Alison Barrett writes:
Asked why they are abandoning the social media platform X for Bluesky, public health and human rights experts nominated issues such as the diminished value and integrity of X.
Increasing misinformation and negativity on X, as well as ethical concerns about supporting the platform that Elon Musk used to promote a Trump election victory, were also reported to be strong motivators.
“The trolling, misinformation and abuse on the platform was getting out of control and it just became impossible to support what it had become,” public health academic Professor Samantha Thomas told Croakey.
Bluesky – “a social app that is designed to not be controlled by a single company” – has grown steadily since Musk’s 2022 acquisition of Twitter, which he renamed X in July 2023. However, following the US presidential election, Bluesky traffic skyrocketed.
According to data from Similarweb, usage of Bluesky increased 519 percent since the 5 November election. It has grown from three million users in February 2024 – when it was launched publicly – to more than 20 million users globally on 19 November.
By comparison, X has more than 500 million users, according to Science. Musk, who has 205.4 million followers, appears to have ensured the algorithms boost his posts.
Citing “the often disturbing content” on the platform, including “far-right conspiracy theories and racism,” The Guardian announced last week they would stop posting their work on X. Their move has met with mixed responses.
The Guardian said they had been considering the move for some time, but the US election settled the decision.
The presidential election campaign “served only to underline what we have considered for a long time: that X is a toxic media platform and that its owner, Elon Musk, has been able to use its influence to shape political discourse”, The Guardian said in a statement.
X users can still share The Guardian’s articles on the site, and Guardian journalists will be able to continue using X for news-gathering purposes, as well as having their own personal accounts.
During the US election campaign, Musk used X to endorse Donald Trump, and spread disinformation about voter fraud, among other topics.
Momentum
Dr Tim Senior, a GP, contributing editor at Croakey and early Bluesky adopter, told Croakey that while he isn’t surprised by The Guardian’s move, “it is significant” and there seems to be a momentum in the move away from X now.
“There’s a perfect storm of lack of good-faith engagement, facilitated toxicity, and making it harder to link to writing beyond X, that presumably makes it difficult to justify maintaining a presence there,” Senior said.
“It’s a brave move, but I assume most media organisations will be looking closely at where the traffic comes from.”
Senior said he has had a Bluesky account since August 2023, as well as a Mastodon account, but has only used it sporadically up until recently. “The interactions have been supportive and friendly so far.”
He told Croakey he’s not yet planning to delete his X account, as people may want to reach him through it, but surmised he’s “getting less and less out of using it”.
Engagement and interaction have decreased, and the “user experience is not really fun anymore”, he said.
Senior also said it had become increasingly challenging to find “anything useful” due to having to “wade through Temu ads and spam bots”.
It appears that the algorithm also favours those who paid for a blue tick, he said said.
Professor Bronwyn Fredericks, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Indigenous Engagement) at The University of Queensland and co-chair of Croakey Health Media, said she had noticed follower numbers on X dropping, and joined Bluesky.
“I’ve still got a lot to learn, but I’m hopeful that the integrity of the product will be maintained and improved, and not minimised like X was,” she told Croakey.
Bluesky beginnings
Bluesky began in 2019 as a research initiative at then-Twitter by then-CEO Jack Dorsey to explore decentralising the platform, which would give users more control over their data and experience.
Jay Graber, software engineer and CEO of Bluesky since 2021, came on board to lead the project.
It was initially funded by Twitter until Musk purchased the platform – in October 2022, Twitter severed legal and financial ties with Bluesky Social, the parent company of the platform.
Subsequent funding has been raised in venture funding from private investors, including initial seed funding led by Neo, a “community of mentors meant to accelerate the development of leadership in the tech environment”.
In a recent statement, Bluesky announced it will begin developing a subscription model for features like higher quality video uploads or profile customisations like colours and avatar frames.
“Bluesky will always be free to use – we believe that information and conversation should be easily accessible, not locked down. We won’t up-rank accounts simply because they’re subscribing to a paid tier,” the statement said.
Dorsey left Bluesky Social’s board in May 2024, saying it had started following a direction he didn’t want by adding moderation tools users had requested and “literally repeating all the mistakes we made” at Twitter.
He is now financially supporting Nostr, a “truly open protocol” that he says enables censorship resistance and free speech.
Losing connections
Rebecca Zosel, a public health consultant, told Croakey that she intends to set up a Bluesky account. She has noticed an uptick in discussions about Bluesky recently, along with a decline in X/Twitter users and an increase in LinkedIn usage.
Zosel, a long-time Twitter user since 2009, said she “is unlikely to continue using X in the long-term”.
