Rose Wang, Chief Operating Officer of Bluesky, said that when countries implement restrictions on teenagers' use of social media, setting overly burdensome compliance requirements could make it harder for small and medium-sized platforms to enter the market, ultimately further reinforcing the dominance of large tech companies in the industry.
During an interview with CNBC at the SXSW event in London, she said that Bluesky is not opposed to regulation and supports child protection, but the issue lies in who bears the cost of compliance. She noted that the compliance teams of large platforms may already far exceed the total size of small platforms’ entire teams, leaving little room for newcomers to build new products and communities.
Regulatory costs may raise the barrier to entry
Wang stated that many major social platforms have long prioritized commercial interests, which is a key reason governments around the world are accelerating regulatory intervention. However, she also believes that if regulatory frameworks are primarily designed based on the resource capabilities of leading platforms, the outcome may not improve the industry but instead raise barriers to entry.
She said that regulation needs to advance in tandem with innovation, and regulators should maintain more communication channels for small and medium-sized platforms and enterprises, rather than imposing the same high-cost requirements on all companies.
Australia has been the first to implement it.
Australia previously set an important precedent in this direction by implementing social media restrictions targeting minors. Under local regulations, platforms that fail to take "reasonable measures" to comply may face fines of up to A$49.5 million.
Public information shows that Bluesky has also implemented age verification measures to prevent users under 16 from accessing its platform. As Australia leads in implementing such policies, countries including the UK, Spain, France, and Austria are advancing similar legislation. In the United States, such restrictions are more likely to emerge first at the state level.
Bluesky users are still far fewer than those on X.
Bluesky was initially launched internally at Twitter in 2019, spun off as an independent entity in 2021, and has since gradually been regarded as one of X's competitors. The platform received support from Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey.
As of March this year, Bluesky had approximately 43 million users. In comparison, X is estimated to have around 450 million users. Wang’s primary concern is that if, in the future, only a few large platforms can afford the regulatory costs, competition and product diversity could further shrink.