Bluesky gains a million users in the week after the election, while more leave

Donald Trump’s re-election as president last week sparked a wave of celebration on X (formerly Twitter). The influencers and megadonors who supported the Republican candidate rejoiced in the defeat of his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, while also wildly speculating about the extremist agenda he would pursue once in office. Particularly pleased was the site’s owner, billionaire Trump ally Elon Musk, who had drastically overhauled the platform to amplify right-wing misinformation and hate speech. In a post Monday, he announced that the super PAC, through which he used at least $119 million of his personal wealth to elect Trump, would continue to work to register more Republican voters in “key districts across the country.”

For many who were hoping Trump would lose and were already on the fence about leaving X, this victory lap was as good an opportunity as any to finally opt out. Many users noticed a steady loss of hundreds or even thousands of followers when accounts were deactivated. This continued the downward trend in activity since Musk took over the social network at the end of 2022. Meanwhile, its direct competitors – Bluesky and Threads – have again seen an influx of new users apparently fleeing the toxic conversation on X.

Bluesky, a decentralized service that was developed as a project under former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and then launched as a standalone company, announced Tuesday that it added one million new users in the week since the election, bringing the total to corresponds to almost 15 million registered users. It opened to the public in February after previously being open by invitation only. With a more left-leaning sensibility and a focus on transparency and user safety, it is favored by those increasingly alienated by Musk and X’s politics or vulnerable to harassment there. (Marginalized groups, including transgender people and people with disabilities, are well represented on the platform.)

Threads, a Twitter-like app from Meta that is linked to a user’s Instagram account, has not reported an increase in sign-ups in recent days, and Meta did not respond to a request for comment on the matter. But on Monday, the network’s official account posted an update welcoming newbies and offering tips on how to optimize the service. With Meta’s established user base, it grew quickly after launching in July 2023, and by the weekend before the election, Threads had reached 275 million monthly active users, according to the company. CEO Mark Zuckerberg also announced that one million people are signing up for the service every day.

Unlike Bluesky, which shows users posts from people they follow in chronological order and offers dedicated feeds including a “Discover” section, Threads is more aggressively algorithmic, shows posts non-chronologically, and adds recommended content to your main feed a. (The “For You” feed from I doesn’t recommend political content unless a user specifically asks for it. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it feels more like Facebook than Bluesky, which has an anarchic “shitposting” culture prevails and famous faces are not always welcome.

“Bluesky Social” became a trending topic in threads on Tuesday as users reacted to news of its rapid growth. The preferences between the two platforms are different, so the discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of the two platforms has recently increased. This alone was another indication that people who once relied on X to stay informed and connected are considering their best alternatives in the fragmented social media landscape.

Meanwhile, as a political megaphone for the right, the future of it now looks more like Truth Social, the app Trump launched in 2022 after he was permanently suspended from Twitter. (Musk later reinstated his account.) With its clear focus on Trump himself, Truth Social has struggled to gain a user base, although tech journalist Kara Swisher speculated in an interview the morning after the election that X and Truth Social both But failing companies are useful when it comes to propaganda – could merge into a company from which Musk and Trump benefit as a so-called “meme stock”, the price of which is driven up by viral hype among private investors.

Whatever happens, it’s clear that a massive rebalancing of the virtual public space is underway as many consider what to prioritize in their online lives. Some want meaningful connections. Others only want to hear opinions they agree with. And some may put down their phones altogether.