Yes, Bluesky is an echo chamber. And that's a damn good thing
I remember the early days of social media.
While the early 90s had companies like Prodigy and Netscape in the market, the main service provider that emerged was America On-Line or AOL for short. AOL was at the forefront of the digital revolution at the time and was thinking critically about how to better connect its users. As folks recall, there was the instant message feature, where you could send personalized messages to anyone as long as they were logged in. This was a unique way to connect not only with friends on your "Buddy List" but also with those who were complete strangers. For those of a certain age, the initial message of "A/S/L?" became a common way to learn of someone's age, sex, and location. This opened up a whole new world of opportunities from having digital penpals to beginning a friendship that would move beyond the interwebs and into real life. Being able to message anyone, at least initially, became a way to gauge interests and hobbies and to see if a further connection could be made.
But this method was painstakingly slow. AOL realized this and instead of having users essentially cold call others to make connections, decided to create "chat rooms" where users could self-select a topic that appealed to them. From mainstream topics like sports to more niche topics like metaphysics, AOL provided a space for folks to join with others from across the country and share their passions. This was a unique way to make the internet smaller and more personal. Eventually, these overarching topics would break down into smaller, more specified areas of interest, allowing for even more unique connections to be made. Whether you were a fan of U2, the New York Yankees, Aristotle, Salvador Dali, or James Joyce you could always find others with whom you could build community in an online setting.
As dial-up internet gave way to WiFi in the early- to mid-2000s these specific chatrooms went away but this model persisted. Like AOL, Facebook's initial platform was based on peer-to-peer interactions. You had to have a .edu email to join. You could only add individual "friends" whose schools were on the Facebook network. However, as Facebook grew so too did the need for folks to join larger, collective groups. Like AOL, these groups emerged from the micro to the macro level, depending upon how you identified. There were some as large as "American Pride" and some as small as the "Cedar Rapids Lebanese Community." There eventually was added the Facebook Marketplace, an alternative to Craigslist where members could buy and sell items based on their geographic location. You could even "follow" celebrities through their fan pages so you could be the first to know when your favorite musical artist would be touring in your town.
In the early 2010s, social media took a new turn through the emergence of Twitter, a platform designed for short, quick public communications. By limiting messages to 140 characters, Twitter forced its users to think creatively about how to get their message out to the general public. If you were a news organization, you had to think about how to best summarize the news of the day. If you were a business, you had to decide how to best promote the launch of your newest product. If you were an individual, you had to consider your purpose on the platform. Were you on there to share tidbits about your life? Were you there to educate and engage people on a certain field or topic? Were you there to grow your following to reach a broader audience? Or were you there simply to lurk, to not post but to follow others whom you found interesting, entertaining, or inspiring?
Despite these possibilities, Twitter users typically ended up focusing in on an area of passion or interest. For those of us with a passion for politics, we inevitably ended up "following" those who shared that passion. This included elected officials, government agencies, news organizations, like-minded celebrities, and other Twitter users with whom we found ourselves in general agreement. With Jack Dorsey as CEO, Twitter was never a utopia but it still felt like a place where we could peacefully coexist with those who might not necessarily agree with our own worldview. By following those we agreed with and staying in our lane, the Dorsey years on Twitter were a way for us to amplify and celebrate Democrats and Democratic accomplishments all while being blissfully separate from those on the right. While Republicans like Tomi Lahren and Jack Posobiec had their own channels, we stayed clear of them and made sure to mute or block anyone if they tried to spread their propaganda onto our own feeds. While Twitter was far from perfect, Jack Dorsey at least made an effort to try and create a place where both sides could peacefully coexist.
Until the Trump years.
