Why Knight Foundation invested in Bluesky –
We made a bet on a social web that protects speech, creates opportunity for publishers and creators, and enables research on the information ecosystem

Today the social web is the infrastructure of public conversation. The design decisions and business incentives of a few private platforms hold immense sway over how we find news, encounter opposing views and express ourselves. If we care about the First Amendment in practice, we must also care about the architecture that shapes and facilitates speech in our own era.

That’s why we believe atproto was worth investing in.

The internet’s original architecture grew largely out of public investment, academic research and collaboration among nonprofit standards bodies. The social layer on top of it, however, was built by companies optimizing for engagement and advertising revenue. The result has been remarkable innovation in how we connect with information, ideas and each other at scale. But the societal costs are apparent today: the hastening decay of critical democratic institutions like local journalism; algorithmic manipulation of public attention and the erosion of trust in shared facts.

In Bluesky and atproto, we see the possibility of a social web where your identity, posts and network are not locked inside any one company’s walled garden. Developers can build new services on a shared, open data layer, and you can take your data and social networks with you to any app built on it. Publishers, journalists and creators can form direct relationships with audiences instead of depending on opaque, ever-changing recommender systems. Independent researchers can study public discourse through transparent, accessible data.

This approach reduces the risk of censorship and overreach by giving people more control over what they see in their feeds. It spurs competition by creating a market for new social apps. It clears paths for news organizations to build durable new revenue streams, a priority we have pursued for decades. It restores the possibility of serious, independent research on how information moves online, at a time when many incumbent platforms are limiting data access. And it gives users and communities more choice and leverage in digital spaces that too often feel inescapable and unaccountable.

We believe what Bluesky is building will prove to be a consequential step toward a better social web. That vision will ultimately be accelerated by venture capital, as the list of Bluesky’s investors indicates. But foundations can also play an important role. When social mission aligns with investment opportunity, philanthropy can bring distinctive value to a cap table: the risk tolerance and willingness to play a long game that prioritizes the public interest rather than short-term financial gain.

Knight’s investment in Bluesky isn’t a bet on a single app to “win.” It’s a bet on all the things that become possible when digital infrastructure advances the common good. It’s a bet on an idea we think will make a difference for the fields we serve — and for us all. We bet on the open web’s next chapter, not because it’s a sure thing, but because, for Knight, it’s the right thing.