By SARAH PARVINI / APNovember 13, 2024 9:45 PM ESTSocial media site Bluesky has gained 1 million new users in the week since the U.S. election, as some X users look for an alternative platform to post their thoughts and engage with others online.Bluesky said Wednesday that its total users surged to 15 million, up from roughly 13 million at the end of October.Championed by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Bluesky was an invitation-only space until it opened to the public in February. That invite-only period gave the site time to build out moderation tools and other features. The platform resembles Elon Musks X, with a discover feed as well a chronological feed for accounts that users follow. Users can send direct messages and pin posts, as well as find starter packs that provide a curated list of people and custom feeds to follow.The post-election uptick in users isnt the first time that Bluesky has benefitted from people leaving X. Bluesky gained 2.6 million users in the week after X was banned in Brazil in August85% of them from Brazil, the company said. About 500,000 new users signed up in the span of one day last month, when X signaled that blocked accounts would be able to see a users public posts.Despite Blueskys growth, X posted last week that it had dominated the global conversation on the U.S. election and had set new records. The platform saw a 15.5% jump in new-user signups on Election Day, X said, with a record 942 million posts worldwide. Representatives for Bluesky and for X did not respond to requests for comment.Bluesky has referenced its competitive relationship to X through tongue-in-cheeks comments, including an Election Day post on X referencing Musk watching voting results come in with President-elect Donald Trump.I can guarantee that no Bluesky team members will be sitting with a presidential candidate tonight and giving them direct access to control what you see online, Bluesky said.Across the platform, new usersamong them journalists, left-leaning politicians and celebritieshave posted memes and shared that they were looking forward to using a space free from advertisements 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 as a reason. At the same time, television journalist Don Lemon posted on X that he is leaving the platform but will continue to use other social media, including Bluesky.Lemon said he felt X was no longer a place for honest debate and discussion. He noted changes to the sites terms of service set to go into effect Friday that state lawsuits against X must 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 Xs headquarters to Texas from San Francisco.As the Washington Post recently reported on Xs decision to change the terms, this ensures that such lawsuits will be heard in courthouses that are a hub for conservatives, which experts say could make it easier for X to shield itself from litigation and punish critics, Lemon wrote. I think that speaks for itself.Last year, advertisers such as IBM, NBCUniversal and its parent company Comcast fled X over concerns about their ads showing up next to pro-Nazi content and hate speech on the site in general, with Musk inflaming tensions with his own posts endorsing an antisemitic conspiracy theory.