LOS ANGELES — Social networking site Bluesky gained 1 million new users in the week of the US election as some X users look for an alternative platform to post their thoughts and interact with others online.

Bluesky said Wednesday that its total number of users had grown to 15 million, up from about 13 million at the end of October.

Backed by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Bluesky was an invite-only space until it opened to the public in February. That invitation period gave the site time to build moderation tools and other features. The platform resembles Elon Musk’s X, with a “discovery” feed as well as a timeline for the accounts users follow. Users can send direct messages and pin posts, as well as find “starter packs” that provide a curated list of people and personalized streams to follow.

The post-election surge in users isn’t the first time Bluesky has benefited from X users leaving. Bluesky gained 2.6 million users in the week after X was prohibited in Brazil in August – 85% of them from Brazil, the company said. About 500,000 new users signed up in the space of one day last month when X signaled that blocked accounts would be able to see a user’s public posts.

Despite Bluesky’s rise, X posted last week that it had “dominated the global conversation regarding the US election” and set new records. The platform saw a 15.5 percent increase in new user signups on Election Day, X said, with a record 942 million posts worldwide. Representatives for Bluesky and X did not respond to requests for comment.

Bluesky has referenced his competitive relationship with X through tongue-in-cheek comments, including an Election Day post about X referencing Musk on the polls coming in with President-elect Donald Trump.

“I can guarantee that no member of the Bluesky team will sit down with a presidential candidate tonight and give them direct access to control what you see online,” Bluesky said.

On the platform, new users — including journalists, left-wing politicians and celebrities — posted memes and said they were looking forward to using a space free of ads and hate speech. Some said it reminded them of the early days of X, when it was still Twitter.

On Wednesday, The Guardian said it would no longer post on X, citing “far-right conspiracy theories and racism” on the site. At the same time, television journalist Don Lemon posted on X that he was leaving the platform, but would continue to use other social networks, including Bluesky.

Lemon said he felt X was no longer a place for “honest debate and discussion.” He noted that changes to the site’s terms and conditions are set to go into effect Friday, requiring state lawsuits against X to be filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, rather than the Western District of Texas. Musk said in July that he was moving X’s headquarters to Texas from San Francisco.

As the Washington Post recently reported on X’s decision to change the terms, it “ensures that such lawsuits will be heard in courts that are a center for conservatives, which experts say could make it easier for X to avoid litigation and punish critics. ,” Lemon wrote. “I think that speaks for itself.”

Last year, advertisers including IBM, NBCUniversal and parent company Comcast fled X over concerns about their ads appearing next to pro-Nazi content and hate speech on the site in general, with Musk inflaming tensions with his own posts supporting an antisemitic conspiracy. theory.