Since the U.S. presidential election, a large number of social networking service X users have reportedly left and are moving to another SNS, Blue Sky. The Guardian reported on the 16th (local time) that “the number of new subscribers to Blue Sky exceeded 1 million in the recent weeks after the U.S. presidential election.” Blue Sky is growing rapidly, ranking first in downloads on the U.S. App Store chart last week. The total number of users is believed to have surged from 9 million last month to more than 15 million recently. Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, the owner of X, seems to have contributed to President-elect Donald Trump’s victory. In fact, 115,000 of the U.S. X users reportedly deactivated their accounts the day after the presidential election.
Musk publicly supported Trump during the presidential election and was nominated as the head of the “Government Efficiency Department” of the second Trump administration. He declared his support for Trump at X in July, and held an audio show for two hours in August to talk with Trump. On the 5th, the day of the presidential election, he held an audio town hall and appealed to his 203 million followers to vote for Trump.
Analysts say that Musk’s drastic easing of censorship of X’s harmful content on the basis of freedom of expression also had an impact. According to CNN, as sexist language has increased rapidly in X since the U.S. presidential election, numerous users are leaving X, and core advertising businesses are collapsing. Some of X’s influencer have also switched to blue sky. Journalists included Charlie Wozle of The Atlantic, Mara Gay of The New York Times, and former CNN anchor Don Lennon.
In addition, the Guardian announced last week that “far-right conspiracy theories and racism were often promoted” in X, and Spanish daily Lavangardia also said the same move, saying, “X has turned into a platform where conspiracy theories and false information spread.”
Blue Sky is considered an alternative SNS for X, with the number of new subscribers increasing by 2.6 million in a few days when X was blocked due to controversy over fake news in Brazil in August. In 2019, Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, the predecessor of X, started with an in-house organization that he created to develop an “open standard that decentralizes social media,” but became independent as a separate company in 2021.
JULIE KIM
US ASIA JOURNAL
