Since its rise is closely linked to Twitter/X user defection in the Elon era, Bluesky has become a hotbed of interest for those who call themselves “progressives”. Declared centrists appear to be tolerant, if not pretentious, about culture war issues. Right wing Bluesky users do exist, but they are mostly there to troll. Far-leftists (communists and such) also fit somewhat uneasily into Bluesky culture, although they are far from unheard of.
Graber has at times appeared uneasy about the political uniformity on Bluesky. At a famous event last October, Graber seemed to agree that Bluesky was a lot like an echo chamber.
Then she became a bit bitter and contemptuous towards the users who pushed back, and became the main character of her social media platform for a while, after which a thread merged about what it all meant.
Partisan politics aside, Graeber’s 2023 Forbes profile paints him in a light that makes him seem like an unlikely steward of the app that eventually became Bluesky. In 2015, he got a job, “putting together Bitcoin mining equipment in a repurposed ammunition factory,” notes Forbes. He soon moved on to the creation of the cryptocurrency zcash.
Crypto and Bluesky were once conceptually linked. Bluesky was launched by RFK, Jr. fan Jack Dorsey, who wanted Bluesky to be “an open and decentralized standard for social media” that “gives users control over the algorithms that decide what they see,” as the Forbes profile notes. Dorsey later claimed that Bluesky was repeating the mistakes he made during his tenure at Twitter by exercising restraint.
Bluesky’s daily active user numbers haven’t been looking great in recent history. According to SimilarWeb research published last November, just before the 2024 election, Bluesky usage in mobile apps dropped 39.8% from the same point a year earlier.
In Graber’s blog post about changing her job, she says she is “most energized by exploring new ideas, bringing a vision to life, and helping people find their strengths,” and that the role of chief innovation officer is more “focused on where I can do what energizes me.”
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