Update on October 18, 2024: X Creative Community Experiences Wave of Exodus! Bluesky User Growth Exceeds 100,000
Elon Musk recently announced his plan to create the “most powerful AI” by the end of the year. In response to this, the social media platform X has announced its intention to modify its user privacy terms, triggering a wave of exodus from the X creative community.
The new terms are set to take effect on November 15th and will default to “unconditional consent for X to provide user-uploaded content for AI training.” This means that after this adjustment, the works of creators on the platform may be imitated by AI in the future. As a result, many Japanese illustrators, VTubers, voice actors, and game developers who cannot tolerate this change have started to migrate to the new social community platform, “Bluesky,” which resembles Twitter.
Bluesky has reportedly gained over 100,000 users within 12 hours and continues to grow at a rate of 10 registrations per second. Many users on the platform have reported difficulties logging in, with the login page showing the message “Unable to connect to the server, please check your internet connection.” Users from around the world have also reported issues accessing the platform.
The following is the original article from May 4, 2023.
Is it good or bad that Twitter was sold to Musk? How does the co-founder see him?
Since selling Twitter to Musk, co-founder Jack Dorsey was asked whether he believes Musk is the best manager for Twitter. He replied, “I don’t think so. And I also don’t think he took the right actions after realizing his timing was wrong.”
Although Dorsey criticized Musk, he also mentioned that as a publicly traded company, Twitter couldn’t escape the clutches of Wall Street financial giants.
A user on Bluesky asked Dorsey about Musk.
Image / TechCrunch
According to TechCrunch, a user named Jason Goldman on the decentralized social community media platform Bluesky asked Dorsey, “Do you think Musk has proven to be the best manager for Twitter?” To which Dorsey replied, “No, and I also don’t think he took the right actions after realizing his timing was wrong.” This implies that Dorsey believes Musk’s decisions after taking over Twitter did not help the company move in the right direction.
However, there are also different opinions on this matter. The Washington Post believes that Dorsey’s comments were made to avoid self-blame, which Dorsey strongly opposes. He believes that he has previously apologized several times for Twitter.
Image / flickr
Although Dorsey believes that Twitter’s performance under Musk’s leadership has been poor, he also points the finger at the Twitter board of directors, accusing the forced sale as one of the main causes of 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.”
Further reading:
After nearly four years, why is the market not optimistic about “Bluesky,” the decentralized social community supported by Twitter?
Why did Dorsey change his mind about Musk, whom he once considered a savior?
Dorsey’s evaluation of Musk has taken a 180-degree turn.
On April 26th 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, auditing fake accounts and false information, publicly disclosing algorithms, and becoming a super platform like WeChat. However, Dorsey later clarified his tweet, stating that he expressed those views to prevent Twitter from falling into the hands of more radical hedge fund managers.
The acquisition process was tumultuous, and Musk could have paid $1 billion to terminate the deal, but in the end, the transaction was completed for $44 billion in October last year. After Musk took over, he made various changes to Twitter, including cost-cutting measures, introducing various subscription plans, and open-sourcing algorithms. Although he achieved cost reduction, the controversies also led to the departure of many celebrity users.
According to Business Insider, hate speech on Twitter has increased since the acquisition. Despite Musk’s promise to establish a content moderation committee to determine how and whether to remove harmful posts, it has not been established to this day. He also conducted a poll asking users whether he should resign, stating that he would abide by the results of the survey. However, as the current CEO of Twitter, he remains very active.
What is Bluesky and how is it different from Twitter?
Bluesky is an application developed by Dorsey during his time at Twitter. The platform operates independently of Twitter. Similar to the previously popular Clubhouse, Bluesky also requires an invitation code to use, which has increased the users’ desire for the platform even more because “seeing it doesn’t necessarily mean you can use it.”
Image / Bluesky
According to Bloomberg, Bluesky has a similar appearance and usage to Twitter, with a slightly different interface. The difference is that it is a “decentralized” social media platform.
Bluesky is not like platforms such as Facebook or Twitter. It is a backend interface that allows any social media plug-in, allowing users to maintain their identity and connections across services. In other words, users can switch from one hosting service to another while still retaining their followers and content.
The decentralized concept allows users to compare 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, no one should own or operate Twitter. It should be a public product at the protocol level, not a company.” Perhaps this idea can be realized in Bluesky.
Sources:
washingtonpost, Bloomberg, TechCrunch, Business Insider, USAToday, Edited by: Lin Meixin