included some of the most intolerant figures in media, academia, and the government.

Now, Cuban and others are experiencing what many of us have lived through in higher education for years, an orthodox environment where even marginal disagreements are treated as litmus tests.

Cuban this week decried that “Even if you agree with 95% of what a person is saying on a topic, if there is one point that you might call out as being more of a gray area, they will call you a fascist etc.”

In his post on Monday, Cuban notes that “the replies on here may not be as racist as Twitter, but they damn sure are hateful. Talk AI: FU, AI sucks go away. Talk Business: Go away. Talk Healthcare: Crickets.”

“Because the Musk and Trump haters are the largest and most passionate group, the result is something of an echo chamber where it’s hard to get positive engagement unless you’re saying things progressives want to hear — and where the negative engagement on things they don’t want to hear can be intense.”

The problem is that many users went to Bluesky because they did not want to be challenged in a free-speech environment. It is a site for those who do not wish to be “triggered” by opposing views. If you only watch MSNBC and post on Bluesky, you can live within a hermetically sealed liberal space without the fear of contradiction or opposition.

Ultimately, 30 million users are not a significant threat to social media companies like X or Facebook. The hope that Bluesky would drain X of revenue has not materialized. Analysts are reporting that X appears to be rebounding after years of boycotts and ad revenue could grow by 17.5% to $1.31 billion, with global ad sales expected to rise by 16.5% to $2.26 billion.

Bluesky will still be able to capitalize off the draw as a safe space draw for the left with uniformly favorable media coverage. It also offers a concentrated membership of liberal users for Democratic politicians and pundits. However, it does little in terms of impact outside of that space.

That is the reason why most liberal politicians and pundits are still actively posting on X. Some belong to both — engaging a broader audience on issues on X while retreating to the safe space of Bluesky for reaffirmation.

However, it is harmful to the left in further insulating themselves from reality. Take a typical user like a Harvard professor who watches MSNBC and reads the New York Times. She then goes to work at a university with a faculty that has less than three percent of conservatives or Republicans and less than ten percent conservative or Republican students. She then goes to Bluesky to converse within a liberal ecosystem on social media. It is a virtual bio-containment tent that filters out any discordant elements.

The reason that many on the left were shocked by the election results is that they lived within these protected spaces. They have removed themselves further from the majority of this country, disengaging with anyone who objects to their priorities and values. Within that echo chamber, opposing views become more intolerable and shocking.

Bluesky will continue to be a draw for free-speech-phobic and viewpoint-intolerant users. Fortunately, most people want to be part of a larger discourse and engage with the world around them, despite the presence of trolls and hateful commentators.

Cuban’s call for greater diversity of thought on Bluesky is unlikely to alter the culture of a site that is maintained as a safe space for liberals. That cloistered environment only increases sensitivity and intolerance for opposing views. It is akin to developing an immune deficiency from a lack of exposure to certain elements.

If Cuban and others want robust debate, they will not find it in digital safe spaces like Bluesky.