When Ashton Pittman, an award-winning news editor and reporter, first joined the app Bluesky, he said, he was the only Mississippi journalist he knew to be using it. Until about five weeks ago, he said, that was the case. But now, Pittman said, there are at least 15 Mississippi journalists on Bluesky as it becomes a preferred platform for reporters, writers, activists and other groups who have become increasingly alienated by X.
Pittman’s outlet, the Mississippi Free Press, already has more followers on Bluesky (28,500) than it ever did on X (22,000), the platform formerly known as Twitter, and Pittman said the audience engagement on Bluesky is booming.
“We have posts that are exactly the same on Twitter and on Bluesky, and with those identical posts, Bluesky is getting 20 times the engagement or more than Twitter,” Pittman said. “Seeing a social media platform that doesn’t throttle links really makes it clear how badly we were being limited.”
Since Elon Musk bought Twitter, has turned the platform into an increasingly difficult place for journalists, and many had come to suspect that the platform had begun to suppress the reach of posts that include links to external websites. On Sunday, Musk confirmed the platform has deprioritized posts including links, which was how journalists and other creators historically shared their work. But four journalists told NBC News that after millions of users migrated to Bluesky, an alternative that resembles a pared-back version of X, after the election, they are rebuilding their audiences there, too.
“My average post that isn’t a hot-button issue or isn’t trending might not perform as well on X as it does on Bluesky,” said Phil Lewis, a senior front page editor at HuffPost who has over 400,000 followers on X and close to 300,000 on Bluesky. “Judging by retweets, likes and comments, it’s a world of difference.”
Platform and audience editors at The Guardian and The Boston Globe have publicly noted higher traffic to their news websites from Bluesky than from competitors including Threads, Meta’s X alternative. Rose Wang, Bluesky’s chief operating officer, quoted the Guardian’s stats, writing: “We want Bluesky to be a great home for journalists, publishers, and creators. Unlike other platforms, we don’t de-promote your links. Post all the links you want — Bluesky is a lobby to the open web.”
Bluesky, initially built as part of an initiative funded by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, who cut ties with the company in May, launched to the public as an invitation-only platform last year. Some of its earliest users included Black, trans and politically progressive people. Journalists who belong to and cover issues affecting marginalized populations have found Bluesky to be a much more welcoming environment.
“I think that Bluesky’s demographic is literally just anybody who can’t stand the sort of toxic environment that Twitter has become, and that spans a large range of people,” said Erin Reed, an independent journalist covering trans rights issues on Substack. “Journalists don’t like toxicity and toxic comments. We want to have conversations with people, and we don’t want everything to devolve into slurs being hurled back and forth.”
Numerous studies and analyses have found that after Musk took over the platform, use of hate speech increased. Over time, the platform became a bastion of the right-wing internet.
Reed also said traffic to her Substack articles has doubled since she began posting exclusively on Bluesky. She and Talia Lavin, a journalist and author who covers the far right, said X had become overrun with anti-trans speech, as well as other forms of bigotry and harassment. Lavin said she noticed an uptick of antisemitism and pro-Nazi accounts on X, as did Pittman.
In April, NBC News found that on X, at least 150 pro-Nazi accounts were able to purchase verification on the app and boost pro-Nazi content that was viewed millions of times on the app.
“If I’m not able to drive any consistent views to my newsletter from Twitter, why am I here?” Lavin said about her decision to move to Bluesky. “All the replies were AI bots and Nazis, and none of the earnestly engaged readers are seeing my content. So what was the point of subjecting myself to psychic damage?
“Having any sort of space where I can say, ‘Here is my newsletter, here is my book,’ and you can at least be exposed to the work I’m writing, that feels good, as opposed to a billionaire who actively hates the press being in charge and not wanting anyone to see your work,” Lavin continued. “I don’t know if it signifies some brand new hope for journalism, but it is nice to have a platform where you’re not actively being stifled.”
While journalists and writers have begun finding success in reaching an engaged and paying audience on Bluesky, they aren’t the only ones. Aaron Kleinman, director of research for the States Project, a state legislative campaigning group, said in a post that the group’s Give Smart fundraising effort made more money on Bluesky than on X in 2023, even when follower counts were much smaller. “Twitter’s cooked as a platform for raising money,” Kleinman wrote.
Lavin and Pittman also said Bluesky audiences are gravitating toward a more diverse set of topics and stories, both political and apolitical. Pittman said he’s getting story tips and ideas on the platform, while Reed said she’s reaching readers who are learning about the topics she covers for the first time.
“People always say, ‘The news is too negative.’ Well, why don’t people click on and retweet and share our more positive stories? I think the answer Bluesky is giving us is that it was the algorithms,” Pittman said. “On Twitter you would see two likes on a positive story that on Bluesky is getting dozens of likes and shares.”
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