Elon Musk’s first move upon purchasing Twitter in 2022 was to enter the social network’s headquarters carrying a kitchen sink with an accompanying tweet: “Let that sink in!”
A week later, 80 per cent of the app’s workforce was cut. The pool of knowledge on the inner workings of Twitter shrank as engineers and safety employees — the people who knew how to keep the lights on — were told to get lost.
After screwing over workers and users alike, the company went on to detonate its fragile content moderation system, rebrand the platform to X (a name that sounds like a pornography site) and introduce an AI chatbot that tends to spout conspiracy theories.
I understood why some of my friends decided to leave the app. However, despite the platform’s decay, it remains important for me to access on-the-ground news and to understand political trends.
The explicit alternative, Bluesky, a now-independent former internal Twitter project, saw an increase in users every time Musk spoke of collaborating with U.S. president Donald Trump.
The number of Bluesky users tripled from September 2024 to January 2025. Pushing 30 million registered, the largest batch of users joined in the wake of the U.S. presidential election, when its peak of individual daily posters came just shy of 1.5 million.
In the months since, that figure has halved and continues to decline.
Bluesky’s user base is overwhelmingly American. As a result, global perspectives may not penetrate the consciousness of its users — even if you use Bluesky outside of the U.S. For reference, nearly half of Bluesky user traffic came from the U.S. in April 2025.
While Bluesky users are similarly looking for news and sharp perspectives, X’s widespread adoption gives it a leg up. This is not to say that X is used at the same level globally.
North America still makes up the largest total portion of X users at 19.6 per cent, but the site has a higher global use rate than its alternative. Considering the available options, this reach is crucial for the rapid sharing of on-the-ground reporting.
If you want to squeeze the most out of this rag of a website, you need to follow independent news groups and journalists. – Isaac Jackman
This content is not limited by a state’s borders — it can land on the for you page of every user. That includes over 10 million Canadians, according to the platform.
During a live update on Gaza ceasefire negotiations, journalist and Drop Site News co-founder Jeremy Scahill called X “the best newswire service, particularly on Gaza.” It was through their page that I first saw Palestinian journalist Hossam Shabat’s writing and reporting. Shabat served as a correspondent for Al Jazeera Mubasher and as a contributor to Drop Site News, filing “poetic and painful dispatches from Gaza.” Shabat was targeted and killed by an Israeli airstrike in March. He was 23.
If you’re simply following large media groups whose information you can find on most platforms, there is no particular advantage to using it. If you want to squeeze the most out of this rag of a website, you need to follow independent news groups and journalists.
For me, the site is also a cathartic way to keep up to date on the damage we are doing to our collective psyche.
There’s skits, rage bait and AI breaking countless people’s brains. All of this is happening daily on what Musk calls “the everything app.” I think it’s important to at least be aware of what a substantial chunk of the population is mainlining.
Countering reactionary politics or culture war distractions is much easier when you know what people are consuming and what talking points they are hearing.
And so I will continue to use this hellish platform. Because, for better or for worse, every type of person is on it.
My brother is not enjoying this pic.twitter.com/9ynFlwaOyp
— Zack Voell (@zackvoell) June 5, 2025
P.S. Elon Musk and Donald Trump got a divorce after I finished writing this — and the content has been extraordinary.
Featured graphic from files by Helen Mak/the Charlatan
