There are so many great moments in James L. Brooks's "Broadcast News" but the one that always springs first to my mind is when the exasperated news division chief (Peter Hackes) says to Holly Hunter's hyper-OCD segment producer, "It must be nice to always believe you know better, to always think you're the smartest person in the room." You see Hunter's character, Jane Craig, about to snap right back but then her face suddenly turns sad. "No, it's awful," she replies.
Would that the American Left had enjoyed a fleeting moment of self-awareness like Jane's before The Atlantic beclowned themselves yet again with an article headlined, "The Right Has a Bluesky Problem." For those who don't know — which would be the overwhelming majority of sentient beings — Bluesky is the progressive alternative to X.
When the headline came across my X timeline last night, I mistakenly thought it must have been generated by one of those funny pitchbot accounts that generate satirical-but-close-to-believable headlines for the New York Times, Slate, The Atlantic, etc. "'The Right Has a Bluesky Problem?' That's a good one," I thought.
But then the link to the actual column — written by Ali Breland, who is most concerned for your welfare — showed up this morning in PJ's Slack channel for story ideas.
"Not a pitchbot? You've got to be kidding me."
Nope.
"If X becomes more explicitly right wing" as lefties flee for Bluesky, Breland warned, "it will be a far bigger conservative echo chamber than either Gab or Truth Social." Despite a recent survey showing X to be almost perfectly balanced between righties and lefties, Breland is ever-so-concerned about "a Gab-ification of X" that will cause "even more people with moderate and liberal sympathies [to] get disgusted and leave the platform, and that the right will lose the ability to shape wider discourse."
The concern-trolling is strong in this one.
Breland worries that conservatives will lose our ability to communicate with the people who think social media platforms should silence conservative voices:
Our @TheBabylonBee debut on Blue Sky is going great 😂 pic.twitter.com/Hf6xRYUQVF
— Kyle Mann (@The_Kyle_Mann) November 20, 2024
Investigative reporter Jordan Schachtel, who was "banned from the platform after a mere matter of hours" last week for saying there are only two genders, found Bluesky to be "a safe space for seething left-wingers to engage exclusively with their political allies and to rage at their perceived enemies." Worse, "It’s perhaps the most censorship-heavy and centralized social media platform there is."
End Wokeness got its Bluesky account banned within 30 seconds of their first post. It's laughably predictable that Bluesky is the American Stasi of social media platforms, with one bossy busybody after another reporting one another for offensive remarks.
What makes X great today is the same thing that made Twitter great before the progressive scolds took control of the platform: everybody is welcome. Lefties might leave X but they're welcome back anytime. Bluesky, on the other hand, is a pestiferous parade of progressive pablum. "Don't miss out on all the well-policed fun!" is not the selling point Breland seems to think it is.
I'll give the second to last word to Nate Silver, himself a lefty:
I'd join Bluesky if it was like 2012-15 Twitter, but the people going there seem to think 2019-2020 Twitter was good, when it was the most miserable place on earth unless you happened to fit within a very particular lane.
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) November 20, 2024
"Bluesky Is the Small Comfort I'd Been Looking For," CNET's Scott Stein wrote earlier this week.
"No, it's awful," replied Jane Craig.
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