Bluesky, rival social network of X, takes off

In recent days, a new wave of registrations has reached the social network Bluesky, to the detriment of X (formerly Twitter), its rival. And this time, the migration is so important in Quebec that many believe it could overturn the chessboard of microblogging platforms.

Since the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States a week ago, around a million people have joined the Bluesky social network.

This new influx of registrations follows that which occurred in mid-October, when more than 1.2 million people migrated to the platform in two days, encouraged by the change in the account blocking rules on X.

And in September, three million Internet users had created an account on Bluesky in the week following the withdrawal of X in Brazil. [Le réseau social X est de nouveau accessible dans ce pays depuis le début octobre.]

However, the movement has not only affected our American neighbors.

On the Apple App Store in Canada, the application was the second most downloaded free social network on Tuesday, ahead of Meta’s Threads, another X rival.

When asked what were the motivations for switching to Bluesky, several Internet users mentioned the lack of security of X, its toxicity, or even its advertisements considered too numerous.

The political opinions of its owner, Elon Musk, who played a key role in Trump’s campaign, are not unanimous either.

We are experiencing a pivotal moment in which there will be more and more users.

There is a pushback effect from X, and other platforms […] Many realize that discussing with people who are only there to polarize does not work.summarizes Camille Alloing, professor in the Department of Social and Public Communication at the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM).

The space on Bluesky is starting to become particularly attractive at the moment in Quebec, with an increasingly strong French-speaking presence, encouraged among others by journalists and local media, such as The Press-, Noovo et Duty.

Added to this are the stars, prolific on other platforms, who are starting to migrate to Bluesky.

This is the last attractive point: that political figures and personalities from the entertainment world, whom we followed elsewhere, come to settle on the platform.

Some people even mention finding the Twitter craze of the early 2010s on Bluesky.

Functions at the service of users

If you find that Bluesky’s interface looks like X (formerly Twitter), it’s because before becoming a full-fledged company in 2021, the social network was developed within Twitter itself in 2019.

Jack Dorsey, the CEO of the Twitter network at the time, wanted to make it a decentralized platform, that is to say outside the control of a single company. However, he has not been involved with the social network since at least May 2024, when he announced that he had left its board of directors.

Just like its rival, Bluesky offers the ability to repost messages (limited to 256 characters), add photos and videos, send private messages and create lists.

But the application also includes options not blocked by defaultwhich allow customization of the application threads. You can freely choose to display the publications of people you follow and their friends, sometimes what they like and share, etc. You can also create starter kits (starter kit) on all kinds of subjects and consult different personalized threads according to themes.

The possibilities in terms of moderation also stand out, according to Camille Alloing. We can make a list of accounts that we have blocked to save people time, we can also detach a quote from one of our messages so as not to subject this person to harassment that could be associated with their message.

The functionalities are really at the service of Internet users […] We offer you a space in which it is you who will model how to interact with others.

For now, the application does not meet economic imperatives as is the case for Threads or X, for example.

Here to stay?

With nearly 15 million registrations, traffic on Bluesky remains far behind its rivals X and Threads. These have respectively 619 million (according to Statista) and 275 million active accounts per month.

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For the researcher, the three platforms are difficult to compare, since they offer different experiences to its followers. On Threads, it’s completely driven by algorithms to deliver sanitized content […] On X, the experience is totally aggressive, there is not a single publication without insulting commentssummarizes the researcher.

On Bluesky, this still needs to be modeled. Personally, I will follow a small circle of people, and I will not even take the risk of being attackedhe says.

Today, we can say that we have a platform that really allows us to avoid as much as possible being exposed to comments, injunctions, comments and attacks that we do not want to endure.

The next few days will be an important test for Bluesky’s moderation featuresbelieves the researcher.