Bluesky Brain, X Brain: Two Viral Stories From Minnesota

The social media divide means audiences are no longer obsessing about the same video outrages. Episode 1: the arrest of ChongLy Thao versus the Cities Church

illustration by Daniel Medina

In 2019, then-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey backed an independent innovation called Bluesky. The idea: instead of relying on one central hub like Twitter, social media posts would function like e-mail, with an infinite number of carriers whose users could communicate no matter what system they used.

In the half decade since, Bluesky fully spun off, Elon Musk acquired and renamed Twitter, and the platforms became partisan mirror sites, leaving America’s social media brain in schism. Audiences on X/Twitter and Bluesky now frequently pour attention into viral stories without knowing about mirroring tales gobbling eyeballs on the other platform, even if the topics are related. We might not have had a more glaring example of this than in the last days.

Since Sunday, Twitter/X generated 3.4 million posts about ICE protesters bursting into the Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota. Meanwhile, a story about a 57 year-old Hmong-American named ChongLy Thao who was led by ICE agents onto a snowy street in boxers and Crocs generated about 2,600 posts in the same time period. On the smaller Bluesky platform the situation reversed: the #Hmong story generated enormous heat, while traffic about the Cities Church affair was minimal, only what was there was nearly all negative.

Dorsey was a prominent early presence in Bluesky, but two summers ago left the company board to focus on Nostr, a fully decentralized platform. When asked what (if anything) could be done to incentivize social media users to look outside their editorial comfort zone, he wasn’t optimistic. “I believe it has to be intrinsic to the individual, and generally it’s not,” he said. “This isn’t unique to social media, it’s been all media as long as it’s existed. People chose their filter bubble and rarely pop out.”

Both of the viral St. Paul stories centered on video from Sunday morning. Both inspired heavy commercial news coverage. As an insight into who sees what and how gulfs in perception form about politics, it’s instructive. Details from different visions of America on opposite platforms:

Bluesky: ICE “KIDNAPS” ELDERLY “HALF-NAKED” HMONG MAN

Google Trends results for search term “Hmong”

STORY IN CAPSULE: A Laos-born naturalized Hmong-American named ChongLy (Scott) Thao was taken from his home in St. Paul by “10-15” ICE agents Sunday morning, and led outside in a blanket and underwear in 14-degree temperatures. He was returned later in a story covered by NBC, ABC, CBS, Reuters, USA Today, AP, BBC, the Chicago Tribune, and others. Video:

MAINSTREAM NEWS SAID: ICE officers “broke down [Thao’s] door with guns drawn” (NBC), searched and detained him “without a warrant” and then took him outside in “subfreezing conditions” (AP), claiming he “fit the description” of wanted sex offenders (Pioneer Press). They wrapped him in a “blanket belonging to his 5-year-old grandson” (ABC) and drove him around for an hour before returning him without “explanation or apology” (NBC).

BLUESKY USERS HEARD: “These fucking animals” at ICE “kidnapped an elderly Hmong man” using the “racist claim that he fit the description,” part of a “sub-ethnic cleansing” campaign in which ICE is “wantonly abusing minorities” and “turning cruelty into policy” by “randomly” targeting Hmong.

BLUESKY POSTS:

WHAT COULD AN ICE SUPPORTER LEARN FROM THIS STORY? ICE Agents knocked a door down and made an arrest without a warrant — not allowed — and reportedly denied American Thao time to look for ID or get dressed despite the cold. After the error, the DHS published wanted posters for two convicted sex offenders from Laos said to be the real targets, but compounded optics problems by saying, “The US citizen lives with these two convicted sex offenders,” which may not be true. Neither offender looked much like Thao, either. DHS Deputy Secretary Trisha McGlaughlin’s comments were defiant — why not apologize to an American? — and the incident is being covered in publications and Facebook groups for Asian-Americans, who voted for Trump in large numbers in 2024, moving 5 points from 2020. The story could have significant political ramifications.

