Bluesky said Wednesday that its total users had increased to 15 million, up from about 13 million at the end of October. Bluesky was an invitation-only space until it opened to the public in February.
This period alone allowed the site to develop moderation tools and other features. The platform resembles Elon Musk's X, with a “discovery” feed and a timeline feed for accounts users follow.
Users can send direct messages and pin posts, as well as find “starter packages” that provide a list of people and personalized feeds to follow.
The post-election surge in users isn't the first time Bluesky has benefited from dropping X. Bluesky gained 2.6 million users in the week after X was banned in Brazil in August – 85% of them from Brazil, according to the company. About 500,000 new users signed up in the span of a day last month, when X reported that blocked accounts would be able to see a user's public posts.
Despite Bluesky's growth, X reported last week that it had “dominated the global conversation about the US election” and set new records. The platform saw a 15.5% jump in new user registrations on Election Day, X said, with a record 942 million posts worldwide.
Representatives for Bluesky and X did not respond to requests for comment.
Bluesky has referenced its competitive relationship with X through tongue-in-cheek comments, including a post about
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“I can guarantee that no member of the Bluesky team will be sitting down with a presidential candidate tonight and giving them direct access to control what you see online,” Bluesky clarified.
On the platform, new users — including journalists, left-wing politicians and celebrities — posted memes and said they were happy to use a space free of ads and hate speech. Some said it reminded them of the early days of X, when it was still Twitter.
Wednesday, The Guardian announced that it would no longer post messages on X, citing “far-right conspiracy theories and racism” on the site.
Last year, advertisers including IBM, NBCUniversal and its parent company Comcast fled X, fearing their ads would appear alongside pro-Nazi content and hate speech on the site in general, with Mr Musk having himself fueled tensions by posting messages endorsing an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory.
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