WASHINGTON — Congressman Mark Pocan, D-Madison, has posted more than 23,000 times on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. But his stream of updates and commentary could soon end.
Pocan is among a growing parade of Democratic lawmakers and entertainers migrating to BlueSky, a social media site that they say provides a better experience than X.
“X has just become a sewer in how people treat each other, and I just don't think it's useful anymore,” Pocan said. “And with Elon Musk really running a company with very, very slanted political views, I just don't think it's really anything close to being a social media platform that's useful for everyone, and I'd rather find a better platform that works for everyone.”
X is owned by Elon Musk, the billionaire who also owns Tesla and SpaceX. He ended most content moderation on the site after buying it two and a half years ago. And critics say that after Musk endorsed Donald Trump for president this summer, X seemed to favor content more in line with Trump’s political views. Musk has since emerged as a key advisor to now President-elect Trump and was named by Trump to help lead an effort to cut government spending.
“I think it's a lot easier to say you're going to run government like a business, but we actually have to provide things that aren't profitable,” Pocan said. “And therefore sometimes business people don't always have that best perspective when they're trying to find costs to cut.”
BlueSky’s galloping growth began after Trump won the election. In the past week it has added a million new accounts a day, surpassing 20 million users. Still, it’s only a fraction of X’s size.
A growing number of bold-faced names, like actor Mark Hamill and entertainer Barbara Streisand, have stopped posting on X altogether and moved to BlueSky.
Similar to Pocan, a number of prominent Democrats, including Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Maxwell Frost of Florida and Senator-elect Adam Schiff of California, have opened BlueSky accounts. So has a prominent Republican, Senator John Thune of South Dakota, who is the incoming Senate majority leader.
But those lawmakers are still posting on X. Pocan, who has 130,000 followers on X between his personal and official accounts, says he will, too, but maybe not for long.
“We're going to try to phase out and eventually get to a platform where we can still share thoughts, but do it in a way that doesn't necessarily skew far right or skew in a way that's really insulting the intelligence of the people reading it,” Pocan said.
Some of Pocan’s Republican colleagues are poking fun at the so-called Twitter-Quitters.
“I'm still waiting for all the Democrats that said they're going to leave the country when Trump wins to buy plane tickets,” joked Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Prairie du Chien.
“You know, it's a free country,” said Rep. Tom Tiffany, R-Minocqua. “You can go wherever you want to, but if you want to be where the action is, you're going to be on X.”
We made numerous attempts to reach out to Musk and X for comment but were unsuccessful. In a recent post on his website saying that leaving X is self-destructive, Musk responded, “True.”