Are you part of the exodus from X in search of greener pastures and bluer skies?
Millions are leaving and joining social media platform BlueSky following the election last week that elevated X owner Elon Musk’s favored presidential candidate to power.
BlueSky, which looks like a cleaner version of X, gained more than 1.25 million users in the week after the election. And the numbers keep growing, with the service picking up around 1 million users per day. As of Friday, it had more than 17 million, which amounts to growth of more than 30% since the end of October.
The day after the election marked the largest flight from X since Musk bought the platform, formerly known as Twitter, in 2022. Since then, researchers have found — and anyone on the platform has felt — that it has become rife with disinformation and conspiracy theories.
Users have cited bots, partisan advertisements, and harassment as reasons for leaving the platform following the election. High-profile departures include British newspaper the Guardian, actress Jamie Lee Curtis, and journalist Don Lemon.
Ever since Musk bought Twitter, alternatives have positioned themselves as the new “digital town square.” In 2023, Meta hastily created the Twitter clone Threads. Blockchain-based Mastadon offered itself up as a place to find niche, like-minded people. BlueSky was actually created by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey back in 2021 as an experiment in decentralized networks.
The range of options created a conundrum: Just which one were people going to use? What use is it being on a social media app if all your friends and favorites are talking somewhere else? Cultural critic Kyle Chayka aptly summed up the situation on, ironically, X: “the People thirst to Post but they know not where to Post.”
But this week something shifted. Though many joined Threads because of how easy it is to get started from Instagram, users complain that it shows news days after it’s happened. And with X functioning like Musk’s personal soapbox, the tide seems to be turning toward BlueSky. The open-source, decentralized platform gives users more control over their social media experience, unlike X and Threads. BlueSky, which in February switched from being invitation-only to publicly available, offers a “marketplace of algorithms” rather than one.
Still, the platform is small compared to its competitors. Threads reports 275 million monthly active users. Musk said in May that X has 600 million monthly active users, though third-party estimates are significantly lower.
For X exiles, BlueSky inspires optimism about the future of social media by harkening back to the past. The experience feels like the early days of Twitter, allowing users to quickly follow accounts based on their interests through peer-created lists known as “starter packs.” Even the logo, a blue background with a white butterfly, evokes Twitter’s signature bird — which Musk killed as soon as he took over.
“Hello Less Hateful World,” billionaire Mark Cuban posted Tuesday on BlueSky.
Lizzo is a big fan of the platform, posting multiple times a day and interacting with fans. “This feels like social media in 09,” she wrote, “before bots before discourse wars before incentivized hate before monetized harassment.”
But Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is worried the platform won’t stay rosy for long. “Should I tell Twitter I’m here?” the lawmaker from New York wrote on BlueSky. “I don’t want to inadvertently cause an influx of all the worst accounts on the internet.”
The influx is already happening. There’s a “MAGA Colony of New Twitter” group made by “patriot pilgrims” who have landed at Bluesky, “following several treacherous days at sea aboard the Tesla Mayflower.” (Of course they’d be colonists.)
If you’re among the millions who have set up a BlueSky account in an attempt to experience a bygone social media era (I just did, and it took all of three minutes), you’re probably looking for local accounts to follow. So we made a handy list of San Francisco accounts we think are interesting, from local institutions to fascinating personalities. We aren’t endorsing any of their opinions — if any of these accounts call the city Frisco, we don’t know them!
To follow them, just click on this link and hit “follow all.”
And if you want to follow The Standard’s journalists, we’ve got you covered here.
