Bluesky COO Warns Teen Social Media Bans Could Strengthen Big Tech's Market Grip

According to Rose Wang, Bluesky's chief operating officer, social media bans targeting teens risk consolidating Big Tech's dominance in the industry, she warned on Wednesday at SXSW in London.

Wang told CNBC that while Bluesky supports youth protection measures, heavy regulation could raise compliance costs prohibitively for smaller platforms. "In the long term, we're headed to a world where there's about three to five platforms, and the whole compliance teams of these platforms are 10 times the size of our entire team," Wang said. Bluesky, which has around 40 employees and 43 million users as of March, argues that such regulatory barriers make it nearly impossible for smaller competitors to build alternative platforms.