Bluesky adds 700,000 new users in a week

Bluesky gained more than 700,000 new users in the last week and now has more than 14.5 million users total, Bluesky COO Rose Wang confirmed to The Verge. The “majority” of the new users on the decentralized social network are from the US, Wang says. The app is currently the number two free social networking app in the US App Store, only trailing Meta’s Threads.

People posting on Threads, on the other hand, have raised complaints about engagement bait, moderation issues, and, as of late, misinformation, reports Taylor Lorenz. And like our very own Tom Warren, I’ve come to dislike the algorithmic “For You” feed that you can’t permanently escape, and it certainly seems like we’re not alone in that opinion.

But the Instagram-bootstrapped Threads, which recently crossed 275 million monthly users, is still significantly larger than Bluesky.

The independent platform has seen a lot of growth in recent weeks — on October 24th, Bluesky announced it had 13 million users. After X’s recent announcement that it would let blocked users still see posts from the person that blocked them, for example, Bluesky said it added 500,000 new users in one day.

The results of the US presidential election could be part of Bluesky’s new influx of users. People may be looking to use a platform that’s not owned by Musk or, like some Taylor Swift fans, may be looking for a new platform following an increase in hate speech on X.

Bluesky is also becoming an increasingly better app, with recently added features like pinned posts, support for posting videos, and the ability to send DMs to bring it up to what you might expect from X. It also allows users to custom create and select feeds to follow, and allows for building starter packs to quickly find posters who you may be already familiar with — here’s a list of Verge staffers on the platform.