“For me, the value of X/Twitter has always been in connecting with people and accessing information from diverse sources, including health promotion leaders, journalists and health organisations,” she said.
The connections on X with another health promotion consultant, Kristy Schirmer, resulted in them establishing the Australian Public Health Consultants Network.
However, as more people leave X, that value is diminishing, she said.
“I’m also concerned about the ethical implications of the platform,” Zosel said.
“Since Elon Musk’s acquisition in 2022, issues like misinformation and the amplification of divisive content have undermined the integrity of the conversations and communities that once thrived there, making it difficult to continue supporting the platform.”
Several experts told Croakey they did not want to support Musk’s X. Simon Katterl, a mental health law, regulation and human rights advocate, said he is “increasingly uncomfortable being on the platform knowing it supports [Musk’s] business model”.
This was particularly so given [Musk’s] outsized influence on the world’s affairs and proximity to power following the US election, he said.
Echoing Zosel’s comments, Katterl said that X has “lost the primary reasons” for him joining and before too long he expects not to be there.
X used to be an environment “where we could generate real dialogue and debate”, Katterl said. However, since Musk took over – and the significant increase in hate speech and misinformation – many of the people he respected and wanted to hear from were no longer on the platform.
“That meant it wasn’t a good space to learn things anymore,” he said.
Katterl has joined Bluesky and said while “no platform will be perfect”, it appears Bluesky has the infrastructure required to more likely allow for good debate and dialogue.
With the influx of users, there will be a sufficient flow of information, according to Katterl, and it will become one of the places he gets news and information about mental health research from.
“I am also motivated to disempower Musk,” he said.
Katterl – who worked on online hate speech and vilification reforms in 2019-2020 – told Croakey that it’s hard for governments the size of Australia’s to properly regulate powerful multinational corporations like Twitter, now X.
“In the absence of obvious ways for government to intervene and break up that power, global citizens can hopefully facilitate that break-up by voting with their feet,” he said.
Dr Simon Judkins, emergency medicine leader, also told Croakey that he will not support Musk.
He has migrated to Bluesky as it is a platform where you can find what you need without having to deal with misinformation and disinformation. He doesn’t think he’ll leave X completely.
“If there are important messages, I might still post in order to get that message heard,” but he would monitor and review his position.
Similarly, Judkins “applauds” The Guardian’s stance, but will share informative articles across social media platforms as needed.
Journal editors
Samantha Thomas, Professor of Public Health at Deakin University and Editor-in-Chief of Health Promotion International, told Croakey that The Guardian “has taken a range of really good decisions lately”.
“They have also decided to not accept advertising from gambling companies. Since their decision to leave X, we have seen more news organisations join Bluesky and I hope they make the same decision to no longer generate content for X.”
Thomas has locked her X account and won’t be posting on it anymore, but has kept the account.
She told Croakey she “loved using Twitter in the early days and had become part of a great community”. But the last few years on X “had become really problematic”.
Several features on Bluesky are “incredible for people working in contentious areas such as the commercial determinants of health or climate justice who might be harassed or trolled”, she said.
Dr Ginny Barbour, Editor in Chief of The Medical Journal of Australia, told Croakey that “like many other people I’ve been increasingly concerned about the direction that Twitter/X has been going in”.
She said it also “no longer seems to reach the audience that we think is important both for the MJA and for me personally.
“We think public engagement via social media is very important for medical research and commentary and are optimistic that Bluesky will offer ways to engage that Twitter/X no longer does.”
Barbour opened a Bluesky account “a while back”, and the MJA has recently opened an account.
“We are also increasingly using LinkedIn as that has an engaged, informed community that we are keen to be part of,” Barbour said.
Kristy Schirmer, Principal Consultant at Zockmelon Health Promotion and Social Media Consulting, said The Guardian’s decision to leave X “is completely fair and reasonable. Their content is widely available elsewhere and still shareable”.
The Guardian has redirected their resources to producing news video on TikTok and Instagram which will ultimately have a wider reach with a more mainstream audience, she said.
Schirmer pointed out that ABC Australia downsized their presence on X a long while ago.
“I expect other media outlets will also be forced to revisit their social media efforts based on where there’s community interest,” she added.
• Croakey remains active on X as it continues to be an important source of news (following our lists), to reach followers, and to monitor the activities of Musk et al. We are also actively engaging on Bluesky, LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook. We have an account on Threads but are not active there.
• Stay tuned for a second article with tips on how to make the most of Bluesky.
More from social media
See Croakey’s archive of articles on the commercial determinants of health.
