Starting as a centralized platform, Twitter can take steps to open up APIs and provide choices to users, and this can be a path towards restoring trust in the current service. The premise of Bluesky, however, is to work towards a transparent and verifiable system from the bottom up by building a network that is open by default. 

If we want independent and quality editorial to maintain a vital place in our democracy, we have to imagine a new set of relationships between platforms, editorial, marketers and audiences. A promising innovation is already in place at one platform: Twitter.

The defining difference between web 1.0 and the platforms that dominate today is not technological sophistication but moral architecture. Early online communities were transparent about process and purpose. They exposed how information was created, corrected and shared. That visibility generated accountability. People could see how the system... See more