"X no longer brings me anything": Trump's victory precipitates the flight of users to other social networks

The return of Donald Trump to the White House has been the last straw for many X users. Its owner, Elon Musk, has put the social network at the service of the Republican's candidacy , whom he has also supported financially and as a guest star in several acts. In response, media outlets such as The Guardian or La Vanguardia have already withdrawn from the platform, and many individuals are doing the same.

It is still early to evaluate the stampede effect that Trump's victory has caused, among other things because X does not provide data on movements in its user base. But everything indicates that the one who is benefiting from this stampede is Bluesky, the platform created by one of the founders of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, which has gained a million users in a week and already has 15. It is very far from Threads, the Meta alternative (275 million), and X itself (550), but Bluesky has become the most downloaded app in the US. Those responsible for it say that between 600 and 800 new users are registered per minute, the vast majority Americans. These are figures never seen on the platform.

The scriptwriter and artist Manuel Bartual is one of those who are migrating to Bluesky. His case is representative because, as he himself acknowledges, it was precisely on the old Twitter where he achieved one of his greatest professional successes seven years ago by publishing a fictional thread . “I haven't closed my X account, but I now spend much more time on Bluesky than there. It is where I see the most movement, where my content generates the most interactions,” he explains. He has tried publishing the same thing on both platforms and the differences are striking: despite having more than 250,000 followers on X and 7,000 on Bluesky, on the second he gets more impact.

Theirs has been a process drawn out over time, more practical than meditated. “We have all seen what X has become in recent times. The entertainment is still there, as long as you do the lists hack [an option that allows you to see only the content in chronological order published by the selected accounts]. But the level of misinformation that is handled on Twitter especially worries me,” he says. This has been evident with the Dana from Valencia : “For a few hours, X was useful, but in a very short time it became a means to spread lies and hoaxes .”

Lawyer Paloma Llaneza, very active in X for years, assures that she is no longer part of that community. “I have not closed my account so that it is not cyber-occupied , I am not going to leave my name free for anyone to take.” In his case, X's deterioration in recent years seemed evident to him, but the trigger for leaving was Trump's victory. “Being on a social network that is 100% owned by an absolutely despicable guy who has supported Donald Trump, who is someone even more despicable and who is going to establish The Handmaid's Tale in the United States is something I can afford.” .

Their decision is irreversible, even in the unlikely event that X suddenly passes into the hands of another owner. “The Indian bots copying tweets of solidarity for the Dana of Valencia has been the height of nonsense, proof that the intoxication in X is such that I believe there is no way to recover it.” His escape has also been towards Bluesky, where he considers that toxicity is much more controlled and the algorithm rules less than the user's tastes when it comes to showing him content. “The journalists, popularizers and other people who interest me are already in Bluesky, so X no longer gives me anything.”

Llaneza sees in Bluesky what he liked about the first Twitter, before Musk took over the company and decided to increase the weight of the tweets chosen by the algorithm compared to those of the accounts the user follows. Bartual also misses that environment, “when you could talk with friends and it was easy to inform and entertain you.”

That is also what ended up expelling the writer and screenwriter Guillermo Zapata from “I left because I could no longer read who I wanted to read nor could anyone who wanted to read me. I saw things that didn't interest me, that I didn't choose to see and that made me nervous," he says.

Zapata, who has been on Bluesky for months, has seen several spikes in new user arrivals. One of those high points occurred when Brazil ordered the closure of X after the platform refused to obey the judge who requested the blocking of profiles that incited hatred. Another of those moments was this summer, when Musk fueled the racist riots in the United Kingdom . The US electoral campaign, in which the tycoon has turned X into a kind of speaker for Trumpism, was also noted. November 5th marks another big turning point in new Bluesky user registrations.

One of the questions raised by the sudden growth of Bluesky is whether people are looking for a bubble or echo chamber effect. Do users who leave X, or who without leaving, use it less, look for an ideologically similar environment on other platforms? That is to say, do only those who do not agree with the far-right content that abounds in recent times on X migrate to a digital environment? Is the same thing happening with Bluesky that happened when Twitter expelled Donald Trump after the assault on the Capitol, at which time many went to Parler or the president-elect's social network, Truth Social, to avoid the woke mob?

“X is becoming a niche network: there is no longer the party of people who do not agree with the prevailing ideology,” says Carmela Ríos, expert in social networks , mobile journalism and misinformation. Once again, there is a lack of data to be able to verify whether user leaks have ideological overtones or not. In any case, Ríos highlights a growing trend among young people: unlike older people, they are increasingly seeking less exposure and more privacy on platforms. “Many leave the large platforms, or configure their accounts so that they are not visible to everyone. For example, on Instagram there are many private accounts [those that can only be visited by those the user authorizes]. I think we are also looking for the human dimension, of direct interaction, which has been lost with the gigantism of the large platforms,” says Ríos.

“Young people do not need to be in a large public forum, like older people: they handle themselves well in more closed spaces. That is why I believe that social networks that reproduce these relationships on a more human scale can succeed,” continues the expert. “Bluesky is very similar to X, but it has many features that allow you to reduce the window of your activity. “People want to talk to their community.”

X is no longer that. After the campaign, Musk's 44 billion investment to take over Twitter is better understood, an operation that seemed crazy at the time. He has used that big speaker to put his favorite candidate in the White House. And the American media is speculating that X may now merge with Truth Social, the platform that Donald Trump opened when he was kicked out of Twitter. “Musk has now moved on to another screen,” says Ríos. “It seems that it is now transforming X into a tool of global governance, into the spokesperson for a way of governing and looking at the world. We will see what happens in the coming months.”