Eduardo González
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, has opened an account on the social network Bluesky, a platform that is booming around the world and whose weight has grown substantially after the US presidential elections. However, he will keep his account on X (formerly Twitter), Elon Musk’s platform from which, in the last few hours, several media outlets, politicians, institutions, entities and companies have withdrawn.
“I’m starting on Bluesky,” Albares declared this Sunday through this social network. “From today you can find me here, as well as on my other social networks,” he continued. “Approaching citizens with transparency is fundamental for all of us who are dedicated to public activity,” he warned. “Doing so with respect, tolerance and civility protects our democracy,” he concluded.
This last sentence sums up many of the problems that X is going through. The Brazilian government of Luiz Inázio Lula da Silva, relevant media outlets, such as the British newspaper ‘The Guardian’ and the Spanish ‘La Vanguardia’ (or the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, which has substantially reduced its use); the actress Jamie Lee Curtis, the singer Taylor Swift, the journalist Don Lemon and even a German football club, St. Pauli, have announced the closure of their X accounts, mainly due to the support of the billionaire Elon Musk – who acquired Twitter in October 2022 – to the president-elect of the United States, Donald Trump, during the recent electoral process.
On the other hand, the European Commission has reported that it will remain “active” on X, as has the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “The European Commission uses the social networks at its disposal to reach key audiences with whom to communicate on issues at the heart of Europe,” said the Commission’s spokesperson for the Digital Economy, Thomas Regnier, at a press conference in Brussels. “X is one of the 15 networks in which the Commission is active and has an account,” he added. In any case, he warned, Brussels will remain vigilant, carrying out “regular analyses” and opening “other accounts on other platforms,” such as Bluesky or Mastodon.
For her part, the second vice president of the Government, Yolanda Díaz, has declared that she herself had “moved to another alternative network,” but, for the moment, she has chosen to continue with X. “It is a controversial issue, I do not have the answer to this question,” she said. Her party, Sumar, has opened an account on Bluesky but will continue to publish on X for “a while, with the aim of getting our message across and debunking the hoaxes of the right and the extreme right.”
The Bluesky platform has grown substantially so far in November, with more than two million new users so far this month, to exceed the figure of 19 million active users. In 2024 alone, Bluesky has grown by 933% in the number of users. The main factor seems to be Elon Musk’s undoubted support for Trump, which has led many X users to look for other options. Bluesky, on the other hand, presents itself as a platform committed to decentralization and user autonomy (who can set their own moderation rules), and has therefore attracted digital communities looking to escape noise and polarization.
It so happens that Bluesky comes from Twitter, after the platform’s then CEO, Jack Dorsey, promoted the launch of an open social protocol for decentralized public conversations in 2019. Finally, its formal separation from Twitter, when X terminated its contract with Bluesky in 2022, allowed its development as an autonomous platform to “develop and promote technologies for open and decentralized public conversation.”
