Twitter is no longer a “digital town square” since the U.S. presidential election as many users unhappy with the app’s direction are switching to Bluesky
Blusky’s decentralized social media site has expanded from 9+ million members in September to 14.6+ million as of Tuesday, with the largest increase over the weekend when U.S. users left X.
The departure briefly made Bluesky the No. 2 iPhone app on the U.S. App Store on Monday, up from No. 27 the day after the elections. It fell to No. 3 today, behind Meta’s Threads and ChatGPT.
Note the rate of new user signups. Bluesky gained over 700,000 users in the past week, raising its total to 14.5 million, numerous publications reported yesterday. The next day, it’s over 14.6 million, signifying 100,000 new users daily.
Appfigures reports that Bluesky’s U.S. downloads have climbed 933% and X’s 48% year-to-date. Appfigures also reported 624% more Bluesky downloads on November 10th than November 1.
Bluesky CEO Jay Graber says engagement on Bluesky is higher than on X, and that’s not new.
Graber believes Bluesky has more “posters”—active users who engage rather than lurk—than X, which nevertheless has the numbers since many users abandon but don’t delete their accounts.
“We have a higher poster percentage than most social sites, which have a 90-9-1 pattern of lurkers-commenters-posters. She stated in a Bluesky post on Tuesday that we haven’t dropped below ~30% posters.
She advises novices to publish in relevant feeds, comment on others’ posts, find mutuals (those you follow who follow you back), and use hashtags to boost content interaction.
Musk’s changes since owning Twitter in fall 2022 have affected user adoption.
The Telsa and SpaceX executive promised to turn his $44 billion acquisition into a free-speech platform for all.
According to X’s transparency report, Musk used the app to promote right-wing beliefs, campaign for Trump, and suspend accounts more often.
Musk may have thought Twitter favored the left, but he hasn’t neutralized it. Studies indicated that X users’ feeds showed Musk’s right-leaning political posts even if they didn’t follow him or connect with him.
Musk’s 204 million followers allow him to express his political ideas and support Trump.
Some worry that if liberals leave X, Bluesky will turn politicized. However, its platform is not designed to be driven by its owner’s politics.
Bluesky lets users customize the program by creating algorithms, feeds, and moderation services in addition to banning and reporting.
Bluesky’s app and moderation decisions may not match your needs, but anyone can operate the social software on their own servers, similar to Mastodon (but Bluesky uses the AT protocol instead of Mastodon and Threads’ ActivityPub.).
Bluesky has been gaining popularity for more than its infrastructure and design. X’s prohibition in Brazil and Threads’ moderating troubles boosted Bluesky earlier.
However, this bump suggests more left-leaning users are abandoning X. Without its confrontational, back-and-forth political discussion, Twitter’s future as the “global town square” is doubtful.
