Is it possible for any social app to be a kind of public square?

By Evan Dawson,

Megan Mack, Julie Williams

Published December 2, 2024 at 2:40 PM EST

Three smiling people sit at a table in a radio talk studio: a woman at left has short wavy purple and brown hair and is wearing a green plaid shirt; a man at center is bald and is wearing glasses and a light blue polo shirt; a man at right has short dark hair and is wearing a dark blue plaid button-down shirt.

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Emily Hessney Lynch and Scott Fybush on "Connections with Evan Dawson" on Monday, December 2, 2024

Mari Tsuchiya / WXXI News

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Monroe County Legislator Rachel Barnhart.

Provided photo

A smiling man with short dark hair wearing a blue button-down shirt and a grey blazer. He is holding a pair of eyeglasses. The word "Connections" appears on the left side of the photo in vertical letters.

Social media platform Bluesky looks a lot like Twitter, or X. And since Election Day, Bluesky has added roughly 10 million new users.

It's one of the most popular apps in the app store. It's still dwarfed by X, but is Bluesky a viable competitor? Critics say it's a left-leaning version of Truth Social. Many conservatives are staying away.

Is it a bubble? Does that matter? Is it possible for any social app to be a kind of public square?

Our guests discuss it:

Rachel Barnhart, Monroe County legislator, District 17
Emily Hessney Lynch, owner/founder of Serve Me the Sky Digital and adjunct professor of English and communication at Nazareth College
Scott Fybush, media consultant