Rebel News
Subhead:Calls to defund the ABC grow after it abandons 2.6 million X followers for just 2,000 on Bluesky’s left-wing safe space.# The ABC has once again shown why so many Australians are losing faith in the taxpayer-funded national broadcaster. There are now renewed calls to defund the biased activist organisation completely, or at a minimum sack its social media staff. On 18 May, ABC News posted a message telling its followers they might see fewer updates on X (formerly Twitter) and directing them instead to a Bluesky account. Not seeing as many ABC News updates here as you used to? Find us on Bluesky. https://t.co/9x0dAY2cRR — ABC News (@abcnews) May 18, 2026 Now, if you surveyed Australians of any age who use online platforms, 99.9% of them would have no idea what Bluesky is. They would probably ask: what on earth is Bluesky? That’s because the platform is barely known or used in this country (or even anywhere else in the world). That in itself is not a condemnation of the ABC. Its mandate is to reach Australians where they actually are, and to deliver news and information that keeps them informed. So it would make sense to expand to new platforms and mediums if some Australians may be gathering there. So what does the ABC do? Rather than focusing on reaching the widest possible Australian audience online, it is deliberately shifting its energy away from Australia’s largest online political town square. Instead of maintaining a significant presence on X, where it boasts 2.6 million Australian followers, it is moving its focus to Bluesky - a much smaller, left-leaning echo chamber that, as of the publication of this article, has just 2,000 Australians following it. This is ridiculous identity politics. The management at the ABC need to be either completely gutted or defunded. They have 2.6M followers on X and they want to post less here and more on Bluesky where they have 1200 followers and get SINGLE DIGIT likes and comments, if any. They… https://t.co/w5GRGuFA02 pic.twitter.com/4YBpTkX0ll — Dave Jones (@eevblog) May 18, 2026 A Sky News Australia analysis of posting patterns shows just how bizarre this shift is. Since 11 May 2026, the ABC has published only 18 stories on its main X account. In the same period, it has pushed out around 690 stories on Bluesky - a platform that began the month with roughly 300 followers and now sits at a measly 2,000. X reaches hundreds of millions of users globally and millions right here at home. Bluesky, by contrast, has far fewer, with just 37,873 verified Australian accounts according to recent government data. Yet the smaller platform is receiving the overwhelming bulk of the ABC’s attention. NB-embed:abc_tantrum_over_one_nation_ban This choice makes perfect sense to the activists running the ABC for one simple reason: Bluesky is heavily moderated and quick to ban voices critical of left-wing politics. It has become a comfortable safe space for Labor, the Greens, and the ABC itself. Whereas on X the ABC turns off comments, on Bluesky interaction with the broadcaster is welcomed. X also has a user-powered Community Notes system that has on many occasions tagged ABC content for misinformation. On Bluesky, the ABC can avoid that extra layer of public scrutiny. So apparently Australia banned kids (under 16) from accessing social media platforms like Instagram, X, but left out Bluesky from the ban. pic.twitter.com/GNgqwTkJUc — Joe Rogan Podcast News (@joeroganhq) April 27, 2026 The platform was also conveniently left out of the Under-16 social media ban, raising serious questions about whether officials are deliberately steering young people toward left-leaning spaces where ideas like gender transition are promoted without challenge.
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