Trump Administration’s First Foray Into the Liberal BlueSky Social Media World Goes About as Well as Expected

The Trump administration said all it wanted late last week when it began creating accounts on the Bluesky social media platform was “an open and honest dialogue” with its critics on the left-wing world’s alternative to Twitter. What it got instead was anything but open dialogue.The White House’s official account on BlueSky — a platform favored by disenchanted liberals who abandoned X, formerly known as Twitter, when Elon Musk bought it in 2022 — quickly became one of the most-blocked accounts on the site. The only account to be blocked by more users is one maintained by Vice President JD Vance, who created his profile last summer.In much the same way it works on X, when a user blocks another account on Bluesky the posts by that account become invisible to the person doing the blocking and vice versa. Blocked accounts are also unable to reply, like, mention, or follow the users who blocked them. In essence, it’s a digital form of muting someone.“What’s up, Bluesky?” the White House wrote on Saturday in one of its first posts on the site. The post included a highlight reel of President Trump in the Oval Office, departing Air Force One, and attending a rally, among other things. “We thought you might’ve missed some of our greatest hits, so we put this together for you. Can’t wait to spend more quality time together!”The Trump Department of State’s first post was only slightly more diplomatic. “We heard this is a great place to have an open and honest dialogue, so we’re here to talk about how the Democrat shutdown is undermining our country on the world stage,” whoever manages the account wrote.The official White House account has posted several messages in the hours since it was created. Among them are an AI-generated image of Senator Chuck Schumer and Congressman Hakeem Jeffries wearing sombreros, attacks on Democrats for shutting down the government, and a joke about Mr. Trump wearing a crown on the same day of the nationwide “No Kings” protests. In the first 24 hours of its existence, more than 93,000 people blocked the White House’s BlueSky account, according to data compiled by ClearSky, which tracks how many people are blocking certain accounts. The only person who is blocked by more accounts than the White House is Mr. Vance. More than 166,000 people have blocked him. Other accounts enduring tens of thousands of blocks include writer Jesse Singal, a prominent critic of transgender ideology, pro-Israel commentator Brianna Wu, billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban, and mainstream press outlets like the Washington Post and the New York Times. ClearSky says there are more than 35.3 million active accounts on BlueSky. Beyond the White House, several departments and agencies also created BlueSky accounts to mock liberals on the platform. The Department of Homeland Security made a video of BlueSky’s chief executive, Jay Graber, saying that her platform was “for everyone.” In its post, DHS urged Americans to call lawmakers to end the government shutdown. The commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, also cut a video to post on BlueSky, in which he similarly criticized Democrats for blocking the government spending bill. The White House’s account shared messages critical of Democrats that were posted by the Department of Transportation, the Department of the Interior, and the Department of Labor, among others. Under the White House’s messages, the comments sections are filled with calls for the president to release the Epstein files, demands that he resign, and other posts critical of his immigration policies.“Just ridding the [timeline] of trolls,” journalist Elizabeth Spiers wrote, announcing that she had blocked the White House account. Last month, she wrote an opinion piece in the Nation condemning Charlie Kirk following his assassination — a piece that was later denounced by Mr. Vance. “Gotta block them all! Block early, block often!” wrote a Harvard Law School clinical instructor, Alejandra Caraballo. One BlueSky user even created a list of all Trump administration BlueSky accounts that other liberal platform users should be blocking. That list was later shared by the 50501 Movement, which was involved in planning the “No Kings” protest on Saturday. “Here are all the accounts to block,” the group wrote.

Trump Administration’s First Foray Into the Liberal BlueSky Social Media World Goes About as Well as Expected

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