The project of building alternatives to Big Tech is colliding with American authoritarianism
Laurens Hof writes a newsletter called Connected Places which really is a must for anyone interested in federated social networks and decentralisation in general. As someone who has led a Fediverse project I retain a professional interest, and of course I have a personal interest as someone with active Mastodon and Bluesky accounts (as well as less active Pixelfed and Bonfire accounts).
This particular post about ‘Blueskyism’ is a difficult one to quickly summarised, as it’s nuanced, but essentially Hof explains the situation that Bluesky (the company) found itself in last week after the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Essentially, because Bluesky (the network) isn’t very decentralised the moderation practices of Bluesky (the company) affect almost everyone on Bluesky (the network).
Although Hof doesn’t mention it specifically, there are some calling the assassination a ‘Reichstag fire’ moment for the US — i.e. a pretext to crack down on the political left. Bluesky (the network) is being painted by those on X (including its owner Elon Musk) as a ‘leftist space’ which needs to be ‘dealt with’ in some way. As it is not very decentralised, someone could buy Bluesky (the company) and effectively shut it down. What’s easier, when you have someone like Trump in power, as we’ve seen with Jimmy Kimmel is that an executive order, threats of tariffs, or some other abuse of power, can effectively silence free speech.
The state of open social networks has rapidly changed. Building social networks that can overtake big tech platforms was always an inherently political project, but recent developments in America have added a new dimension of urgency. Centrist pundits have made an effort to paint Bluesky as a leftist space. Outrage merchants on X share and amplify fabricated narratives about Bluesky users celebrating Kirk’s death, while fascist voices grow louder in their calls to shut down and prosecute all democratic and leftist spaces, which now includes Bluesky. Now, with US congressional demands for censorship and calls to remove Bluesky from app stores, the project of building alternatives to Big Tech is colliding with American authoritarianism.
[…]
Building resilient networks in 2025 means not just architecting against enshittification, but against authoritarianism. The infrastructure for ‘credible exit’ that Bluesky promotes may soon need to encompass not just leaving one ATProto platform for another, but also factor in what happens to the entire open social ecosystem when app stores and governments align against it. When authoritarian governments and tech oligarchs coordinate to eliminate spaces for political opposition, the shape of the solutions, both technological and social, need to account for this new threat. The challenge now is to imagine and build infrastructure that can survive not just bad business decisions, but coordinated political suppression. Building resilient social networks now means preparing for a future where being labeled as a ‘left’ space can get your app removed from app stores, and where the act of maintaining an open protocol becomes an act of resistance.
Source: Connected Places
Image: Elena Rossini