The conservative satire outlet the Babylon Bee is calling out X’s rival platform Bluesky for repeatedly censoring its posts and arbitrarily labeling them “intolerance.”
Babylon Bee editor-in-chief Kyle Mann told Fox News Digital that Bluesky’s decision to censor their content is a “chilling reminder” of what the social media landscape would look like if Elon Musk had not bought Twitter.
The Babylon Bee was suspended from Twitter in 2022 for posting a satirical article calling Adm. Rachel Levine, a Biden administration Cabinet member and a transgender woman, the “man of the year.”
Twitter flagged the post as violating its rules regarding “hateful conduct” and suspended the Babylon Bee’s account until they deleted their tweet, which the outlet refused to do. The Babylon Bee’s account remained suspended by Twitter until Musk reinstated it after he gained control.
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SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk speaks during an America PAC town hall on Oct. 26, 2024, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. (Samuel Corum/Getty Images)
Now, two years later, the Babylon Bee is facing a similar dilemma on Bluesky, which was created by Twitter’s co-founder Jack Dorsey and is widely seen as a direct competitor to X.
Bluesky has a similar layout to X but operates on an “authenticated transfer protocol” that creators say allows users more control over what content they access than platforms that operate on a single algorithm.
Bluesky’s website states that “our online experience doesn’t have to depend on billionaires unilaterally making decisions over what we see” and “on an open social network like Bluesky, you can shape your experience for yourself.”
The platform has seen a significant increase in users in the last several weeks, with 8 million people, many of whom are former X users, joining since Election Day. There are currently 22 million users on Bluesky, which is still considerably lower than X’s user base of over 500 million.
This illustration photograph taken on Nov. 12, 2024, shows the logo of social media platform Bluesky displayed on a mobile telephone and tablet, in Paris. (Ian Langsdon/AFP via Getty Images)
The Babylon Bee made its first post on Bluesky on Nov. 18. It posted the same Rachel Levine article that had gotten them suspended in 2022. The post was quickly flagged and hidden by Bluesky’s moderation service, which labeled it “intolerance.” Users can still see the post by clicking past the intolerance label.
The satire site’s creators have now tried reposting the article four times, with each attempt having a similar result.
According to Bluesky’s community guidelines, the platform bans “gender identity-based harassment” and anything “promoting hate or extremist conduct that targets people or groups based on their race, gender, religion, ethnicity, nationality, disability, or sexual orientation.”
Rachel Levine “Summer of Pride” (Screenshot: HHS/Instagram)
Mann, however, said that “it’s ironic that the platform championing tolerance and freedom from Musk’s influence is itself so intolerant of differing views.”
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He explained that the outlet “thought it was only fitting to debut the Bee’s account on Bluesky with the article that famously got us banned from Twitter” and that the result highlights the need for Musk’s prioritization of free speech on X.
“Bluesky’s censorship policies are eerily reminiscent of the status quo on Twitter before Elon Musk took over,” he said. “It’s chilling to think about what freedom of speech might look like right now in the United States if Musk hadn’t stepped up and freed us from the Twitter tyrants.”
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