If TikTok bites the dust (as it is expected to do on Sunday), billionaire Mark Cuban says he would be open to funding an alternative video-sharing platform built on the protocol developed by microblogging site Bluesky.
Since outgoing President Joe Biden signed an order demanding that TikTok sell its platform to the US or risk a nationwide ban, there has been a lot of anticipation about what could fill the void if the app actually leaves the country. many people I would like to buy the original app from ByteDance, its Chinese parent company. ByteDance has repeatedly said it is not for sale. Now, Cuban has proposed an alternative version of the video-sharing app that could be much better for everyone in the long run.
Cuban shared the idea in a tiktok video posted on his account on Tuesday. “There is an app called Bluesky and it is based on the AT protocol,” Cuban said. “I would be open to investing to support anyone, or anyone creating a TikTok replacement based on the AT Protocol. So if you have that ability, let me know in the comments,” Cuban said. “If you create an MVP, a minimum viable product, so that I can see it, that’s much better, because obviously I think you would have a lot of support,” Cuban said.
It is unknown whether Cuban will actually make such an investment, although the idea is intriguing. The appeal of Bluesky is that it is ostensibly a “decentralized” social media platform, allowing users to host their data on servers other than the company’s. While the majority of users of the decentralized web don’t count bluesky as an official part of Fediverse, and others claim that the site is only “cosplay” in decentralizationThe site has some benefits that you can’t get on a site like X or Facebook. Its AT protocol is a federated protocol that allows users to create their own interoperable applications and servers, while maintaining links with Bluesky’s user base. In that sense, it allows users greater autonomy than other sites.
Bluesky has attempted to present itself as the antidote to X, the once-popular microblogging site that crazy tech billionaire Elon Musk has since turned into his own private propaganda apparatus. The platform was created by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey in 2019 as a Twitter side project, and was later spun off into its own company when Musk took over Twitter. Since then, Dorsey has separate paths with the platform, but the site has continued to grow. A recent study claimed that so-called “Twitter abandoners” had helped boost Bluesky’s user base to more than 27 million people (for comparison, X has an estimated 250 million daily users).
While the idea of having a TikTok-like site that works more or less like Bluesky is great, it’s not clear that the American TikTok app will actually die. The company is doing everything it can to court incoming President Donald Trump in hopes of securing a last-minute pardon. On Thursday, was reported that TikTok CEO Shou Chew would attend Trump’s inauguration. Triumph has also said which is considering an executive order to save the platform.