What does the X exodus to Bluesky mean for journalism

Craig Robertson, University of Oxford

When Elon Musk took over Twitter and changed its name to X, many users vowed to move to another platform. First was talk of a shift to Mastodon that never seemed to catch on. Then Meta tried to make Threads appealing by linking the app to Instagram – but this hasn’t had much cut-through either.

Now it’s Bluesky’s turn. In the weeks since the US election, the platform has grown rapidly as users flee X.

This is partly because Musk’s involvement in Donald Trump’s election campaign clearly showed where his political allegiances lay. But he has also fundamentally changed how people see X as a platform, particularly as a place to get good-quality journalism.

Many of those flocking to Bluesky have been publishers, news organisations and journalists, sending a message that they no longer see X as a valuable space to post their reporting. A group of UK journalists signed an open letter calling X “no longer a useful tool for objective reporting”.

Right now, Bluesky still remains very small compared to X. Getting official and widely agreed-upon user numbers is difficult, but estimates put X’s worldwide userbase at around 600 million, with small declines in recent months.

In comparison, Bluesky reported 13 million users in October, with increases following the US election. Estimates vary wildly, however, if you choose different metrics like daily active or monthly active users.

Our 2024 Digital News Report data at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (from surveys fielded in January) puts the proportion of adults using X for any purpose at 25% in both the US and UK. Meanwhile, 15% of people in the US and 14% of people in the UK report using X for news. Our figures are similar to those of Pew Research Center and Ofcom.

As for Bluesky, usage barely registered in our 2024 data. Usage for any purpose was 2% in the US and 1% in the UK.

Facebook and YouTube are still the most widely used platforms in the UK and US, followed by Instagram.

But what is perhaps more important right now is looking at the specific organisations and individuals that are leaving X. NPR was one of the first news brands to stop posting, and the Guardian followed. The European Federation of Journalists, which represents nearly 300,000 journalists, has said it will stop posting on X from January, when Trump takes office. And some celebrities are also leaving.

Journalism on Twitter

Relative to its size, Twitter/X has always had an outsized impact on public discourse. This is largely due to the types of people who were attracted to the platform and became heavy users: journalists, politicians, and other public figures. “Power users” on the platform drove public narratives in many ways. Twitter was where cultural and political debates happened. News broke on Twitter.

Our research at the Reuters Institute from 2021 and 2023 showed this. People saw the platform as a good place to see breaking news, follow news publishers, and generally keep up with goings on. While Facebook was seen as a place to connect with friends and family, and YouTube a place to find entertainment, Twitter’s brand was as a destination for up-to-date information.

Musk’s changes to X, from complicating the “blue tick” verification system, to removing news headlines from links, to deprioritising news and links, have negatively affected the news industry, making the platform less appealing to publishers.

Elon Musk has made several changes to X that have made it more difficult for journalists to share information.
Frederic Legrand/Shutterstock

As news brands and journalists leave, in their place Musk has appeared to boost the voices of right-leaning users, while abandoning many of Twitter’s content moderation policies and reframing X as a right-wing social media platform.

Bluesky, on the other hand, has demonstrated appeal to the news industry, with reports of better referral traffic, a chronological timeline that suits breaking news, the ability to customise feeds and a general creative spark that some say reminds them of early Twitter.

For those remaining on X, the experience for many has been a steady increase in misinformation, hate speech and general toxicity, fuelled by Musk’s changes to the platform. With many reliable news publishers leaving, there is the risk that less reliable sources are further amplified.

The new ‘it’ place

It is possible, because of the migration of certain types of users, that the popularity of Bluesky is overstated. If journalists, academics and other professionals see all their friends and colleagues popping up on Bluesky, it may give the impression that a wider movement is underway – but this could be a mistake.

On the other hand, it may be precisely who is moving to Bluesky that matters. What the shift among social media power users (journalists, politicians, public figures) may do is encourage others to join.

If the buzz maintains its current level, more people may sign up to be part of it. Once there, they may see Bluesky’s “anti-toxic” features, including the ability to hide replies and filter notifications, and come to like the user experience, as many journalists have.

The key to whether it can really “replace” Twitter as a driver of news will be in how many people ultimately move. What’s always required to make a platform successful is a critical mass – enough people being there to make it feel useful and interesting, making you want to come back.

If people initially joined Twitter because that’s where the up-to-date conversations were happening, then Bluesky may benefit from becoming the new “it” place, supplanting X/Twitter’s former status as the place to be.

However, Bluesky could still go the way of other X competitors if it doesn’t maintain momentum and reach that critical mass. We’ve seen plenty of hype cycles before.

Craig Robertson, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.