More good news for Bluesky. The X/Twitter clone is really taking off post-election and now has 20 million users.

A trickle is becoming a flood for Bluesky, the social media company that has seen spectacular growth since the presidential election. On Tuesday, the microblogging platform hit 20 million users, after averaging 1 million new users per day over the past five days.

According to a Nov. 13 post by Bluesky CEO Jay Graber, the site had 6 million users in late August, nearly 11 million in late October and hit 15 million users on Nov. 15. It added another 5 million users in just five days, with the explosive growth seen since Nov. 5, the day of the election, accelerating.

Most of this growth seems to be the result of X users on the left who've decided X is compromised by association with Elon Musk. Bluesky is essentially a progressive bubble version of X. And as I predicted here, there are already signs that along with massive growth, the site is also becoming a home for the kind of progressive intolerance that would turn any platform into a hellscape.

Here's Megan McArdle's take from a week ago:

Seeing people announce they're deleting their accounts and moving to Bluesky and this is the future because that's where all the smart academics are, so I took a spin through there to check it out. First impression:

1) I am possibly the most conservative person on the site, and…

— Megan McArdle (@asymmetricinfo) November 12, 2024

It reads:

First impression:

1) I am possibly the most conservative person on the site, and I voted for Harris.

2) Group dynamics make it hard to voice dissent. (I got blocked by someone for noting that in 2019, just under 3,000 females were victims of homicide, which means the overwhelming majority of women are, thankfully, at low risk of being killed by a man in their life.)

3) Founder effects mean this dynamic will be hard to change. The libertarians I see there mostly seem to be posting on issues where they agree with progressives, not ones where they disagree. Progressives who point out that, say, it's actually really hard to denaturalize a citizen and this is probably not a big risk, even under Trump, are getting dragged.

4) I'm not sure there's Twitter-level demand for a conversation that is restricted to agreeing with the leftmost 7% of the electorate.

Ben Dreyfuss joined Bluesky and wrote a thread about trans sports which did not go over well.

Anyways, if you want to see me getting insulted a lot and then eventually losing my cool and calling them all communists, here’s the thread https://t.co/FVqwlYUqo0

— Ben Dreyfuss (@bendreyfuss) November 18, 2024

Eventually he just gave up.

I just spent a zillion hours arguing with trans leftists who were calling me a monster and eventually they were like “there is housing discrimination because some women won’t have roommates who aren’t female at birth” and that is the one that finally got me to tap out. No shit

— Ben Dreyfuss (@bendreyfuss) November 18, 2024

All I wanted to do was go say hi to some people who I used to tweet with all the time who had left and moved there and after a day of this I’m like “I’m a fascist now” haha

— Ben Dreyfuss (@bendreyfuss) November 18, 2024

Why I Am Leaving BlueSky After Two Days: I Don’t Want To Become A Republican But I’m Going To Be Backlashed Into It If I Stay

By Ben Dreyfuss

— Ben Dreyfuss (@bendreyfuss) November 18, 2024

The Overton Window on Bluesky is like one of those arrow slits in a medieval castle wall. 

Omg lol I did miss that hahah

— Ben Dreyfuss (@bendreyfuss) November 18, 2024

Dreyfuss decided to go out in a hilarious blaze of glory.

I decided fuck it if I’m leaving this shit hole left wing app, I’m doing it in a blaze of glory pic.twitter.com/sZ6pc4GD9O

— Ben Dreyfuss (@bendreyfuss) November 18, 2024

Given how that went, it's probably not surprising that the rollout of the Babylon Bee on Bluesky is not going very well.

Hey, wait, I've seen this movie before. 😆 pic.twitter.com/jW7ok20Fd4

— Marc Andreessen 🇺🇸 (@pmarca) November 20, 2024

Even left-wing director Rob Reiner is getting beat up for saying that Trump won the election and there's nothing anyone can do about that at this moment except roll with it.

Rob Reiner is getting dogpiled over in Digital Canada for the crime of… accepting the results of the election and choosing to focus on family and his job. pic.twitter.com/51Jx1kwIcf

— Noam Blum (@neontaster) November 20, 2024

It's also *what* they are toxic over. All the dude said was "I need to accept the reality that he won and focus my time on my family and being productive." Imagine getting actively mad at that.

— Noam Blum (@neontaster) November 20, 2024

It's still early days but so far it's looking like the cancel culture the left brought with them from X to Bluesky is going to find a home there and eventually target everyone who dares to disagree about anything, even slightly. 

Eventually, everyone who isn't on the far left fringe will get sick of it and return to X but the most extreme will think it's great. The inquisition is a lot of fun so long as you're the inquisitor and never the person being accused of heresy.