Bluesky Hits 20 Million Users As People Flee Twitter
A trickle is becoming a flood for Bluesky, the social media company that has seen spectacular growth since the presidential election. On Tuesday, the microblogging platform hit 20 million users, after averaging one million new users per day over the last five days.
According to a Nov. 13 post by Bluesky CEO Jay Graber, the site had 6 million users in late August, nearly 11 million in late October and hit 15 million users on Nov. 15. It added another 5 million users in just five days, with the explosive growth seen since Nov. 5, the day of the election, accelerating.
Bluesky has been one of the main beneficiaries of millions of users leaving Elon Musk‘s X, as the site formerly known as Twitter descends into a mess of bots, extreme content, crypto scams, ads, pornography, racism, transphobia and misinformation.
Hollywood has been quick to adopt Bluesky, particularly with the entertainment industry’s aversion to the political views of Musk, the billionaire oligarch who is a vocal supporter and financial backer of Donald Trump. In recent weeks, actors, directors, musicians and other creative people have rushed to Bluesky as the site became a viable alternative to X to promote work and engage with fans.
Among the prominent entertainment industry figures who have started to migrate over to Bluesky, or have been posting there more than X in recent weeks, are: Lizzo, Barbra Streisand, Jamie Lee Curtis, Gabrielle Union, Quinta Brunson, James Gunn, Sean Gunn, John Cusack, Guillermo del Toro, Ben Stiller, Flavor Flav, Chuck D, Alex Winter, Carrie Coon, Scott Derrickson, George Takei, Mike Flanagan, Mike Shur, Mark Hamill, Stephen King, Alyssa Milano, Meredith Salenger, Patton Oswalt, Lilly Wachowski, Franklin Leonard, Tim Heidecker, Akilah Hughes, Yvette Nicole Brown, Andy Richter, Weird Al Yankovic, Gary Whitta, Titus Welliver, Paul F. Tompkins, Jon Cryer, Ed Solomon, Craig Mazin, Jenni Konner, Jeri Ryan, Ken Jennings, Gale Ann Hurd, Armando Iannucci, Mia Farrow, Harold Perrineau, BenDavid Grabinski, Marc Bernardin, Duncan Jones, Miranda Cosgrove, Emily V. Gordon, Kumail Nanjiani, Michael Sheen, Bill Lawrence, Matthew Lillard, Busy Philipps, Dionne Warwick, Colson Whitehead, Paul Scheer, Bradley Whitford, Mara Wilson, Kashana Cauley, Megan Amram, Maria Bamford, John Carpenter, Brian Duffield and Robert Kirkman.
Helping to boost user numbers has been the rapid adoption of the platform by a number of major media outlets as well. The Guardian, The Economist, The Athletic, The Information, The Verge, The New York Times, Bloomberg, Financial Times, The Washington Post, Bellingcat, ProPublica, NPR, IGN, 404 Media, CNN, El Pais, Le Monde, The Times of London, The Guardian Australia, Slate, San Francisco Chronicle, Huff Post, The Daily Beast, Vox, The Onion, The Intercept, Drop Site, Gizmodo, Kotaku, TechCrunch, The Globe and Mail, Hong Kong Free Press, Newsweek, Vanity Fair and The Wall Street Journal are all now regularly posting on Bluesky.
Notably, The Guardian announced it would no longer post on its X accounts, after describing Musk’s platform as “toxic.” The U.K.-based media group added that it had been considering a move to stop posting on X for some time “given the often disturbing content promoted or found on the platform, including far-right conspiracy theories and racism.”
The Guardian added that, “the U.S. presidential election campaign served only to underline what we have considered for a long time: that X is a toxic media platform and that its owner, Elon Musk, has been able to use its influence to shape political discourse.”
Despite its rapid growth, Bluesky still has some way to go to compete with X and Meta’s Threads, with the former boasting over 300 million monthly active users and the latter over 250 million MAUs.
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