A Democrat member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus from California is encouraging liberals not to abandon X following Donald Trump's victory Nov. 5, with many doing so in protest of the president-elect's association with Elon Musk, the social media platform's owner.
Rep. Ro Khanna, who represents California's 17th Congressional District and easily won reelection to a fourth term, said liberals like himself should not abandon X for other social media platforms, Politico reported Thursday.
"I think that everything he has said publicly is he believes in free and open speech, and we need to have more platforms," Khanna said of Musk on Politico's Power Play podcast. "Not only do I stay, I use it all the time ... I don't think that the answer for progressives is to disengage.
"Now we have the distortion of the public sphere with moneyed interests and with digital spaces that aren't equal for everyone to participate. And what we ought to be focused on is how do we create more town hall-like places for conversation online."
Following Trump's victory over Democrat Vice President Kamala Harris, millions of X users left the site for other environs. Upstart Bluesky, which has more than doubled in size in the past three months, has been the biggest beneficiary, with others also flocking to Meta's Threads.
The Washington Post reported earlier this month that eight days after the election, Bluesky added more than 1.25 million users, bringing its total to more than 15 million. X has more than 300 million monthly users, according to CNBC, and since the start of this month, Bluesky's U.S. mobile app downloads have skyrocketed 651%, according to estimates from Sensor Tower. In the same period, X and Threads are up 20% and 42%, respectively.
Many who left X have claimed that since Musk bought the platform in October 2022 for $44 billion, it has become an echo chamber for the right. Khanna said that shouldn't be an excuse to disengage.
"First of all, even if it's slightly right or left, I mean it's certainly right of center — I don't know, I would be open to looking at actual data on it — you want to engage in it," Khanna said. "Just like you want to go on Fox News, and you want to go on progressive programs. Do I think algorithms have caused information challenges in modern democracy? Absolutely. Do I believe that we are in our filter bubbles online? Yes.
"But there are also deep divisions ... so, the best way on the digital space is to build new places that we can have conversations across parties and ideology."
Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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