SOCIAL media platform Bluesky has gained more than one million new users since the US presidential election, benefitting from an exodus of people unhappy with the direction of X under billionaire owner Elon Musk.
The micro-blogging site said on Wednesday that it had topped 15 million users, up from about nine million in September.
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Started by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey in 2019, Bluesky has gained a reputation as a refuge for left-leaning users disaffected by X’s rightward turn under Musk’s stewardship.
Some Bluesky users have cited Musk’s alliance with US President-elect Donald Trump and a rise in hateful content on X as reasons for making the jump to the platform.
“Hello Less Hateful World,” billionaire Mark Cuban, who backed Vice President Kamala Harris during the election, posted on Tuesday.
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On Wednesday, The Guardian newspaper announced it would no longer post content on X due to the “disturbing content” on the “toxic media platform”, including racism and conspiracy theories.
“The US 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,” The Guardian said in a statement on its website.
“We think that the benefits of being on X are now outweighed by the negatives and that resources could be better used promoting our journalism elsewhere.”
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Bluesky itself has played up its image as a sanctuary for disaffected liberals.
After it was reported that Musk would watch the election results with Trump, the platform posted on X that none of its team would be “sitting with a presidential candidate tonight and giving them direct access to control what you see online”.
