Millions of Users Leave X for Rival Social Media Site BlueSky
The new social media site BlueSky feels more like old Twitter than X does, or at least that’s what the streets are saying.
After news went viral about X changing its terms of service to allow the platform to harvest its users’ content and likeness for AI training, BlueSky climbed to number one on the Apple App Store’s US chart. X isn’t even in the top 20.
But that’s not the only reason people are leaving X. According to reports, when Twitter accepted Elon Musk’s $44 million bid to buy the app, many users left then. Roughly two years later, Musk, one of President-Elect Donald Trump’s most influential supporters, changed the name to X and the platform became overrun with white supremacists, trolls, and political misinformation, all in the name of free speech. Musk is now expected to join Trump’s administration as one of the heads of the Department of Government Efficiency.
BlueSky was founded by the former CEO of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, who initially established the platform in 2019 as a research initiative. The invite-only beta version of BlueSky became available in 2023 and opened up to the general public in February 2024.
But what makes BlueSky different from other social media apps is its decentralized nature, operating on independent servers. It also has community-specific moderation and allows users to choose the algorithm that powers their experience on the platform.
BlueSky is now considered a major competitor to X/Twitter, along with other social media apps Threads and Mastodon.
