The White House and several other government agencies joined social media site Bluesky on Friday, a platform generally considered left-leaning and popular among users who left X (formerly Twitter).
This debut immediately provoked a strong negative reaction from the platform’s user base. The White House account has been blocked by approximately 92,000 accounts, while having just 10,000 followers, according to ClearSky, an independent tracker of Bluesky’s blocking statistics.
Another popular political figure and the Vice President of the United States JD Vance has been blocked by 166,000 accounts. He joined the platform in June and is the platform’s most blocked user, followed by The White House.
By Sunday morning, the newly opened government accounts from the Trump administration occupied all of the top five spots for the most blocked accounts in the last 24 hours.
In its first post, the White House account uploaded a highlight reel of Trump footage and memes, along with the message that read, “What’s up, Bluesky? We thought you might’ve missed some of our greatest hits, so we put this together for you.”
The Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Homeland Security also launched Bluesky accounts Friday.
Bluesky is a relatively small platform as compared to more established online spaces such as X. Disgruntled netizens began flocking to this site after billionaire Elon Musk took over Twitter in 2022.
Short after Trump administration’s debut, users started flooding the first post of the White House, bringing up Trump’s relationship with infamous sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“The reason they’re coming after this place is because they can’t control the people on it and it drives them nuts,” posted he CEO of Onion Ben Collins.
Whereas, American comedian and actor Paul F Tomkins wrote in a post that is it “weirdly fun to block the White House.” Several other popular figures on the platform have urged their followers to simply block all the profiles of Trump administration and move on.