What is Bluesky? Social media app is seeing increasing popularity

On November 16, 2024By Littum

Social media platform Blue sky has seen a boom in new accounts since the election.

President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House has cemented a position for Elon Musk, owner of social media platform X, at Trump’s newly created Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

When Musk bought Twitter, which he later renamed X, a number of new social media platforms jockeyed to be the alternative to the popular short-form texting app as he rolled back content moderation.

None of them took over, but with Musk poised to be a Trump ally throughout his presidency, Bluesky is seeing an onslaught of new users. Here’s what you need to know:

What is Bluesky?

Bluesky is a decentralized social media app. It has a similar look and feel to X, formerly Twitter, but has some different features to bring more people into its creation.

“Unlike other closed platforms, Bluesky is an open social network that gives users choice, developers freedom to build and creators independence from platforms,” spokeswoman Emily Liu said in an emailed statement to USA TODAY.

It launched publicly in February 2024.

Who owns Bluesky?

Bluesky is partially owned by CEO Jay Graber. Also on the Bluesky board are Jabber inventor Jeremie Miller, Techdirt founder Mike Masnick and Blockchain Capital general partner Kinjal Shah, according to Blue sky.

The project was originally started in 2019 by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. Bluesky and Twitter previously parted ways in late 2022.

Bluesky has seen 2.5 million new users over the past week

Liu said Thursday that the app has seen approximately 2.5 million new sign-ups in the past week, resulting in more than 16 million users on the platform.

She also said the platform is seeing record activity in all metrics of engagement, including likes and followers.

“Users have also shared feedback that they receive more engagement (and higher quality engagement) on Bluesky than on other platforms despite initially having more followers elsewhere,” she said. “And most importantly, that they have fun!”

X saw its own election day bump, despite the exodus

X did not immediately respond to USA TODAY’s request for its latest user numbers.

But according to a post by XDatathe platform saw a record 942 million postings worldwide and a 15.5% increase in new user sign-ups on election day and the following day.

At the same time, it also saw more than 115,000 account deactivations, according to NBC Newsthe most since Musk took over the app.

Some celebrities including Jamie Lee Curtis and Don Lemon have publicly announced they are leaving X.

Starring: KiMi Robinson

Kinsey Crowley is a trending news reporter at USA TODAY. Reach her at [email protected] and follow her on X and TikTok @kinseycrowley.