X Is Making a Controversial Change, and One of Its Rivals Gained 1.2 Million New Users in 2 Days — Here’s Why

Half a million people signed up within a day.

By Sherin Shibu • edited by Jessica Thomas • Oct 18, 2024

Key Takeaways

X stated on Wednesday that it would change its blocking feature. Users will soon be able to see public posts from people who have blocked them.
Within two days of the announcement, X rival Bluesky added 1.2 million new users.
Meta’s Threads also appears to be experiencing an increase in users.

X users may be migrating to bluer skies after a major change.

Bluesky is an open, ad-free social network that grew out of Twitter, now X, in 2019. The platform announced on Thursday that half a million new users signed up within a day of X announcing that it would be changing up its blocking feature “soon.” Blocked users on X will be able to see public posts but not like, reply or engage with them in any other way.

Although X said the change was to prevent people blocking others from sharing sensitive information about people they have blocked, X users stated that the move would support stalking, render the Block function useless and violate Google Play Store and Apple App Store requirements.

Bluesky stated on Friday that more than 1.2 million people have signed up to use the platform since Wednesday.

congratulations everyone, we have now passed 12 million people total on bluesky!!! ?
over 1.2M new people have joined bluesky in the last two days — welcome!! ???

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— Bluesky (@bsky.app) October 18, 2024 at 1:42 PM

Soon we’ll be launching a change to how the block function works.

If your posts are set to public, accounts you have blocked will be able to view them, but they will not be able to engage (like, reply, repost, etc.).
— Engineering (@XEng) October 16, 2024

Bluesky also experienced a surge in users last month after X shut down operations in Brazil on August 30. Within a week of the ban, Bluesky added 3 million new users, 85% of whom were from Brazil. X resumed operations on October 9, but not before Bluesky surged to 10 million users in September.

The platform now has 12 million users total, per a Friday announcement.

Meta’s Threads also appears to be experiencing a surge in users; it is currently first under the top free apps for iPhone list, with Bluesky coming in fifth. Threads surpassed 175 million users in July.

Key Takeaways

X stated on Wednesday that it would change its blocking feature. Users will soon be able to see public posts from people who have blocked them.
Within two days of the announcement, X rival Bluesky added 1.2 million new users.
Meta’s Threads also appears to be experiencing an increase in users.