The day after the election, X — the former Twitter — saw its greatest number of users leave the platform since Elon Musk bought the company two years ago.
But, the users didn’t just give up on social media.
Also on the day after the election, Bluesky welcomed more than a million new users and climbed past 16 million users and nabbed the top spot on Apple’s App Store downloads.
But, what is this new platform and why are people moving to it?
What is Bluesky?
Bluesky is a social media platform originally developed within X, formerly Twitter, that evolved into a standalone company in 2022.
Although it began as a project within X, it is not owned by Musk. Bluesky’s main owner today is its CEO, Jay Graber, who has steered its direction toward a community-centered platform with a focus on safety and open discourse.
It’s meant to be a less-toxic community than X and an escape from bots, hate speech and misinformation. BlueSky runs on a decentralized platform, which according to Tulane University’s School of Professional Advancement, means it operates on independent servers, not servers owned by the platform, and users can curate their feed to their liking.
According to news sources, some users cited growing issues on X, including bots, partisan advertisements and harassment and claim the tipping point for departure was Donald Trump’s election with Musk’s support.
Trump has since announced a position for Musk within his White House administration, the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
The Bluesky social media platform uses a blue butterfly symbol and posting is referred to as “skeeting,” reminiscent of the little blue bird symbol and “tweeting” that was used by the old Twitter platform, prior to Musk’s takeover.
