Bluesky gets 1 million new users after the US election

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Social media Blue sky has gained 1 million new users in the week since the US election, as some X users look for an alternative platform to write their thoughts and interact with others online.

Bluesky said Wednesday that its total users rose to 15 million, up from about 13 million in late October.

Mastered by former Twitter boss Jack DorseyBluesky was invitation-only until it opened to the public in February. That invitation period gave the site time to build moderation tools and other features. The platform is similar to Elon Musk’s X, with a “discover” feed as well as a chronological feed for accounts users follow. Users can send direct messages and pin posts, as well as find “starter packs” that provide a curated list of people and custom feeds to follow.

The surge in post-election users isn’t the first time Bluesky has benefited from people leaving X. Bluesky gained 2.6 million users in the week after X was banned in Brazil in August – 85% of them from Brazil, the company said. About 500,000 new users signed up in one day last month when X signaled that blocked accounts would be able to see a user’s public posts.

Despite Bluesky’s growth, X wrote last week that it had “dominated the global conversation about the US election” and set new records. The platform saw a 15.5% jump in new user sign-ups on Election Day, X said, with a record 942 million postings worldwide. Representatives for Bluesky and for X did not respond to requests for comment.

Bluesky has referenced its competitive relationship with X through tongue-in-cheek comments, including an Election Day post on X referencing Musk watching poll results come in with President-elect Donald Trump.

“I can guarantee that no Bluesky team member will sit down with a presidential candidate tonight and give them direct access to control what you see online,” Bluesky said.

Across the platform, new users — among them journalists, left-wing politicians and celebrities — posted memes and shared that they were looking forward to using a space free of advertising and hate speech. Some said it reminded them of the early days of X, when it was still Twitter.

On Wednesday, The Guardian said it would no longer post on X, citing “far-right conspiracy theories and racism” on the site as a reason. At the same time, TV journalist Don Lemon wrote on X that he is leaving the platform, but will continue to use other social media, including Bluesky.

Lemon said he felt X was no longer a place for “honest debate and discussion.” He noted changes to the site’s terms of service, set to go into effect Friday, that state lawsuits against X must be filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas instead of the Western District of Texas. Musk said in July that he moved X’s headquarters to Texas from San Francisco.

“As the Washington Post recently reported on X’s decision to change the terms, this ensures that such lawsuits will be heard in courthouses that are a center for conservatives, which experts say could make it easier for X to protect himself from lawsuits and punish critics,” Lemon wrote. “I think that speaks for itself.”

Last year, advertisers such as IBM, NBCUniversal and its parent company Comcast fled X due to concerns about their ads appearing next to pro-Nazi content and hate speech on the site in general, with Musk stoking tensions with his own posts supporting an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory.