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Also known as AOC, the US congresswoman is topping the Bluesky chart behind only the platform’s own account.
Last night (2 December) the vocal and active Bluesky user, US congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez passed the 1m follower mark on X rival Bluesky, sending her to the top of the user chart, behind only Bluesky’s own account, and ahead of George Takei, Mark Hamill, The Onion and the New York Times.
The news would appear to cement the platform’s reputation as a more liberal, democratic alternative to the Musk-led social media network, which promotes subscription-paying, often right-wing users to the top of people’s feeds there.
The algorithm-free platform continues to make steady progress among journalists as well as the scientific and deep-tech communities as they flee the often fact-free timeline of X. On writing, the platform looks set today to pass 24m users, still adding several users a second.
Ocasio-Cortez’s feed is a mixture of the kind of political posts one might expect, but with a healthy mix of light relief including calling on her followers for good cocktail and mocktail recipes.
In her own words: “People are leaving Twitter because it’s not fun anymore, and no one is obligated to be on a platform they don’t enjoy. It’s not rocket science.”
Political commentators Molly Jong-Fast and George Conway also feature in Bluesky’s top 20 users, while former Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger is also proving popular, coming in at 21st, closing in on half a million users.
The platform was announced in 2019 and aimed to create an “open and decentralised standard for social media”. The app shares similarities with Twitter – before it became X – in terms of design and function.
Beginning as an invite-only app, Bluesky had more than 3m sign-ups before it went public earlier this year. At the time of publishing, the X rival is closing in on 24m users, having experienced a surge following the US election.
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