BlueSky, a rising social media platform, has recently gained 700,000 new users in just one week, bringing its total user base to 14.5 million. The majority of these users are from the United States, where BlueSky has now become the second most popular free social media app on the U.S. App Store. This surge marks a significant shift, with many Americans seeking alternatives to Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter).
As of October 24, BlueSky’s user base reached 13 million, a number that has grown rapidly due to controversies surrounding X. Most notably, X’s decision to allow blocked users to view posts from those who blocked them led to a notable increase in BlueSky’s user sign-ups. The upcoming U.S. presidential election is further fueling this shift, with many users turning to BlueSky for a less controversial platform.
To keep up with its growing user base, BlueSky has introduced several new features, including pinned posts, video support, and direct messaging. The platform also allows users to personalize their feeds and engage more with content creators. This emphasis on decentralization and user control differentiates BlueSky from X, which focuses on end-to-end encryption for secure communication.
Despite its growth, BlueSky remains a small player compared to the social media giants. With fewer than 15 million users, it still lags behind the likes of Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok, and others, which each boast over a billion users. However, BlueSky’s rise is not the first example of user migration triggered by events on X. Following X’s ban in Brazil, BlueSky gained 3 million users, and a surge in October 2023 brought in 1.2 million new users in just one week, coinciding with X’s controversial changes.
This pattern of user shifts towards alternative platforms mirrors what happened with Mastodon in 2022 and Telegram in 2021, as users flocked to new options in response to controversies and technical issues with larger platforms.
