Jakub Bolzycki/ | Noor Photos | Getty Images
Disgruntled X users are once again flocking to Bluesky, a newer social media platform that grew out of the former Twitter and was taken over by billionaire Elon Musk in 2022. It’s still small compared to other mature online spaces, but it has become an alternative for those looking for a different mood, more relaxed, friendlier and less Musk-influenced.
What is the blue sky?
Sponsored by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Bluesky was an invitation-only space until it opened to the public in February. The invitation-only period gives sites time to build moderation tools and other features. The platform is similar to Musk’s X, with a “Discover” feed and a chronological feed of the accounts users follow. Users can send direct messages and pinned posts, and can also find “starter packs” that provide a curated list of people and a custom feed to follow.
Why does Blue Sky keep growing?
Bluesky said in mid-November that its total users had surged to 15 million from about 13 million at the end of October, as some X users were looking for alternative platforms to express their thoughts and talk to others online. The post-election increase in users isn’t the first time Bluesky has benefited from people leaving X. About 500,000 new users signed up in one day in October, when X said blocked accounts would be able to see users’ public posts.
Across the platform, new users — among them journalists, left-leaning politicians and celebrities — posted memes and said they were looking forward to using a space free of ads and hate speech. Some said it reminded them of Twitter’s early days more than a decade ago.
Despite Bluesky’s growth, X posted after the election that it “dominated the global conversation about the U.S. election” and set a new record.
Beyond social networks
Bluesky’s ambitions are bigger than replacing X, though. In addition to the platform itself, it is building a technical foundation – the so-called “public conversation protocol” – that will allow social networks to work across different platforms – also known as interoperability – such as email, blogging or phone number.
Currently, you can’t comment on someone’s account across social platforms. If Twitter users want to interact with accounts on these services, they must stay on Twitter, and TikTok users must stay on TikTok. Big tech companies have largely built moats around their online properties, which help serve their advertising-centric business models.
Bluesky is trying to reimagine all of this and work towards interoperability.
