The network claims 16 million users, strong growth for a platform which had 10 million in mid-September.
( GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / MARIO TAMA )
The American social network Bluesky, which positions itself as an alternative to X, formerly Twitter, recorded the registrations of a million new users in a single day, two days after the appointment of Elon Musk in Donald Trump's government.
“It's official – 1,000,000 people have joined Bluesky in the last day! Welcome and thank you for being here,” the platform said in a message posted on both Bluesky and X. A record number which resonates with the appointment Tuesday of Elon Musk, owner of
The billionaire, head of Tesla and SpaceX, officially supported the Republican candidate in his race for the White House, and also provided funding to his campaign. Since its acquisition of Twitter,
Elon Musk has largely relaxed the platform's moderation rules
authorizing in particular the return of accounts linked to far-right movements on the network.
Originally created and funded by Twitter itself
Originally created and funded by Twitter itself
when the network was then led by its co-founder Jack Dorsey, Bluesky opened to the general public in February 2023 on Apple's iOS operating system and at the end of March on Android. It is now headed by Jay Grabber, general director of the platform.
The network claims 16 million users, strong growth for a platform which had 10 million in mid-September. It had already benefited from a spotlight at the end of 2022 when Elon Musk got his hands on Twitter, which he renamed X.
Threads, another alternative to X and owned by Meta (parent company of Facebook and Instagram), claimed 175 million users in July, a year after its creation.
The British dailies The Guardian and then the Spanish La Vanguardia announced during the week that they would no longer publish content on
“It is the symptom of a much deeper evil, that of the inability of public authorities to make platforms viable places, respectful of journalistic information, where information can circulate freely,” said L'
AFP
Vincent Berthier, head of the technology department at RSF, a French press defense NGO. Fervent support from US President-elect Donald Trump, who appointed him to head a new commission responsible for cutting public spending,
Musk is frequently accused of promoting disinformation on X, where he poses as an adversary of the media.
“Musk is the radical face of this informational nightmare that exists on the platforms, but the problem is much more global,” insisted Vincent Berthier.
“A Band-Aid on Gangrene”
He cites the example of Canada, where Meta – owner of Facebook and Instagram – has blocked access to news media content on its platforms since August 2023, in response to a law on online information. This blockage takes place “with almost general indifference”, argues the RSF official.
According to Vincent Berthier, “there have been attempts at regulation”, starting with the Digital Services Regulation (DSA) in Europe, but “it is clear that it has not had much effect”. These attempts to regulate platforms “are, at this stage, only
a bandage on the gangrene that infects them
“, said the director general of RSF, Thibaut Bruttin, in a press release.
Regulation must
“force the platforms” to observe “political, ideological and economic neutrality”
adds Vincent Berthier. RSF announced Thursday that it had filed a complaint in France against the social network X, in particular for defamation and dissemination of false news. The NGO accuses him of not having removed content falsely attributing to RSF a supposed “study on the Nazi leanings of Ukrainian soldiers”.
