The social media site Bluesky, which is supported by Jack Dorsey, has grown significantly in the midst of US political elections. Bluesky’s app usage in the US and UK has increased by an astounding 300%, according to recent Similarweb figures reported by The Financial Times, and it currently has 3.5 million active daily users. Due to changes in content moderation guidelines after Musk’s acquisition, users are leaving Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter), which is why this increase is occurring at the same time.
The exodus from X and rise of Bluesky
Bluesky’s rise coincides with a widespread user exodus driven by dissatisfaction with X’s current direction. Some academics, journalists, and politicians are embracing alternatives. Citing features like Bluesky’s easy-to-use interface and “starter kits” that make it easy to follow a curated set of articles.
Bluesky faces operational challenges such sporadic outages and worries about its financial viability for future expansion, despite its progress. In order to strengthen its operations and improve its infrastructure, the platform raised $23 million in venture funding after its launch.
Threads faces challenges
Since its launch as a competitor to Bluesky, Meta’s Threads has accumulated a strong global user base with over 275 million registrations. However, there has been a noticeable slowdown in its growth in daily active users. Threads had five times as many daily active users in the US as Bluesky before the US election. This advantage, however, has now decreased to just 1.5 times, suggesting a smaller gap.
A contributing factor to Threads’ relatively slow adoption in politically volatile environments is Meta’s conscious choice to lessen the visibility of political content on its platforms. Although the goal is to maintain objectivity, some contend that this tactic lessens the platform’s significance at times of intense public discussion.
In response to user demand, Meta has introduced features such as “custom feeds” to make content more manageable. This functionality mirrors Bluesky’s offering and signals Meta’s efforts to adapt Threads to changing user needs.
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Bluesky’s potential and challenges
Bluesky and Threads represent two different approaches to social media. While Bluesky appeals to users looking for an alternative to X (formerly Twitter) with its decentralized framework and focus on simplicity, Threads highlight community engagement at scale with content inspired by sister platform Instagram.
Experts point out that both platforms face important decisions in the future. For Bluesky, addressing technical reliability and building a sustainable business model remain key concerns. For Threads, the challenge is balancing between the needs of a broad user base meet the expectations of those who want real-time, event-driven conversations.
The future of social media
As platforms compete for user engagement in a highly competitive market, the dynamic social media landscape is rapidly evolving. The recent rise of Bluesky demonstrates how smaller platforms may contend with larger players like Meta, especially during periods of profound political and social change. However, maintaining growth over time requires ongoing creativity and adaptability from all players in this field.