Bluesky, Threads Gain Millions Of Followers As Users Abandon X

Bluesky, the social media startup kicked off by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, has gained 2.5 million new users in the week following the U.S. presidential election, boosting its total user count to 16 million as people flock to the app in search of an alternative to X, the platform owned by billionaire Elon Musk.

"We're seeing record-high activity levels across all different forms of engagement: likes, follows, new accounts, etc, and we're on track to add 1 million new users in one day alone," Bluesky said in a statement cited by Reuters.

In October, Meta reported reaching 275 million monthly active users, according to market intelligence firm Sensor Tower. Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram and also overseeing Threads, announced on Thursday that the platform added 15 million users in November so far and has been "averaging more than a million sign-ups a day for the past three months."

The surge in interest for alternative platforms comes amid growing concerns over upcoming changes to X's terms of service and content moderation. Starting Friday, X's terms mandate that all legal disputes related to the platform must be filed exclusively in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas or in state courts in Tarrant County, Texas.

Responding to the new change, the Center for Countering Digital Hate stated that X's legal terms could hinder future challenges against the platform, as Musk appears to be steering lawsuits toward judges he believes "will be on his side."

"Now, the billionaire will be able to bring lawsuits to friendly courts against whoever disagrees with him on his platform," said the nonprofit, which quit X, accusing Musk of allowing hate speech to spread on the platform.

Users leaving X also express concerns over Musk's vocal support for Republican president-elect Donald Trump and the platform's growing toxicity. Many prominent personalities and organizations have started leaving X, including the British media outlet The Guardian and former CNN anchor Don Lemon.

The Guardian cited a rise in "disturbing content promoted or found on the platform" as a reason for abandoning its 80 official accounts, which had a combined 27 million followers.

X faced intense criticism from misinformation experts for playing a key role in spreading false information during the U.S. election, particularly regarding the battleground states.

As news broke of Trump's win in the elections, X saw a rise in traffic, attracting 46.5 million visits in the U.S. — the highest for any day in the past year and 38% higher than the average in recent months. However, this spike in activity was accompanied by an exodus, with over 115,000 U.S. users deactivating their X accounts, the largest number since Musk acquired the platform, according to analytics firm SimilarWeb.

On the same day, Bluesky website had around 1.2 million visitors, surpassing Meta's Threads, which attracted about 950,000 visitors.

Both Threads and Bluesky launched last year and are currently competing for the top spots in the U.S. Apple App Store's most-downloaded free apps, along with TikTok and WhatsApp, owned by Meta. In contrast, X ranks 29th, trailing behind other social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, both of which are also owned by Meta, Fortune reported.

"Outsized growth, particularly for Bluesky, may have been driven by a rise of controversial content or technical issues on competitor X," Abraham Yousef, senior insights analyst at Sensor Tower, said. "The departure of popular accounts, media personalities, or organizations, may have led consumers to conclude that X is no longer their preferred platform, which could also be fueling growth on other platforms, particularly Bluesky and Threads."

Despite the heightened interest, Bluesky's user count remains comparatively smaller than its rivals. Based on Sensor Tower data, Threads boasts around 252 million monthly active users on its mobile app, while X has approximately 317 million.

"X seems to be in a better position than it has in a while given the ability to represent the views of president-elect Trump. While there are other competing platforms, those may have a hard time catching up with X, since microblogging has significant network effects," D.A. Davidson & Co analyst Gil Luria pointed out.