Mark Cuban Says He’ll Again a TikTok Various Constructed Off Bluesky’s Protocol

If TikTok bites the mud (as it’s expected to do on Sunday), billionaire Mark Cuban says he’d be open to financing an alternate video-sharing platform that’s constructed off the protocol developed by microblogging web site Bluesky.

Ever since outgoing President Joe Biden signed an order demanding that TikTok promote its platform to the U.S. or threat a nationwide ban, there’s been a lot anticipation over what may fill the void if the app does certainly exit the nation. Many individuals would like to buy the unique app from ByteDance, its Chinese language mum or dad firm. ByteDance has repeatedly mentioned it’s not on the market. Now, Cuban has proposed an alternate model of the video-sharing app that may very well be a lot better for everyone in the long term.

Cuban shared the thought in a TikTok video posted to his account Tuesday. “There’s an app referred to as Bluesky and it’s constructed on the AT Protocol,” Cuban mentioned. “I might be open to investing in supporting anyone—or any individual who creates a TikTok substitute constructed on the AT Protocol. So when you’ve bought that capacity, let me know within the feedback,” Cuban mentioned. “When you create an MVP—a minimal viable product—so I can see it, that’s all the higher, as a result of clearly, I believe you’d have an entire lot of assist,” Cuban mentioned.

Whether or not Cuban would truly observe by way of with such an funding is unknown, although the thought is intriguing. The attraction of Bluesky is that it’s ostensibly a “decentralized” social media platform, in that it permits customers to host their information on servers aside from these owned by the corporate. Whereas most decentralized net customers don’t count Bluesky as an official a part of the Fediverse, and others declare the location is simply “cosplaying” at decentralization, the location does have some advantages you can’t get at a web site like X or Fb. Its AT Protocol is a federated protocol that permits customers to create their very own interoperable apps and servers, whereas nonetheless sustaining ties to Bluesky’s consumer base. In that sense, it permits customers extra autonomy than different websites.

Bluesky has tried to current itself because the antidote to X—the previously well-liked microblogging web site that nutjob tech billionaire Elon Musk has since converted into his personal personal propaganda equipment. The platform was created by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey in 2019 as a Twitter side-project, then spun off into its personal firm when Musk took over Twitter. Since then, Dorsey has parted ways with the platform, however the web site has continued to grow. A latest research claimed that so-called “Twitter-quitters” had helped boost Bluesky’s user base to greater than 27 million folks (for comparability, X has an estimated 250 million daily users).

Whereas the thought of getting a TikTok-esque web site that capabilities kind of like Bluesky is a cool one, it’s not clear that TikTok’s U.S. app will truly die. The corporate is doing all the things it might probably to courtroom incoming President Donald Trump within the hopes of getting a last-minute reprieve. On Thursday, it was reported that TikTok’s CEO, Shou Chew, would attend Trump’s inauguration. Trump has also said that he’s contemplating an govt order to save lots of the platform.