Another X-odus? Users are increasing in the old Twitter project Bluesky – DW – 14.11.2024

Users appear to be migrating away from Elon Musk-owned social media platform X once again; Other microblogging sites have been rising to the top of app download rankings since the US election, courting millions of new users.

It’s unclear whether users will leave X (formerly Twitter) permanently or create new accounts elsewhere.

But brands and individuals have cited Musk’s significant financial and rhetorical support for Donald Trump in the US election, as well as the polarizing nature of the X platform, as reasons for their departure.

Bluesky — a Twitter project that was initially spun off into its own company — reported more than 1 million new users last week. There are currently 15 million in total.

Although it’s still very young in the social media space, the platform took the top spot in Apple’s App Store rankings this week, just ahead of Instagram’s own X rival, Threads.

This isn’t the first time X has dropped in active users. The setbacks came particularly after Musk took ownership of Twitter in October 2022 and Brazil banned the platform this year.

However, it seems that Musk’s support for Trump was the last straw for some account holders.

“This is, to some extent, a turning point,” Bart Cammaerts, a communications and democracy researcher at the London School of Economics, told DW.

Cammaerts points to a decline in moderation and increased rhetoric from Musk regarding the future direction of X, long-simmering developments that could help alienate users.

“I think the fact that we’re seeing so many people making this move right now is a combination of approaches that have been around for longer than (the election).”

Who is leaving X?

on wednesday, Guard The newspaper said that it would no longer post on X, but would not delete its accounts either.

X is not alone in abandoning or downsizing his presence. American media companies NPR and PBS stopped posting on the platform last year. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has also narrowed its dozens of X offerings to just four: news, sports, Chinese language and “core brand” profiles.

Celebrity exits were more notable. US actors Jamie Lee Curtis and Bette Midler have deleted their X accounts while maintaining a presence elsewhere. They join previous X-iters like Elton John, Jim Carrey, Whoopi Goldberg and Gigi Hadid, who have stopped or stopped posting after Musk’s takeover in 2022.

Other public figures have expressed their intention to leave X but have not yet deleted their profiles. These include prominent media and political figures such as former CNN news anchor and YouTube streamer Don Lemon and Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

It’s clear that the most vocal personalities leaving the platform are left-leaning.

But brands are also branching out beyond the British world. Berlin Film Festival and Bundesliga team FC St Pauli are German brands that have announced their debuts. In early 2024, more than 50 non-profit organizations announced their departure via the campaign website byebyeelon.de.

Last year, major brands halted their advertising on the platform, citing an increase in hateful content, drawing public criticism from Musk.

Why are they leaving?

Among the reasons for leaving the platform is that negative content on the platform continues to increase.

This includes an increase in toxic content. Guard “The often disturbing content promoted or found on the platform, including far-right conspiracy theories and racism,” was included in its published statement.

But it can be difficult to pinpoint a single reason for exit. The newspaper noted that this decision took a long time and that its resources could be “better used” elsewhere.

“News companies do not have unlimited resources, audiences do not have unlimited attention, so they may have to make a strategic decision if a platform is associated with a high level of uncertainty about how conversations will develop in the future,” Silvia Majo-Vazquez, a political communication researcher at Vrije University Amsterdam, told DW. He said: “Short term.”

“They want to convert audiences on social media platforms, (so) what audiences are you targeting right now with (X) and (X) users decreasing on Twitter?”

“Other platforms are gaining traction, so they will likely redirect their resources to platforms that provide new (groups) that are harder to reach – younger audiences – and perhaps provide better environments.”

For individuals, many say the “feel” of other microblogging venues is similar to the old Twitter, with fewer bots and more one-on-one interaction.

“If these functions can be offered by alternatives and enough people make the switch, this can happen quite quickly. We have seen this in the past with other platforms such as Myspace,” Cammaerts said.

Elon Musk’s social media platform X faces scrutiny in Europe

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Politics and personalities may continue to migrate, discourse may be minimized

Although celebrities, politicians, and brands are turning their gaze to new social outlets, newly established platforms are still vulnerable to the same negative interactions and toxic content prevalent on established social media.

“In a way, people are going for the lesser of two evils because all of these platforms have a business model of commoditizing your sociality in a way that is, at its core, antithetical to your privacy,” Cammaerts said.

“So X is of course the worst and is problematic for a number of political reasons, but that doesn’t mean the other platforms are necessarily ‘good’.”

It’s difficult to predict the future direction of online public discourse, but he believes it’s a conversation that needs to start now.

“What do we want our democratic media environment to be like? What do we want it to look like? And can we organize it, through democratic means, to achieve more of the (democratic) ideals than it does today? It can also be a contentious debate.”

It is also assumed that users will continue to seek out “full view” public spaces to socially interact with each other.

Majo-Vazquez predicts that the rise of closed groups on private messaging apps will continue to grow, pushing online interactions further away from the global public sphere that Twitter originally aimed for.

“The landscape is becoming more fragmented when it comes to social media platforms,” he said.

“The attention these major platforms have received… has been dispersed to many places. We don’t know which winner will emerge from this process.”