Jack Dorsey Leaves Bluesky Social, Calls Twitter “Freedom Technology” But Only Follows Three People
Jack Dorsey is a big fan of decentralizing social media. Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.
Key Takeaways
- Bluesky Social has confirmed that Jack Dorsey is stepping down from the board.
- Meanwhile, Dorsey has endorsed X, calling the platform “freedom technology.”
- Having drastically decluttered his feed, the Twitter founder only follows 3 accounts.
While Jack Dorsey may be most well-known for founding Twitter, the platform now known as X isn’t the only social networking technology he can be credited with developing. Back in 2019, when he was still Twitter’s CEO, Dorsey announced that the company would fund a small team of independent developers to build “an open and decentralized standard for social media.”
That project went on to become Bluesky Social, an open-source microblogging platform that has been posited as an alternative to X. But having been one of its most important supporters for years, Dorsey has now stepped down from his role as a board member and endorsed X.
Dorsey’s Turbulent Relationship With Twitter
Since handing over the reins to Elon Musk in 2022, Dorsey’s relationship with X has been complicated.
Despite initially celebrating Musk’s acquisition, in posts on Bluesky, Dorsey has since walked back on his endorsement, claiming that “it all went south” for the platform after the takeover.
For a while, Dorsey appeared to favor the new platform over Musk’s X. But in mid-2022, he deleted his Bluesky account. And now, he has cut ties with the company entirely.
In contrast, Dorsey’s X account is as active as ever, and on Saturday, May 4, he called the platform “freedom technology”. However, there is one caveat to his use of the social network. The man who founded Twitter only follows 3 other accounts.
The 3 X Accounts Followed by Jack Dorsey
Until recently, Dorsey followed over 4,600 X accounts – nearly 8 times more than the platform’s current owner. But at some point in the last year, he unfollowed the vast majority of them.
Now, Dorsey only follows Musk, Edward Snowden and Julian Assange’s wife, Stella.
Although he never explained the decision, Dorsey’s Spartan timeline aligns him with the pro-free speech, anti-censorship politics espoused by Musk, Snowden and Assange. Yet the divergences in how Musk and Dorsey have run X suggest the 2 men don’t exactly see eye-to-eye on the matter.
Dorsey the Free Speech Champion?
In his latest statement referring to X as a “freedom technology,” Dorsey advised people not to depend on corporations to defend their rights. Yet comments on the post accused him of hypocrisy.
“The king of censorship has spoken,” one user wrote. Another accused Dorsey of allowing the government to censor conservatives, claiming that “it took a bigger and better man” to end the practice.
The criticism adheres to a vision of X perpetuated by its current owner, who likes to depict the platform as a bastion of free speech, in contrast with its more censorious model under Dorsey. And now the former CEO appears to be coming round to Musk’s way of thinking, perhaps they will reconcile their differences.
