Bluesky too opaque about user figures for Euro watchdogs

X rival also under fire for failing to designate legal representative

Updated The Bluesky social network is not yet big enough to be considered "Very Large Online Platform" subject to special obligations under Europe's Digital Services Act (DSA) – but it's already having trouble complying with the law.

Twitter rival Bluesky has been flouting EU rules since February, according to European Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier, and EU member states have been asked to look into the matter and enforce applicable compliance.

"Bluesky is not designated as a Very Large Online Platform (VLOP) under the Digital Services Act, as they do not meet the quantitative threshold for designation (45 million monthly active users in the EU)," said Regnier in a statement to The Register. "It does therefore not fall under the direct supervision of the Commission."

The biz, founded in 2021, hasn't publicly said how many monthly active users it has in the EU, which is part of the issue.

It should not be long, however, before the upstart social network reaches 45 million on a global basis at least. Officially, Bluesky surpassed 13 million users in late October 2024, the startup said, without defining what level of activity counts as a user.

But an unofficial tally, calculated by software engineer Natalie Bridgers using data from a Bluesky developer, suggests the number is closer to 22.5 million presently.

SimilarWeb, a website analytics service, last week reported, "In the US, Bluesky set a new high for mobile app daily active users on Saturday Nov. 16, 32.2 million."

The recent user surge at Bluesky has been attributed in part to flight from Elon Musk's X social media network in the wake of the US Presidential Election.

Mastodon, a decentralized, federated social network (which Bluesky isn't really), has around 9 million users and around 920,000 daily active users. In May, Musk claimed, "X has 600 million monthly active users, about half of which use the platform every day." X, a VLOP under the DSA, has reported 115.1 million average monthly active users in the EU.

Adam Mosseri, who oversees Threads and Instagram for Meta, earlier this month claimed Threads had reached 275 million monthly active users. Neither Meta's Threads nor Musk's X provide data that could be used to independently verify stated usage statistics.

Recently, Bluesky's user growth rate has been fluctuating between 3.4 and 4 users per second per Bridgers's stats. At 4 new users per second, it will take about 65 days to add another 22.5 million users and hit 45 million users worldwide. When Bluesky's EU monthly active user count might hit the DSA threshold of 45 million is anyone's guess.

But before that happens, Bluesky is under pressure to meet the obligations it already faces under the DSA – posting an official count of users in the EU and identifying a legal representative so authorities have someone to hold accountable.

"Bluesky, like all online platforms in the EU, needs to comply with the general obligations of the Digital Services Act since February of this year," said Regnier.

"This includes the obligation to report user numbers and appoint a legal representative in the EU. As this information is not publicly available on Bluesky’s website, the Commission has requested the national Digital Services Coordinators to gather additional information and enforce the DSA, as all of them can be considered as responsible national authority towards Bluesky."

The first step in the information-gathering process will be to identify a legal representative with whom to correspond. Officials are also keen for EU members to figure out whether and where the app maker has any actual offices within the union. ®

Updated to add on November 26

In a comment to The Register after this story was filed, a spokesperson for Bluesky said: "We're actively working with our lawyers now to ensure that Bluesky is compliant with the EU's information disclosure rules."

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