Due to the presidential election, the social media platform may have attracted some X users in the United States, as its user count has nearly doubled since November. With over 25 million members, the social networking website that Jack Dorsey launched (together with Twitter) has sparked many questions about the platform’s content, moderation, and tone, especially since some users have abandoned or deleted their X accounts.
BlueSky Reaches 25 Million Users, Surpassing X Growth
As of December 12th, BlueSky Hits total user count has surpassed 25 million, which is twice as many as the platform had during the US election on November 5th. X and Meta’s Threads have significantly larger user bases as of 2022, with over 250 million and 275 million active members, respectively, making the social networking site look like slugs.
Elon Musk’s purchase of X and subsequent involvement in US politics has made it hard to predict how many users may have abandoned the platform. Another memecoin that Musk has supported is Dogecoin, or DOGE$0.4077. He even went so far as to suggest that Trump, the incoming president, establish a “government efficiency” job that would be an acronym for DOGE$0.4077.
X and BlueSky interact with customers differently. Launched in 2019 as Dorsey’s pet project, BlueSky claims to strive for an online discourse that “functions more like the early days of the web.”
Following Musk’s acquisition of the platform in October 2022, X has been struck with reports of controversial content appearing alongside ads, a brief suspension of the platform in Brazil, and widespread misinformation, with some claims directly pointing to the billionaire owner. Companies have been leaving the platform in droves.
Crypto Users Debate X vs. BlueSky
Regardless of their feelings about Musk or X, many crypto users seem more concerned with reaching a different demographic when deciding between the platform and BlueSky Hits or going with both. Still, when we ran the same search on X, crypto-positive memes popped up sooner, and on BlueSky, posts connecting digital asset initiatives to frauds were more common than crypto-positive ones.
Several US senators, including Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who are wary of digital assets, became BlueSky members following the US election. Crypto policy advocates like Representative Wiley Nickel also joined the group. Nickel started using the account in February, but it wasn’t until November that he started posting often.
“Like Bitcoin, Bluesky uses cryptography to decentralize power so no one entity can control the entire network, but without the built-in financial incentive structure,” wrote Jacob Weindling, editor-in-chief of Splinter News, in an op-ed published on November 20. “I’d argue more than anything that broke Twitter was Elon democratizing ad dollars and fundamentally changing the incentive structure from thoughtful discourse to hacking attention in people’s replies for money.”
BlueSky Gains Users, Faces Key Challenges
A Dec. 14 report from The Guardian, one of the first significant news outlets to join BlueSky Hits, suggested that 2.7 million US-based users had left X since October. BlueSky added 2.5 million US customers over the same period.
If the platform continues to expand, it will likely face some of the same challenges Twitter did under Dorsey and Musk: a proliferation of bots or anonymous accounts spreading spam, hate speech, and misinformation, and how to pay its bills by growing the number of users and advertisers.
Despite being significantly smaller than X, the platform already has a problem with scammers. BlueSky search results show several fake accounts for Crypto influencers with a large X following, including Anthony Pompliano and Michael Saylor.
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