Teen Social Media Bans Risk Strengthening Big Tech's Dominance, Warns Bluesky Exec

Bluesky's chief operating officer believes teen social media bans "risk entrenching Big Tech's dominance," reports CNBC: Rose Wang, Bluesky's chief operating officer, told CNBC on the sidelines of SXSW in London on Wednesday that the smaller open-source platform isn't opposed to regulation but that smaller players in the industry should be protected. "I support the protection and the safety of youth... The question that we have then is at what cost? Because essentially what I'm scared of is in the long term, we're headed to a world where there's about three to five platforms, and extreme heavy regulation of those platforms... "Basically the whole compliance teams of these platforms are 10 times the size of our entire team," Wang said. "So, basically, we're living in a world where it's almost impossible for smaller entrants to come in and build healthier spaces." The article notes Bluesky had grown to 43 million users as of March, "which is still only around 10% of X's estimated 450 million users. Bluesky has struggled to maintain popularity, and by the end of October last year, it had reportedly seen a 40% drop in daily mobile active users over the past 12 months."

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