Bluesky climbs to 25 million users, including Luke Skywalker: Should you join?

The social network Bluesky has been growing at a rapid pace since the end of the US presidential election. The site has added over 11 million users since the November 5 election, bringing it to over 25 million users by December 17. A Star Wars star Mark Hamill recently joined the sitedeclaring himself “quit Twitter”. And Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from New York became the first person to reach over 1 million followers on the platform. This is the first for any Bluesky account except the company’s own. Ocasio-Cortez has 1.1 million followers as of Tuesday.

There are at least two ever-changing counters created by Bluesky users that track the numbers on the site. One counter is by Theo Sanderson, Professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine; another counter is from a user who simply goes by Natalie on the site.

Read more: Bluesky Starter Packs: How to Find and Create Them

A company representative said in an email last month that the site added more than 1 million users a day in the immediate post-election period. This rate equates to about 12 new users per second. The 25 million user mark compares to 9 million users in September.

Bluesky may be growing, but the site has a way of catching up to competing sites. Forbes reports that X had 588 million global users as of September, down from 611 million in April. Threads, X’s Meta competitorhas more than 275 million daily users.

The X factor

While there’s no way to determine how many new users left because of X owner Elon Musk’s public support for President-elect Donald Trump, many Bluesky users mentioned the election in their first posts. Cable reports that many fans of Taylor Swift, a band that once had a large presence at X, are switching to Bluesky.

Bluesky is a social media platform that shares many similarities with X, formerly known as Twitter. X has undergone a number of changes since the billionaire Musk buy the site and retired legacy blue checkmarks indicating verified accounts, restore previously banned accounts and began a new subscription program.

On 16 Oct. X announced that it is changing its blocking feature, which allows people to stop others from seeing their messages on the site. Accounts that have been blocked can now see that person’s posts on X if the posts are set to public, although they cannot reply to, like, or repost them. “It’s not blocking,” one X user replied. “This is support for persecution.”

The next day, 17 Oct. Bluesky shared a post announcing that he had welcomed 500,000 people in just one day. “First day here,” one Bluesky user wrote in response to the company’s post about its growth. “I just got my feet wet. I was a long-time user of Twitter, but it’s a shell of what it was.”

X also updated its terms of service so that any lawsuits by users against the service must be heard by a federal court in north Texas, “whose judges often defeat conservative parties in political cases.” This is reported by The Globe and Mail.

These latest changes may have sparked the surge in interest in Bluesky, which saw a growth of user accounts earlier this year when X was blocked by courts in Brazil (the block was later canceled when X paid a fine). According to New York Timesusers say Bluesky is the app that comes closest to mimicking X.

Read more: Bluesky is the little comfort I was looking for. Let’s hope it continues

Here’s what you need to know about Bluesky.

How do I register?

To join, just go to the main page of create an account. You can download the Bluesky app for iOS or Androidor use Bluesky on your desktop.

It will ask for your email address and phone number (to send a verification code) and tell you to choose a username and password. Then you’re in.

How is Bluesky similar to X and Threads?

If you’re used to X, Bluesky’s design and purpose should make sense to you.

The site uses vertically scrolling messages with small round photo avatars for users and icons below messages showing how many comments, likes and reposts they have received. It looks quite similar to the shape of the X and Meta themeswhich is currently the number 2 free app on the App Store, after Bluesky.

Read more: Time to cut your X (Twitter)? Here’s how

Who is behind this?

Here’s another Twitter/X connection: Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey was previously on the board of directors and the Bluesky project started in 2019 when he was CEO of Twitter. Jay Graber is the CEO of Bluesky.

Even Bluesky’s name is related to X’s former name. Dorsey confirmed a Bluesky user’s speculation that the name is related to Twitter’s bird mascot, the idea being that the bird can fly even more freely in open blue skies. Dorsey left the board in Mayapparently because the service has added moderation tools.

Although the site name does not spell the capital S in “sky”, it is pronounced “blue sky”. Don’t rhyme it with “brewski”.

The app is built on something called certified transport protocolor AT, a social media framework created by the company and composed of a network of many different sites.

And how is Bluesky different?

Domains as handlers

For one thing, you can set your domain as your handler if you like. That could help with verification, which has become a hot-button issue for Twitter after Musk began removing blue ticks from verified accounts that refuse to pay a monthly fee.

“For example, a newsroom like NPR could set its handle to be @npr.org,” he said Bluesky Social Company Blog Notes. “Then any journalists NPR wants to verify can use subdomains to set their handles to be @name.npr.org.” Brand accounts can set their handle to be their domain as well.”

Moderation

Moderation is also different. Another blog post says Bluesky already uses automated moderation and has a community labeling system that it describes as “something like shared mute/block lists.”

Users of many social media platforms are shown posts from a feed selected for them by an algorithm, although you can influence this by following or blocking certain accounts. But Bluesky wants to give you a chance to choose from a variety of different algorithms to determine what you see.

You can mute accounts, which prevents you from seeing notifications or top-level posts from them, or you can block accounts, which takes this a step further, meaning you and the other account can’t see or interact with each other’s posts. And you can report abusive posts or accounts. The blocking option may be of particular interest to users who are unhappy with X’s recent change in its blocking behavior.

Several features—the ability to hide replies to your posts and to separate your posts from the posts of other users who quote yours—are designed to stop build-up and other toxic behavior.

Maintaining connections

It’s possible that creators who gain a following on Bluesky may one day be able to keep in touch with those who follow them, even if the service itself changes.

If you want to follow people you followed on X, the third party The Sky Follower Bridge is a free tool that scans your follower list and follows accounts with the same names on Bluesky. You will get a few false positives and a lot of passive Bluesky accounts, but overall we found it to work very well.

Personalized Feeds

Algorithms are the rules that determine how content is filtered and recommended to users. Bluesky has something it calls custom feeds, which lets you choose the algorithm that determines what you see.

“Imagine if you wanted your timeline to be only posts from your mutual partners, or only posts that contain pictures of cats, or only posts related to sports – you can simply select the feed of your choice from the open market,” a blog post on the site says. A longer post includes more details on custom feed and algorithm selection. Click the hashtag icon at the bottom of the app to add and discover new feeds.

Developers can use the site power generator starter kit to create a custom feed, and the site promises that eventually the tools will be easy enough for the rest of us to create custom feeds.

Starter packs

Want to go straight to Bluesky by following a curated list of people? You can follow starter packs, which are lists created by users and usually themed. CNET has a long explanation herebut in short, they’re similar to what X calls lists, and are a good way to get a solid feed that fits your interests.

Read more: It’s easy to find your X (Twitter) favorites on Bluesky. Here’s how to do it

Who uses it?

Here’s a small list of some of the people and groups you’ll see posting on Bluesky.