Hayhoe, a scientist, conducted an experiment on his own account, repeating previous posts and recording reactions. “There has been a huge increase in the number of trolling comments on the same posts,” she said.
“The abuse I endured to reach fewer people was noticeable,” she said.
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The NGOs involved in the eXit campaign are not necessarily looking for a new social platform to replace X, explains Moritz Schröder-Therre, communications director at Urgewald.
“Beyond all the ethical reasons for eXit, we felt that X was no longer the right channel to reach our target audience,” he said.
“We learned that a more focused approach on Instagram and LinkedIn allowed us to connect more effectively with our key audiences.”
More agrees. Bioland primarily moved its content to LinkedIn. “There are controversial opinions on many topics and therefore some heated debates. However, the basis for the discussion is completely different and is based on mutual respect and democratic values,” he said.
He boils it down to the fact that users must use their real names and cannot hide behind fake profiles. He says the organization has the highest presence on Instagram.
rocket launch
“The discussion culture is much more civilized than the barely moderated Musk Platform X, which is why I have no regrets about leaving,” he says.
Others have considered or tried alternatives like Threads and Mastodon, both of which have experienced significant growth since Musk acquired Twitter.
However, Hayhoe reported that Threads’ reach had declined in late summer, and he suspected algorithm changes were once again to blame. “There’s not as much trolling on Threads, but you can reach a smaller number of people with the same effort,” she said.
Enter relative newcomer Bluesky. The platform started as a research project on Twitter, but the link was broken when Musk acquired the platform in 2022.
When Bluesky launched to the public in February 2024, it had 3 million users, but that number grew to nearly 14 million the day American voters went to the polls. That base has since exploded, reaching 25 million by early December.
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Now many environmental NGOs, activist groups, scientists, journalists and green politicians have created accounts on the platform. These include: ecologistGreenpeace, WWF, RSPB, Just Stop Oil, Extinction Rebellion, Green Party and Carbon Brief.
Hayhoe still uses X, but mainly encourages his followers to move to Bluesky. “Bluesky has become popular and is growing exponentially because of all the tools it has. That’s attractive to scientists. “We love tools,” she said.
Hayhoe has several “starter pack” – a Bluesky tool that allows new users to create account lists that they can use to quickly find and follow large numbers of accounts based on a specific theme.
Her list of climate scientists at Bluesky has grown to 4,000, she says, already surpassing the 3,300 she connected with on Twitter at its peak.
“I now engage with others in academia on Bluesky as much as I did on Twitter, and the personal benefit in terms of staying up to date with the latest science is equal to the maximum I already got from Twitter. ” says Hayhoe.
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Recently, we have seen a significant increase in the number of followers from the general public, politicians, media organizations, and journalists.
However, many people, including Avery, have accounts open with X.
To him, Bluesky feels like it’s in its infancy because many of the people and organizations he wants to interact with, including government departments and congressional committees, haven’t yet opened accounts.
Plus, people with accounts don’t necessarily interact with each other the way they did on Twitter, he said. “We’re a bit at odds at the moment because Bluesky feels like a town with not a lot of inhabited houses.
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“I’ve been disconnecting from Twitter all the time, but I’m still hanging on to it for a few things. “The more people move, the easier it will be for me to decide to delete my account,” he said.
Schröder-Therre believes that fragmentation of the environmental movement across platforms will not necessarily increase polarization.
“All social networks tend to form bubbles, but our eXit experience shows that productive and heterogeneous discussions are possible across different platforms.”
In fact, he believes it allows the spread of disinformation, hate speech, and discrimination, while X actively promotes division and undermines democratic standards.
This author
Catherine Early is a freelance environmental journalist and senior reporter at The Ecologist. Find her at Bluesky @catearly.bsky.social.
