Social media users are turning to Bluesky as an alternative to X, formerly known as Twitter, following the results of the 2024 presidential election. The platform welcomed 700,000 new users since Nov. 5 — bumping the amount up to 14.5 million users worldwide, with most coming from North America and the United Kingdom. In September, Bluesky had 9 million users, according to the company.
“It’s become a refuge for people who want to have the kind of social media experience that Twitter used to provide, but without all the far-right activism, the misinformation, the hate speech, the bots and everything else,” social media researcher Axel Bruns said in an interview with The Guardian. “The more liberal kind of Twitter community has really now escaped from there and seems to have moved en masse to Bluesky.”
this morning we crossed THREE MILLION new users!
that brings our total size to over 9 million people. welcome everyone! we’re so glad you’re here 🫶 (and yes, video is coming soon)
— Bluesky (@bsky.app) September 6, 2024 at 6:14 PM
Did Bluesky actually originate within Twitter?
Bluesky started as a project inside Twitter and became an independent company in 2022. The company is currently primarily owned by software engineer Jay Graber.
“Bluesky is a social app that is designed to not be controlled by a single company. We’re creating a version of social media where it’s built by many people, and it still comes together as a cohesive, easy-to-use experience,” the company describes itself on its website. “Traditional social networks are often closed platforms with a central authority. There’s a small group of people who control those companies, and they have total control over how users can use the platform and what developers can build.”
Bluesky had similar gains when X was banned in Brazil
After news that X was suspended in Brazil, Bluesky gained 3 million new users. It gained an additional 1.2 million after X announced it would allow users to still view the posts of people who had blocked them, according to The Guardian. Now, some users appear to be switching to the platform because of the close ties between X’s owner Elon Musk and Trump.
“I am still on X but after January, when X could be owned by a de facto member of the Trump administration, its functions as a Trump propaganda outlet and far-right radicalization machine could be accelerated,” Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a historian and professor at New York University told The Guardian.
