As X sees X-odus of users and celebs, these platforms are gaining

In the week following the 2024 US elections, a significant number of Americans left X (formerly Twitter), marking the largest exodus from the platform since its acquisition by Tesla boss Elon Musk in 2022. Many of these users were disillusioned with Musk’s campaign and support for President-elect Donald Trump. This sentiment has also led to the departures of celebrities, including Jamie Lee Curtis, Elton John, Mia Farrow, Whoopi Goldberg and news anchor John Lennon. British newspaper The Guardian also announced its exit from X.
The main beneficiaries of this mass exodus have been social media platforms, Bluesky and Threads.
Bluesky saw a surge in new users, gaining over a million followers in just one week after the election, according to spokesperson Emily Liu, who spoke to The New York Times.
“We’re seeing increased activity levels across all different forms of engagement”, said Liu.
Blue Sky, which is owned by Twitter founder, Jack Dorsey, is making a move of its own at this ripe moment for the platform.
Bluesky is also reaching out to users about why it is a better option.
“I can guarantee that no Bluesky team members will be sitting with a presidential candidate tonight and giving them direct access to control what you see online.”
For many users leaving X, the election’s outcome and the rising presence of far-right, white supremacy, and conspiracy-driven posts on the platform leading to a Trump win was the “last straw”.
“You were getting this awful timeline of far-right, white supremacist, conspiracy-theory posts which the great majority of people don’t want to interact with on a daily basis,” Shannon C McGregor, an associate professor at the University of North Carolina’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media, told The New York Times.
Other prominent figures, including Oscar-winning actress Jamie Lee Curtis and news anchor Don Lemon, also announced they were leaving. Lemon specifically pointed to X’s new terms of service, which took effect on November 7, as a key reason for his departure.
The updated terms stipulated that any legal disputes with X would be handled only in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas or state courts in Tarrant County, Texas.
But not all kinds of Americans are leaving. This is an exodus based on political leaning.
The users flocking to Bluesky are often more left-leaning, and many have shared their frustrations with the toxic environment they found on X.
Prominent Democrats like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Chasten Buttigieg, husband of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, also joined Bluesky.
But for many Americans, November 6 was the day they decided to quit X. They spoke to NBC news about it.
Kawa Wutz, a 39-year-old finance director in St. Louis, made the decision to leave X the day after the election. Having used the platform for eight years, she said, under Musk’s leadership, “it became a place where I wasn’t really getting what I wanted out of it any more.”
“Every time I opened it up, it would throw things at me that put me in a bad mood. I noticed Tuesday night into Wednesday I started to see a lot more anti-woman stuff. And I was like, ‘You know what? That’s personal. I’m done'”, Wutz told NBC.
Wutz, who used X for local news, politics, and entertainment, said many members of her community were also now leaving X for Bluesky.
Bluesky now boasts 14.7 million users—still far below Threads’ 275 million active users.
This growth is driven by the US, Canada and the UK.
Fan clubs are also joining these platforms.
Noëlle Polo, a 22-year-old Texan and avid Taylor Swift fan, joined Bluesky on November 6, along with many other fans of pop-singer, Taylor Swift.
“Swifties have been looking for another app besides Twitter ever since Elon took over. It just wasn’t a healthy environment,” Polo, who runs a public fan account for Taylor Swift, told NBC.
“X is really teaching everyone the importance of who owns the sites that we use and rely on to communicate online,” Mir said. “People don’t feel like the right voices are being heard or promoted on the site. They don’t feel safe using the site in many cases,” said Rory Mir, associate director of community organizing at the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation.
José Vilson, an educator and bestselling author, who continues to post on X, Threads, and Bluesky, shared his thoughts on leaving a platform he once found necessary.
“From a human perspective, it’s tough to leave a technology that was so beneficial to my growth. I’m probably going to post less, but I’m not going to delete the account unless it’s like, if you don’t do this, you’re going to be in huge trouble.”
So, the exodus from X, where right-wing discourse is echoing, is benefiting Threads and Bluesky, now being the alternatives of the X deserters.