Some disgruntled X users have moved over to the social media platform Bluesky, in the search for a more regulated alternative that is not influenced by tech tycoon and X owner Elon Musk.
Bluesky said in mid-November that its total users have surged to 15 million, up from 13 million in October.
It has at times been the most downloaded app in US Apple stores in the past few days.
The platform is benefiting from dissatisfaction with X since it was purchased by right-leaning Elon Musk, who is closely tied to Donald Trump's successful election campaign, Reuters has reported.
Despite its growth, the platform still has a way to go to compete with X, which still has over 300 million monthly active users.
So what is Bluesky and who has made the switch?
What is Bluesky?
The Bluesky platform resembles Elon Musk's X, with a "discover" feed and a chronological feed for accounts that others follow.
It was first introduced as an invite-only space that was opened to the public in February of this year.
Users can send direct messages, pin posts and find "starter packs" that provide a curated list of people and custom feeds to follow.
The platform was conceptualised by Jack Dorsey who was the CEO of X when it was known as Twitter.
It began as a Twitter-funded project that would be an "open and decentralised standard for social media".
Later, it became its own entity and as of May 2024, Mr Dorsey was no longer on the board.
It is now mostly owned by CEO Jay Graber.
Bluesky says that unlike traditional social platforms, that operate on centralised servers controlled by a single entity, Bluesky's AT Protocol is designed to "decentralise social networking.
This approach aims to prevent any one organisation from having total control over the network or its users' data, creating a more "democratic and accountable digital ecosystem."
Why is it growing?
Bluesky said in mid-November that its total users surged to 15 million, up from roughly 13 million at the end of October, as some X users look for an alternative platform to post their thoughts and talk to others online.
"We're seeing record-high activity levels across all different forms of engagement: likes, follows, new accounts, etc, and we're on track to add 1 million new users in one day alone," Bluesky said in a statement this week.
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 X was banned in Brazil in August — 85 per cent of them from Brazil, the company said.
About 500,000 new users signed up in one day in October, when X signalled that blocked accounts would be able to see a user's public posts.
Who is using Bluesky?
Across the platform, new users — among them journalists, left-leaning politicians and celebrities — have posted memes and shared that they were looking forward to using a space free from advertisements and hate speech.
Some said it reminded them of the early days of Twitter more than a decade ago, according to the Associated Press.
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.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, celebrities and figures like Lizzo, Barbara Streisand, Quinta Burnson, Ben Stiller, Flavor Flav, Carrie Coon and John Cusack have started to migrate over to Bluesky.
Billionaire Mark Cuban, who backed Kamala Harris during the US election campaign, and Democratic Congressional Representative Alexandra Orcasio-Cortez have also begun to use it.
"Hello less hateful world," Cuban posted to the website last week.
US publications such as The New York Times, CNN, The Washington Post, Vanity Fair and the Wall Street Journal have also opened accounts.
Why are people leaving X?
Since it was purchased by Musk, who sacked staff and changed the name to X, the platform has seen an increase in outages and bugs, the withdrawal of major news outlets, an uptick in neo-Nazis on the platform, and signs of a decline in user traffic.
X was called out by misinformation experts during the election for playing a central role in enabling the spread of false information about the critical battleground states.
On November 6, as news broke that Musk ally Trump won the presidency, X attracted 46.5 million visits in the US.
This was more than any day in the past year and 38 per cent higher than an average day in recent months, according to analytics firm SimilarWeb.
But more than 115,000 US web visitors deactivated their X accounts — the most since Musk bought the platform, SimilarWeb data showed.
"Outsized growth, particularly for Bluesky, may have been driven by a rise of controversial content or technical issues on competitor X," Abraham Yousef, senior insights analyst at market intelligence firm Sensor Tower told Reuters.
"The departure of popular accounts, media personalities, or organisations, may have led consumers to conclude that X is no longer their preferred platform, which could also be fuelling growth on other platforms, particularly Bluesky and Threads."
In recent weeks, several news publications have left X due to 'toxic content'.
The Guardian exited the platform earlier this month due to the platform's circulation of racism and conspiracy theories.
"The US presidential election campaign served only to underline what we have considered for a long time: that X is a toxic media platform and that its owner, Elon Musk, has been able to use its influence to shape political discourse," The Guardian said in a statement on its website.
Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia will stop posting on X and plans to suspend its accounts, saying on Thursday the social media network had become an "echo chamber" for disinformation and conspiracy theories.
Upcoming change of terms
Users are also fleeing X due to an upcoming change to the site's terms of service, which threatens to complicate legal challenges for the platform.
The new terms require all legal disputes related to the platform to be brought exclusively in the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas or state courts in Tarrant County, Texas.
The Center for Countering Digital Hate told Reuters the change could hinder legal challenges against the platform by steering future lawsuits toward judges Musk believes "will be on his side".
"Now, the billionaire will be able to bring lawsuits to friendly courts against whoever disagrees with him on his platform," said the nonprofit that has faulted Musk for letting hate speech spread on X.
X and Musk did not respond to requests for comment.
Beyond social networking
Bluesky, though, has bigger ambitions than to supplant X.
Beyond the platform itself, it is building a technical foundation — what it calls "a protocol for public conversation" — that could make social networks work across different platforms — also known as interoperability — like email, blogs or phone numbers.
Currently, you can't cross between social platforms to leave a comment on someone's account.
Twitter users must stay on Twitter and TikTok users must stay on TikTok if they want to interact with accounts on those services. Big Tech companies have largely built moats around their online properties, which helps serve their advertising-focused business models.
Bluesky is trying to re-imagine all of this by working toward interoperability.
ABC/Wires
