Bluesky, the decentralized social network dubbed by many (myself included) as “the good Twitter,” could face issues in the future with the European Commission if it does not provide information about its user base and legal headquarters. According to Financial Times, the Commission’s spokesperson, Thomas Regnier, explained that all platforms operating in the European Union must include on their website information about the number of users in the region and their legal location. However, Bluesky does not currently display this information.
Regnier also noted that the Commission has not yet directly contacted Bluesky. Instead, it has asked the 27 national governments of the EU to investigate if they can find any indication of the company’s compliance with local regulations.
Although EU laws would not affect Bluesky in this regard until they reach 45 million monthly users in the EU, the platform is gaining ground at a rapid pace. During the U.S. elections, and after the victory of Donald Trump, the use of Bluesky skyrocketed in the United States and the United Kingdom, reaching 3.5 million daily users. This narrowed the gap with Threads, the app from Meta, which went from having five times the daily users of Bluesky to only 1.5 times more.
The growth of Bluesky is also due to its decision in February to remove invitations for registration (a measure initially implemented to ensure gradual growth), which attracted 800,000 new users in a single day. Before this opening, invitations were even being sold for $400 on platforms like eBay, demonstrating users’ interest in its decentralized and open-source model.
Founded in 2019, Bluesky continues to seek its place in a market dominated by giants like Meta, adopting pro-user strategies such as providing greater personalization of the experience, not including advertising, and pursuing those who use the social network to spread hate and misinformation. At the time of writing, the platform has a total of 22,677,507 users. Will it surpass 30 million before the end of the year?
