Tumblr, Bluesky Numbers Surge as X Is Shut Down Again in Brazil

Elon Musk has ruined the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, ever since the billionaire bought the company in late 2022, with far-right extremists getting more attention than ever. But X’s loss is proving to be a boon for other social media platforms, including older sites like Tumblr and newer contenders like Bluesky.

Brazil brought the hammer down on X Thursday, with the Supreme Court ordering the social media company to suspend operations after defying a ban. X became briefly available in the country again on Wednesday in defiance of a total ban after the platform defied an order to suspend extremist accounts and failed to appoint a lawyer to oversee the defense in its case. A Brazilian court says X will be fined about $920,000 for ignoring the court’s orders, according to the BBC.

All of this chaos at X has helped other social media platforms you may not expect. Tumblr has seen an incredible 349% growth in users since Brazil banned X, according to Techcrunch Friday. But those numbers should obviously be taken within the context of the site’s rollercoaster existence. Tumblr has struggled in recent years after enjoying its heyday roughly a decade ago. The site was purchased by Yahoo for $1 billion back in 2017 and sold for just $3 million in 2022.

But it’s not just Tumblr that’s seen a big bump in users. Other sites are clearly benefiting thanks to Musk’s idiocy. Bluesky, a site that’s very similar in layout and functionality to X, crossed 10 million users earlier this week, with 4 million joining just recently.

“That marks about 4 million new users since the Brazilian wave started,” Bluesky spokesperson Emily Liu told Gizmodo by email. “We don’t save users’ location data so I don’t have an exact number of how many users are Brazilian total, and the growth bump from Brazil caused many people from other countries to join/reactivate too.”

Liu also notes that Bluesky has seen “record-highs in terms of user activity,” including liking, following, and posting, “especially after we launched video as a feature.” Bluesky only added the ability to share videos last week, one of the features the site had been lacking in its drive to compete with X.

Bluesky’s total user base of 10.3 million is still tiny compared with X’s estimated 250 million users or so, but there really does seem to be a diaspora happening where former Twitter users look elsewhere as X gets worse.

The latest estimates show new user growth on X has dropped from 30% annually as recently as 2020 to just 1.6% this year, according to the Financial Times. And X’s health as a functioning company is clearly in question. The bankers who helped finance $13 billion of Musk’s $44 billion purchase of Twitter back in 2022 are reportedly regretting that decision in myriad ways. In fact, they’re calling it one of the worst deals of all time. Many people are saying, as Musk’s buddy Donald Trump might put it.

Musk tries to insist that X is doing fine, with the billionaire often coming up with new metrics never used in the tech industry in order to prove his site isn’t dying. Musk sometimes refers to “unregretted” minutes and seconds on the platform, which he says is the metric that actually matters. But other sites are benefiting from Musk repeatedly stepping on rakes.

For its part, X told the BBC that the restoration of X in Brazil on Wednesday was unintentional. The company has not responded to Gizmodo’s questions about that decision on Friday. We’ll update this post if we hear back.