Last weekend The Guardian opened its account on BlueSky, not long after officially leaving X. The departure seems to mark yet another exodus from Elon Musk’s social media platform, both by journalists and non-journalists. In past emigrations, including when Musk bought the platform in 2022 (back when it was still called Twitter), millions of people signed up to Mastodon. This time though it may be more significant, as even die-hard X users finally find a reason. The Guardian said bluntly it was sick of the 'racism and conspiracy theories'.
As with previous exoduses, Mastodon has seen a spike in signups and a jump in monthly active users. And this time BlueSky was ready, having dropped its restrictive, invite-only policy earlier in the year. On Wednesday BlueSky’s CEO announced that the platform had hit the 20 million user mark.
What does this mean for news media audiences? In some ways, very little. About one in 10 Australians use X for news, which is about the same proportion as before Musk bought Twitter (though those figures are from before this current ‘Xodus’). Millions will likely stay on X. But millions have also moved to BlueSky and Mastodon. Meanwhile, people seem to be leaving mainstream media in vast numbers too. If anything, all this is just the latest example of our increasingly fragmented news media ecosystem.
Chris Hall, UTS HDR Student