Meanwhile, on X:

X/Twitter: DON LEMON LEADS “ANTI-ICE MOB” TO “STORM” CHURCH

Google Trends search for “Cities Church”

STORY IN CAPSULE: Anti-ICE demonstrators entered the Cities Church in St. Paul Sunday and amid chants of “ICE Out!” accused worshippers of being “fake Christians” and “comfortable white people” who aren’t “standing with your Somali and Latino communities.” The pretext involved pastor David Easterwood’s status as acting director of the ICE Field Office in St. Paul. Trump Department of Justice Civil Rights chief Harmeet Dhillon signaled an intent to investigate under the FACE Act, passed to protect access to abortion clinics but also observance at “a place of religious worship.” Heavily covered by Fox News, the New York Post, and CBN, the Washington Post and New York Times also weighed in with creative perspectives. Video:

MAINSTREAM NEWS SAYS: The “frequently fired” (New York Post) Don Lemon, who gave a pre-event standup explaining he was only with “so many white people” who might seem “MAGA-coded” with “the American flag or whatever” because “white allies” were needed to pull off “the operation we’re doing today.” After activists led by civil rights lawyer Nekima Levy Armstrong entered, Lemon told pastor Jonathan Parnell the operation was covered by the First Amendment, which Gregg Jarrett (FOX) had to remind “does not extend to private property and certainly not to churches.” Lemon added, “It is traumatic for the people, and that's what protesting is about.” When put “on notice” by Dhillon about the FACE Act probe, Lemon (per National Review) pivoted and said he had “no affiliation” with protesters, but told podcaster Jennifer Welch the churchgoers deserved the intrusion because they are “entitled white supremacists,” adding that he was targeted for being gay and black.

X USERS HEARD: Lemon, who “says the American flag is ‘MAGA-coded,’” should “go to prison for this.” Meanwhile, “Inside Politics on CNN played exactly one second of the audio from the church protest,” which is “just shameless,” and by the way, “terrorizing church attendees is not a ‘protest,’ legacy media.” Minnesota AG Keith Ellison declared the protests are protected, saying “none of us are immune to the voice of the public,” to which one user replied, “You heard him. We can now protest in Somali mosques for stealing our money.”

X POSTS:

WHAT COULD AN ICE PROTESTER LEARN FROM READING THIS STORY? Some posters wondered about targeting a church in the city where “less than 6 months ago, kids at a Catholic school were shot during a chapel service,” with religious media denouncing the “disordered assertion that your politics matter more than their devotion to God” (Christianity Today). Outside X, though, the Cities Church action was positively covered. The New York Times noted that at a Black Lives Matter event at Saint Paul College, “cheers went up when the incident at Cities Church was mentioned,” and quoted a protester who came from Cleveland to join, saying participation “felt meaningful… particularly given the celebrations of Dr. King’s life.” Meanwhile the Washington Post quoted spiritual leaders who denounced Easterwood while also speaking to a former ACLU legal director, who declared the FACE Act should not apply, provided Cities Church members were not “barred from taking Communion or some other religious activity.” The ACLU has been silent on whether or not the Cities Church action constitutes protected First Amendment speech.

MISCELLANY: Nicky Minaj, ripped on Bluesky for “straight raccooning,” had a real feud with Lemon over this incident. She did not however make a widely circulated parody diss track, which featured lines like “You ain’t Peter, you ain’t Paul/Those are just the guys you cracked at the mall.” That was @Not_Firestine, and Louder With Crowder:

The January 18th stories have already been followed by tough talk from officials, with the Trump administration sending out subpoenas to Governor Tim Walz (one of very few politicians to say he didn’t support the church action), Ellison, and Mayor Jacob Frey, who on Sunday described Minneapolis events by saying “This is not just about resistance here in Minneapolis. It’s about love.”

With separate platforms audiences don’t even accidentally engage with stories from the “other side.” Is it fixable? Even if we had a fully decentralized system like Nostr, says Dorsey, that wouldn’t “change people’s desire to challenge their ideas and opinions.” This, he says, “is a societal norms thing.” Only, the norms aren’t normal. We’ll be looking for ways to quantify this siloing effect in the future. What crazy times!