{"id":260513,"date":"2025-05-29T12:04:15","date_gmt":"2025-05-29T16:04:15","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2025-10-01T09:49:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T13:49:14","slug":"bluesky-has-caught-on-with-many-news-influencers-but-x-remains-popular","status":"publish","type":"short-read","link":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2025\/05\/29\/bluesky-has-caught-on-with-many-news-influencers-but-x-remains-popular\/","title":{"rendered":"Bluesky has caught on with many news influencers, but X remains popular"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
(Jaap Arriens\/NurPhoto via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Pew Knight Initiative<\/summary>\n
\n

The Pew-Knight Initiative supports new research on how Americans absorb civic information, form beliefs and identities, and engage in their communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan, nonadvocacy fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. Knight Foundation is a social investor committed to supporting informed and engaged communities. Learn more ><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

For our latest survey data about news influencers, read the \u201cNews Influencers Fact Sheet.\u201d<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bluesky is an emerging social media site with similar features to X<\/a> (the platform formerly known as Twitter). It has become a destination for many news influencers, especially those who lean to the political left, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The share of news influencers in our sample with a Bluesky account roughly doubled in the four months after Election Day 2024, from 21% beforehand to 43% by March 2025. Most of these influencers \u2013 including left-leaning ones \u2013 are also on X and post there frequently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The news influencers studied here are those previously sampled for our 2024 news influencers project<\/a>. Both analyses are part of the Pew-Knight Initiative, a research program funded jointly by The Pew Charitable Trusts and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We identified these influencers by combing through five major social media sites (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X and YouTube) looking for accounts that regularly discussed current events and civic issues and had at least 100,000 followers. Bluesky, which became available to the public<\/a> without an invitation in February 2024, was not analyzed in our original study because we didn\u2019t find many news influencers there. This new analysis examines how many news influencers in the original sample are now on Bluesky; it did not identify any additional influencers exclusively on Bluesky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Related:<\/em><\/strong> America\u2019s News Influencers<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

How we did this<\/summary>\n

We conducted this analysis as a follow-up to our 2024 study of news influencers<\/a>. We sought to examine the emerging role of Bluesky in the social media landscape as part of our research on Americans\u2019 experiences with news on social media in general<\/a> and on specific sites<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In February and March 2025, we checked whether each of the 500 news influencers identified in the original study had a Bluesky account. We used a slightly different collection method for this analysis than in the original study. In our 2024 study, we did not include any accounts that were not linked from other social media sites. But in this analysis, we searched Bluesky and X for each influencer and then verified that resulting accounts appeared genuine. We did this because we found that with the newness of Bluesky, many influencers hadn\u2019t updated their other profiles to include it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This analysis produced a list of 164 influencers with a Bluesky account and 346 with an X account.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We used a set of automated scraping (for X) and API collection (for Bluesky) tools to collect all posts from these influencers. All posts shared by these influencers between Jan. 5 and March 29, 2025, that were available in early April 2025 were included, including reposts. There were 20,489 posts from 134 news influencers on Bluesky and 348,909 posts from 321 news influencers on X.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Influencers had to post in at least eight of the 12 weeks in the study period to be categorized as posting at least once a week. This approach ensures that only influencers who posted most of the time are included in these categories, but also that those who took a break during these three months are not excluded. Researchers then calculated the average number of days each week that those influencers posted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Influencers who did not post in at least eight of those 12 weeks were categorized as not posting regularly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a Pew Research Center analysis from the Pew-Knight Initiative, a research program funded jointly by The Pew Charitable Trusts and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Find related reports online at https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/pew-knight\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/details>\n\n\n\n

In the original study, X was by far the most popular site with our sample of 500 news influencers: 85% had an account there<\/a>. But owner Elon Musk\u2019s changes to X<\/a> and involvement with the second Trump administration<\/a> have raised questions about how many people are leaving the site<\/a> and searching for an alternative. And since the November election, Bluesky has grown from about 10 million users to 30 million<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

What is a news influencer?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

In this analysis and our original study, we use the term \u201cnews influencers\u201d to refer to individuals who regularly post about current events and civic issues on social media and have at least 100,000 followers on any of Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X (formerly Twitter) or YouTube.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

News influencers can be journalists who are or were affiliated with a news organization or independent content creators, but they must be people<\/em> and not organizations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These individuals were identified in early 2024. We did not look for additional influencers on Bluesky beyond the original sample.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some news influencers prefer to be described with other terms, including \u201ccontent creators\u201d or \u201cindependent journalists.\u201d This study uses the term \u201cnews influencers\u201d with the goal of clearly describing the population being studied in a way that is easily understandable to a general audience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Refer to the report methodology<\/a> for more about how we identified news influencers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

In February and March 2025, we took another look at the 500 news influencers in our original sample to see how many were on Bluesky, X or both. As of that assessment, 43% of these news influencers in our sample had an account on Bluesky, including a majority of those who explicitly identify with the political left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Many news influencers on Bluesky joined during the platform\u2019s recent wave of growth. About half of sampled news influencers with a Bluesky account (51%) created that account after the 2024 election, including 42% who did so in the last three weeks of November 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even with Bluesky\u2019s growth, X remains popular among the 2024 sample of news influencers. As of early 2025, 82% have an account there, about the same share as in summer 2024 (85%).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And most of these news influencers with a Bluesky account also have an X account. Only 6% of the influencers we studied have a Bluesky account but not an X account, while 37% have both. The largest share (46%) have an X account but not<\/em> a Bluesky account.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Bluesky adoption is concentrated on the left<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\"A<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The news influencers from our 2024 sample who are on Bluesky are largely people on the political left. Among those who explicitly identified as liberals or Democrats or who supported Joe Biden or Kamala Harris in summer 2024, 69% now have a Bluesky account. This compares with 15% of news influencers who identified as conservative, Republicans or supporters of Donald Trump. About half of news influencers without a clear political orientation (47%) have a Bluesky account.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, most news influencers across the political spectrum have not left X. Three-quarters of left-leaning news influencers have an X account, as do 87% of right-leaning news influencers and 83% of those without a clear political orientation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More news influencers on Bluesky posted there as first three months of 2025 progressed<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\"A<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There is also evidence that news influencers on Bluesky are using the site more than they were at the beginning of the year. About half (54%) of news influencers on Blueksy posted there in the first full week of January, but this share grew to 66% in the last full week of March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the same period, X remained popular but saw a small decline in activity: 92% of news influencers on X posted there in the first full week of January, compared with 87% in the last full week of March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

News influencers tend to post more regularly on X<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\"A<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

News influencers on X tend to be much more active than those on Bluesky. In the first three months of 2025, 83% of news influencers on X posted there four or more days per week, on average. An additional 6% posted one to three days per week, while 11% did not post regularly or at all.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By contrast, 31% of news influencers from our 2024 sample with a Bluesky account posted on most days in early 2025. Another 21% posted one to three days per week, while 48% did not post regularly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This pattern holds for left-leaning news influencers and those with no clear political orientation. Among both groups, those on X post much more frequently than those on Bluesky. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among right-leaning influencers, 97% of those with an X account posted there at least four days per week during the study period. But too few of them have Bluesky accounts to reliably report on their posting frequency there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The share of news influencers in our sample with a Bluesky account roughly doubled in the four months after Election Day 2024, from 21% beforehand to 43% by 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