Bluesky Sees 60% Spike in UK Users Amid Elon Musk Controversy

News Desk 

Islamabad: Bluesky, a social media platform, has reported a significant increase in user signups in the United Kingdom, attributing the surge to Elon Musk’s controversial comments regarding the recent nationwide riots.

The platform has seen a 60 percent rise in activity from UK accounts, with several Members of Parliament also joining, according to a company statement released on Monday.

Musk has been criticized for exacerbating tensions following far-right riots in Britain, which were triggered by online misinformation surrounding the murder of three girls in northern England last month.

His posts, including a prediction of an “inevitable” civil war in Britain, have been condemned by Prime Minister Keir Starmer and have sparked calls for stricter online content regulations.

Bluesky noted that the UK has led in new signups for five of the past seven days. As a relatively new player in the social media landscape, Bluesky has experienced this surge in interest.

Musk, who was born in South Africa and became a US citizen in 2002, has shifted towards right-wing politics in recent years and has publicly supported Donald Trump’s US presidential campaign.

Bluesky is one of several platforms attempting to fill the gap left by Twitter after Musk’s turbulent acquisition of the company in late 2022. In July, Bluesky’s monthly active user count was approximately 688,568, a small number compared to X’s 76.9 million users, according to Similarweb.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, did not provide updates on user growth for its Twitter competitor, Threads, in the UK Mastodon, another smaller rival to X, also did not respond to requests for information on its user growth.