From BlackPlanet to Black Twitter to Blacksky

With corporate execs gutting DEI initiatives (ahem, Target) and social media giants rolling back fact-checking and anti-hate speech policies —- more and more people are thinking about how to use their power and shift their attention to online spaces more aligned with their values. 

The greatest example of this we've had in the last few years is the exodus of users from Twitter once the fallout from the Elon Musk takeover decimated the place. A lot of those folks set up shop on Bluesky. And in recent months, I’ve seen another wave of friends and creators move on from platforms like Instagram to places where they have more autonomy like newsletter platforms or more stability like YouTube. 

The current conversation about digital migration has me thinking a lot about the history of Black migration. In an effort to escape Jim Crow, nearly 6 million Black people moved from the South to all other parts of the country starting in 1910 through the 1970s, making home and bringing Black culture with them. That’s why, no matter how spread out across this nation, Black communities are united by that culture and shared history. 

This might be a sweeping statement but please allow me some grace this Black History Month: Black people have also been showing us how to move and find each other online for 25+ years.

Do y'all remember BlackPlanet? Launched in 1999, it was a social networking platform used for all sorts of connection and conversation from dating to job posting to political discussions. Its main mission was to “strengthen the Black community.” And it was huge. At the height of its use, Black Planet had 2.5 million registered users. Recognizing the popularity of the platform, Barack Obama started to use BlackPlanet during his first presidential campaign — gaining almost 200,000 friends in just 10 days. Unfortunately as more social media platforms like MySpace and Facebook popped up, BlackPlanet fell to the wayside.

That didn’t stop Black people from finding each other in other places. Fast forward to 2009, here comes Black Twitter. Black folks invigorated Twitter, carving out our own space to kiki about Shonda Rhimes shows in real time, launching an impressive number of viral memes, and sparking activism (think: #BlackLivesMatter, #OscarsSoWhite). Black Twitter is often cited as the user group that not only defined Twitter but the internet at large. Culture, thought, and discussion that started on Black Twitter made its place in the mainstream pretty quickly. Publications weirdly hired journalists to cover a Black Twitter beat. The way Black folks used the platform became a studied phenomenon. 

Now that Elon Musk has turned Twitter, I mean X, into a cesspool of bots, lies, and hate, a lot of Black Twitter users up and left – not wanting to deal with even more online harassment for the unmitigated gall of being Black on the internet. So where to next? Like a lot of ex-Twitter users, people have been moving to Bluesky. And although we don’t know how big it will become, Blacksky — Bluesky’s Black community — has been steadily growing over the last few months. 

The main lesson I take from all of this is that community, and the platforms where we grow it, are what we make it. We can always rebuild and always find each other and always innovate, for the culture. The internet is a challenging space to navigate, especially now. But we cannot abandon it. Our people still live, work, play, and connect on the internet, so let’s meet them–and organize them–there, too.