What is Bluesky and why are millions of people joining it?

Story by Euronews. November 18, 2024.

  • Bluesky’s Growth: Bluesky, a decentralized social media platform, has seen a significant increase in users, adding one million users in a day and reaching a total of 19 million users.
  • Platform Features: Bluesky offers a Discover feed, a chronological feed, direct messaging, and video sharing. It is built on the AT Protocol, promoting independence for creators and freedom for developers.
  • Shift from X: Many users, including academics, journalists, and celebrities, are moving from X (formerly Twitter) to Bluesky, partly due to changes made by Elon Musk and his support for Donald Trump.
  • Global Impact: Bluesky has previously seen user increases, such as after X was banned in Brazil, highlighting its growing global presence.

@RalphHightower: X/Twitter has become a cesspool of bigotry and hate speech. Companies have pulled their advertising dollars from X/Twitter to protect their brand name. Elon Musk At Taylor Swift Concert Elon Musk claims to be a proponent of free speech. However, once Florida’s governor Ron DeSantis dropped out of the 2024 presidential race, Musk hitched his wagon to Trump and turned X/Twitter into a Trump Propaganda Machine, spreading misinformation, and conspiracy theories against the Democrats in the 2024 election.

As of April 27, 2023, I deactivated my Twitter account based on this Elon Musk tweet:
@ElonMusk: Anyone making materially false statements on this platform will get Community Noted, including you, me, Tucker, advertisers, head of state, etc. No exceptions.
Convince the people and let the chips fall where they may.
@RalphHightower: Seriously? Yet you welcomed back a pathological liar, Donald Trump, who incited and welcomed violence in an attempted coup d’état on January 6 in the storming of the U.S. Capitol. Twitter has gone to HELL!

Millions of users have joined the social media platform Bluesky in the wake of the US presidential election.

Several academics, journalists, left-leaning politicians, and celebrities have said they would join the platform that used to be backed by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.

The platform said over the weekend that it was adding one million users in a day, with its total number of users now at 19 million.

What is Bluesky?

Bluesky is a decentralised social media platform that was founded as a research initiative as part of Twitter in 2019.

In 2021, Jay Graber became CEO of the platform, with Dorsey leaving the platform’s board in May. The site was initially invitation-only but opened to the public in February.

It contains both a Discover feed, which Bluesky said last year is “customised for what you like to see, while still giving you a view into what’s trending in the network”. It also has a chronological feed for accounts that users follow.

New members as some flee X

The uptick for Bluesky comes as several X (formerly Twitter) users have said they’re leaving the platform.

Elon Musk acquired the platform in 2022 and made several changes to how it moderates content, for instance.

He was also a vocal supporter of US President-elect Donald Trump during the 2024 US presidential election, posting about the vote extensively on X.

A report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) ahead of the election found that Musk’s false or misleading claims on the platform had gathered nearly two billion views.

The billionaire has now been tapped by Trump to form a new government efficiency office.

Newspapers such as The Guardian in the UK and La Vanguardia in Spain announced after the US presidential election that they would leave Musk’s platform, with The Guardian saying it was due to “the often disturbing content promoted or found on the platform”.

Other users on X said that they would not leave the platform but rather were adding accounts on Bluesky as millions joined its competitor.

Former Human Rights Watch director Kenneth Roth, meanwhile, posted that it’s “a mistake for progressives to leave X”.

“Yes it has taken a rightward and toxic turn under Elon Musk, but there is no place comparable for discussion of the world’s most important developments. Fleeing X abandons this influential forum to the far right,” he wrote.

Previous uptick in Bluesky users

The post-election uptick in users isn’t the first time Bluesky has benefited from people leaving X.

The platform gained 2.6 million users in the week after Xwas banned in Brazil in August with 85 per cent of them from Brazil, the company said.

About 500,000 new users signed up in one day in October when Xsignalled that blocked accounts would be able to see a user’s public posts.

Despite Bluesky’s growth, X posted after the election that it had “dominated the global conversation on the US election” and had set new records.