Bluesky adds 1m new members as users flee X after the US election

Social media platform Bluesky has picked up more than 1 million new users since the US election, as users seek to escape misinformation and offensive posts on X.

The influx, largely from North America and the UK, has helped Bluesky reach nearly 15 million users worldwide, up from 9 million in September, the company said.

Social media researcher Axel Bruns said the platform offered an alternative to X, formerly Twitter, including a more effective system for blocking or suspending problematic accounts and policing harmful behaviour.

“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,” he said.

“The more liberal kind of Twitter community has really now escaped from there and seems to have moved en masse to Bluesky.”

Bluesky began as a project inside Twitter but became an independent company in 2022, and is now primarily owned by chief executive Jay Graber.

The platform has previously benefited from dissatisfaction with X and its billionaire owner, Elon Musk, who is closely tied to US president-elect Donald Trump’s successful election campaign. Twitter shed millions of users after rebranding to X and usage in the US slumped by more than a fifth in the subsequent seven months.

Bluesky reported picking up 3 million new users in the week after X was suspended in Brazil in September and a further 1.2 million in the two days after X announced it would allow users to view posts from people who had blocked them.

“We’re excited to welcome all of these new people, ranging from Swifties to wrestlers to city planners,” Bluesky spokesperson Emily Liu said.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a historian and professor at New York University, had 250,000 followers on X but picked up 21,000 followers in her first day on Bluesky this week.

“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,” she said.

Bluesky is still second to Threads in the social networking category on Apple’s US App Store, which reported reaching 275 million monthly active users in November, up from 200 million in August.

The independent platform has recently added features including direct messaging and video compatibility to more closely resemble X and distinguish itself from its Meta-owned competitor.

Ben-Ghiat has found the site’s “starter packs”, or groups of people with similar expertise and interest, a refreshing way in.

“[They] promise to give Bluesky some of what I valued on Twitter/X: informed takes on a subject from multiple points of view,” she said.

Bruns, a professor at Queensland University of Technology’s Digital Media Research Center, said the explosion in user numbers had created “growing pains” as new users learned to navigate the site but was ultimately adding to the site’s momentum.

“It really feels like a throwback to those days of the early excitement about social media in many ways, and that’s what, at the moment, attracts quite a few people,” he said. “It just makes it more vibrant, more active place.”

On Monday night, New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez posted that she was “back” on Bluesky, saying: “Good GOD it’s nice to be in a digital space with other real human beings.” Her post was liked by 27,000 people.