Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) has become the first person to garner more than 1 million followers on the social media site Bluesky, stating “it’s not rocket science” why tens of thousands of individuals have abandoned X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
According to The Hill, only Bluesky’s official account has more followers than Ocasio-Cortez.
Bluesky’s rising popularity corresponds with a steady departure from X in the two years since Elon Musk’s contentious purchase.
Some of those leaving Twitter have cited an increase in hate speech, restriction of traffic to specific news organisations, and Musk’s support for President-elect Donald Trump as reasons to leave. On Monday, Ocasio-Cortez expressed her own thoughts.
“People are leaving Twitter because it’s not fun anymore and no one is obligated to be on a platform they don’t enjoy,” her post read. “It’s not rocket science.”
Ocasio-Cortez’s Bluesky account had been inactive for a year before she sent a message days after the presidential election.
“Good God, it’s nice to be in a digital space with other real human beings,” she wrote on November 11.
Bluesky, which was initially backed by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, debuted in 2023 as an invite-only service that imitated many of X’s features.
In September, the app had approximately 8 million users. It now claims to have 24 million users, with more than 1 million added in the week following the election.
Bluesky has positioned itself as an alternative to X for liberals, prompting charges of being an echo chamber.
“I don’t think that the answer for progressives is to disengage,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) remarked about his choice to remain on X. “The idea is that in a marketplace of ideas, over the long term, the truth emerges.”
Last month, The Guardian informed its readers that we would no longer post anything from its official X accounts, citing Musk’s influence on the “toxic media platform” and criticising the site for promoting “far-right conspiracy theories and racism.”
According to Similarweb, which measures website traffic, visitors to X this year peaked the day after the election. However, that same day, the platform experienced the highest number of account deactivations since Musk took over, with over 115,000 US visitors cancelling their accounts.