With X blocking, Bluesky becomes the new darling of Brazilians

The decentralized social media platform, which launched in 2022, has seen an increase of about 3.5 million new users, bringing its total base to more than 10 million. More than 93% of the new users speak Portuguese, according to app intelligence firm Appfigures.

The jump happened after Twitter (currently X) was blocked in Brazil by a decision of the Supreme Federal Court.

According to Bluesky’s COO Rose Wang, the user migration required the continuous work of 14 engineers. While there was a performance hit during what quickly became Bluesky’s largest user migration to date, Wang said its systems remained intact.

In an effort to cater to Brazilian users who place a high value on video content, Bluesky launched new video features last week, allowing users to share videos of up to 60 seconds on the platform.

“It was already in the plans, because we were already investing in Brazil,” says Wang. “But I think this encouraged us to accelerate the launch as quickly as possible.”

According to the executive, Bluesky has always maintained a “strong presence” in the country. Soon after the beta version of the app was launched last year, Taylor Swift fans and LGBTQ+ communities in Brazil were among the first to adopt it. After receiving the feedback of these users, the team quickly released a new GIF feature.

“I think it’s because Brazilians are extremely social, very communicative and love trying out new social media platforms,” says Wang.

SIMILAR TO THE OLD TWITTER

Bluesky was originally conceived by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. Initially funded by Twitter itself, Bluesky became independent in 2022 and is now a public benefit corporation — that is, a for-profit company that aims to generate a public benefit — with about 40 employees.

The company raised an $8 million funding round in July 2023, with participation from venture capital firms and angel investors, including Dorsey. But the founder stepped down from the board in 2024, saying Bluesky was “repeating every mistake[Twitter]made as a company.”

Bluesky has a Twitter-like interface and is effective at curating trending content and engaging with local audiences. With a focus on localization but also global conversations, the type of content posted on Bluesky is more similar to X than to other competitors, according to social media consultant Matt Navarro.

“Translation tools and resources that help localize content are particularly useful,” says social media consultant Matt Navarro.

USERS IN COMMAND

Bluesky has also gained users looking for community-specific content moderation, which relies on its decentralized and federated structure. On a decentralized platform like Bluesky, moderation can be done by individual communities, allowing for community-specific rules and guidelines.

In contrast, traditional social media platforms like X have centralized moderation policies that are applied uniformly across the platform. The federated model allows users to have more control over the environments they participate in.

Bluesky is effective at curating trending content and engaging with local audiences.

“We wanted users to have more choices. They could choose different feedswould have their own identity and control their data,” says Wang. “We believe the new paradigm of social media is that the platform should not be in control. We, the people, should be in control, just like we live offline.”

Bluesky's base layer of moderation is staffed by a 24-hour team that monitors issues like harassment and hate speech.

Additionally, users have the power to label content and accounts, so there could be consequences for behavior like rudeness that isn’t expressly illegal under the terms of service. “It feels less toxic, dangerous, and problematic than Elon Musk’s X,” Navarro says.

VALUING COMMUNITIES

Unlike X, Wang says Bluesky plans to continue to comply with regional regulations and work with governments, as its decentralized model allows local communities to enforce their own rules without affecting users globally.

According to her, Bluesky aims to provide the necessary tools to create a space for communities, from curating a feed up to content moderation.

The increase in users is unlikely to change that strategy. Wang says they plan to continue investing in content moderation and the “big-small world experience” that defines Bluesky.

“It’s all about experimentation – we’re co-creating this with you. The idea of ​​being decentralized is that we’re distributing the power, so that whatever we can do, you can do too,” says Wang.

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