Millions of people around the world rely on social media for entertainment and for relevant news. X (formerly known as Twitter) is one of the biggest social media platforms, launching in 2006 and growing to where it is now, boasting over 350 million monthly active users.
“I put up announcements [on X] for what we do for the sports and game results and everything,” Business teacher Mike Freedline said. “Stuff that’s upcoming like game day just to tell the community about it. And for clubs too, just to keep people informed about what’s going on.”
Despite being one of the largest social media platforms in the world for many years, the public has had many grievances with how the platform is handled. Turning user verification into a bought-in feature, changes in moderation standards resulting in more graphic content sharing and spam, more intense monetization efforts through “X Premium,” and the dwindling effectiveness of essential features such as the search function are some of the key issues people have regarding the platform. Regardless of the problems on the platform, it maintains its popularity due to its constant news turnout.
“It’s kinda just what I resorted to, it has the most updated stuff,” sophomore Bella Ingrassia said. “I guess Instagram has similar features, but it doesn’t give you news as well.”
Released to be a competitor to X, the decentralized social media platform called “Bluesky” launched to the public in February of 2024. Bluesky was developed by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, and is effectively a copy of what X was a few years ago.
Bluesky is aimed to appeal to people who aren’t interested in using X due to its current problems, but still want to get current news and entertainment through the familiar format X has provided for many years. However, those who are switching to Bluesky shouldn’t expect the same amount of activity seen on X, as Bluesky currently only has roughly 24 million users.
“I think Bluesky really just needs some more promotion behind it,” Chris Snider, Drake University Associate Professor said. “Back in 2019 and 2020, Tiktok was buying ads everywhere and that was the reason behind its sudden growth, so I think Bluesky just needs to buy some ads and convince people to go there.”