From 2015 onward, Donald Trump used Twitter as his own personal propaganda machine. At a time when cyberbullying was listed as a Twitter terms of service violation, Trump continuously pushed the envelope by expunging hate, vitriol, and bile against countless marginalized communities. At one point, there was a bot developed that would send out the very same tweet that Trump did to see how Twitter would respond. Time and time again the bot would see its account suspended for "violating Twitter terms of service" while Trump's own tweet would be allowed to remain. Despite a security feature of being able to report tweets and despite Trump's tweets being reported at record levels, Dorsey refused to remove Trump from the platform because he was driving engagement, which led to views, which led to more and more revenue being generated. Even though you could "block" Donald Trump on Twitter, his controversial tweets would inevitably end up on your newsfeed either by having someone you were following comment on it or by seeing a news organization write about it. Allowing Trump to dominate Twitter forced users to retreat more and more by blocking not only Trump himself but also right-wing news media, elected officials, and foreign adversaries. What had begun as a unique social media network had devolved into a tribal setting where those against Trump were forced to adapt to an app that no longer cared about its users' basic safety.
As bad as Twitter became under Jack Dorsey, it became exponentially worse under Elon Musk. In an effort to punish Dorsey for banning Trump after the events of January 6th, Musk decided to buy Twitter solely to use as a propaganda arm for himself and the conservative movement. One of his first acts in 2022 after purchasing Twitter was to allow formerly banned White nationalists to return to the platform. He then allowed Donald Trump himself to return, although Trump instead has stayed in his safe space over on Truth Social. Musk created a platform where ads would become so prevalent that they would dominate a user's own newsfeed, making it impossible to scroll for more than 10 seconds without encountering some sort of product placement. Bots ran rampant, a clear gift to Vladimir Putin and Russia that would give them permission to once again engage in anti-Democratic propaganda leading up to a national election. While Musk insisted that those engaging in misinformation would be removed from the platform, his Community Notes feature would fact-check various claims but he himself was exempt from ever being held responsible for his own unique brand of gaslighting. After having Musk at the helm for two years and seeing how Twitter made possible a second Donald Trump term, Democratic Twitter users had enough. Since the election, over 250,000 users have deactivated their Twitter accounts and sites like Bluesky have emerged as a progressive alternative to what Twitter had initially been. More and more users are now migrating after Musk made it a requirement for all Twitter users to opt in to new terms of service that require all users to give consent for their content to train the platform's AI bot, which became a final straw for countless users who could no longer stomach helping someone so vile as Elon Musk improve his platform.
The ironic part in all of this is that there is now the emerging criticism that Bluesky is becoming a progressive "echo chamber" as if for the last 30+ years we haven't all been seeking an online community that shares our own interests and passions. Bluesky is simply the latest app creating a space for those who share a particular worldview, similar to AOL chatrooms, Facebook groups, or early Twitter followers. Those of us who have migrated to Bluesky have done so to help protect our own mental health. We no longer have to worry about being swarmed by bots if we post pro-Democratic messages. We don't have to see a newsfeed full of pro-Trump ads. We don't have to check every other week to see if we've ended up on a "Dumb Libtards" list from a user with whom we've never even interacted. Bluesky has become a refuge, free of the bullying, hate, and vitriol that Twitter GOP users thrive on. Stress levels for all Bluesky users are down across the board. Scientists and experts don't have to worry about their findings being questioned. Progressive businesses don't have to worry about being told to fuck off because they have upcoming DEI trainings. Musical artists and athletes can freely support Democratic candidates without receiving death threats. Bluesky has now become what Twitter was prior to 2015 when you could post about politics and not have to worry about those who did not agree with your particular point of view.
Bluesky is unquestionably an echo chamber. It's an echo chamber of decency. It's an echo chamber of empathy. It's an echo chamber of compassion. It's the latest rendition of a 30+ year journey to find safety and solidarity with others. The online political right in this country thrives by shitposting. They are in the business of angertainment. They want to ruffle your feathers by posting the most ridiculous statements imaginable. Their absence on Bluesky is everyone else's gain. Bluesky won't remain a utopia forever. But to present the argument that is bad to surround yourself with others who share your passion and compassion is an argument that doesn't hold water. Since the birth of online service providers, users have been searching for a way to make the big, big world a little smaller and more personal. Bluesky doing this through a person's own personal politics is simply the latest evolution in this quest.
A quest born out of necessity as a way to stay sane in an otherwise insane world.