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Bluesky has become a real alternative to X-twitter for LGBTQ people. Transgender World has experienced more than a 50% increase in followers since the US election.
The increasing polarization of American politics have seriously damages some of the most valuable parts of the internet: commons for debate and information sharing. Twitter was, for a time, such a place, used by millions of people across the political spectrum for debate and research.
Not anymore. Twitter was weakened even before Elon Musk took over, but since he became the owner and leader of what is now X, it has devolved a cesspool of hatred and trolling. He intentionally dismissed most of the moderators.
Toxic environment
I gave up debating transgender issues on twitter/X years ago, as it became increasingly clear that nearly all threads regarding gender variance might be taken over by trolls whose goal was not to learn but to win. If you debated on their terms, you soon found yourself lost in a toxic sea of "fake news" and lack of logic.
People have been leaving X-twitter for a long time now. I noticed that serious journalists stopped using twitter in their research. Activists who do not belong to the MAGA-tribe are also much less likely to use twitter for hashtag campaigns intended to raise awareness. Most trans people have stopped using twitter as a place of identity exploration or for finding friends.
Elon Musk has effectively destroyed Twitter, and I’m convinced it was intentional, as his extremist politics do not flourish in open and tolerant arenas for learning.
Note that Musk is a transphobe who has actively been harassing his transgender daughter on twitter, He is that bad.
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| Trans-supporter Jamie Lee Curtis says goodbye to X. |
Where to go?
Here's the problem: Even if there have been alternatives to twitter online, none of them have had the kind of reach that twitter has had when it comes to political and cultural debate.
While many platforms have more users, they do not serve as a commons like Twitter once did.
When LGBTQ individuals and allies have moved to other platforms, they haven’t been able to amplify their voices as effectively as on Twitter.
I believe the era of democratic, open, and tolerant discussion spaces is over, at least in the U.S. Trump and his MAGA activists promote hypermasculine dominance, making constructive debate impossible. Replacing Twitter’s role as an open forum for all is not feasible in that context.
However, it is possible to create a space where LGBTQ people and their allies can discuss trans issues without fear of harassment.
This requires a committed moderation team that enforces rules swiftly and fairly, which encourages a more positive discussion environment.
Enormous growth
Since Trump's victory Bluesky has seen an enormous growth. In September it had 9 million users. Now it boasts over 15 million. Some days it has clocked more than 1 million new members in a day.
An expert told Sky News that Google considers Bluesky to be ten times more significant than Musk’s platform for factual information, despite Bluesky being smaller.
I have been publishing my transgender news curation on both twitter, Bluesky, Mastodon, Threads and Telegram for a while now, and I noticed a huge increase in the number of Bluesky followers in the weeks after the American election. I had around 4000 followers on Bluesky before the election. Now I have 6700, and I am getting more than 100 new followers every day.
I gained more followers on Bluesky in two years than in 14 years on Twitter. Even before the election, the LGBTQ community recognized Bluesky as a more meaningful space.
Musk’s support for Trump has shown many queer and trans individuals that Twitter is now hostile territory. For the first time, my Twitter follower count has dropped.
People tell me they feel that Bluesky is the twitter they used to know. That should come as no surprise, as the service was launched by people from twitter. It features a straightforward, algorithm-free timeline without unwanted @elonmusk posts. Advertising may come later, but it isn’t present yet.
I have also noticed that quite a few journalists and media people have signed up for my transgender news feed. This tells me that they are looking for alternative sources of information as far as LGBTQ content goes. I am happy to provide them with that kind of intelligence.
Whether Bluesky will manage to keep all these new members and keep them active, depends on whether the the platform stays safe for marginalized people. If they do not invest enough in content moderation, I am afraid they will fail.
The alternatives
Sometimes what makes the winner is a matter for coincidence and chance. This time celebrity endorsements made the press write about Bluesky, which made it a more visible alternative to many pro-democracy and LGBTQ-friendly people.
Mastodon remains an important twitter-alternative for a lot of active queer and trans people, but I have not seen a significant influx of new followers over there. I suspect that the more complicated system with a large number of alternative servers or "instances" to chose between stops some from signing up.
Meta's Threads serves as a viable Twitter alternative. I saw that when Stephen King finally abandoned twitter last week, he pointed followers to his account over at Threads. The reason it has not managed to benefit much from the fall of civilized twitter is probably because of its association with another US billionaire. Some LGBTQ-accounts have been mistaken for porn producers, and that is not the kind of stress queer and trans people need right now. By the way, Bluesky is much more liberal and tolerant of exploration of the erotic side of life.
Reddit remains a very important place for LGBTQ and trans people. I find, for instance, r/transgender to be a very important source of transgender-relevant news, and there are other subreddits/subforums addressing different aspects of the transgender experience. It is a different platform than twitter, however, and I do not think it can fully replace the old twitter as far as the LGBTQ-debate goes.
So what about the Transgender World twitter account?
I do not see any meaningful future for our twitter-account right now. I stopped using it for debate years ago. Musk's X, unlike Bluesky, severely punishes news feeds by giving them little exposure in the algorithm. There are fewer and fewer members of twitter that is interested in the kind of news we am providing. Moreover, I do not like the idea of providing content to a platform owned by a fascist.
So the only reason I have not turned it off, is that there are still some active transgender follower left, people who do find this content useful. However, this may change soon. Let me know what you think in the comments.
PS1:
Those who see a similarity between the Transgender World butterfly logo and Bluesky's should note that our logo came first and was used first, by us, over at Bluesky. We are not going to sue them đ
PS2:
We will continue to deadname twitter as long as Musk deadnames his own transgender daughter.
Photo: Giuseppe Lombardo
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