X (formerly Twitter) is experiencing its third major outage in 24 hours while competitor BlueSky reports unprecedented user growth. Hacker collective Dark Storm Team has claimed responsibility for the distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack that has left millions of users unable to access X.

As the outages persist with no communication from X leadership, BlueSky—the decentralized social media platform launched by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey—reports a 300% increase in new user registrations, with over 500,000 new accounts created in the past day.

BlueSky Struggles to Handle Surge of X Users

“We’re seeing registration rates at approximately 20 times our previous daily record,” said BlueSky spokesperson Renata Williams. “Our team is rapidly scaling server capacity to accommodate what can only be described as an unprecedented migration event from X.”

Downdetector recorded over 40,000 reports during the second wave of X downtime, with the latest surge peaking at 29,143 simultaneous reports. Users report being unable to log in, endless loading screens, and application crashes.

“After being locked out of X for the third time today, I finally gave in and set up my BlueSky account. I should have done this months ago. It feels like old Twitter—before the chaos.”

— Former X user with 47,000 followers, now on BlueSky

Security Experts Link Vulnerability to Musk’s Staff Cuts

“What we’re witnessing is a textbook example of what happens when an organization guts its security operations team,” explains cybersecurity analyst Dr. Eliza Montgomery. “X’s vulnerability to this type of attack has been predicted by industry experts since the mass layoffs began.”

Since Musk’s $44 billion acquisition in October 2022, X has undergone several rounds of staffing cuts directly impacting security operations, including an 80% reduction in the trust and safety team and reducing the cybersecurity incident response team to a skeleton crew.

“Before the layoffs, we had dedicated teams running 24/7 DDoS mitigation systems,” said a former senior security engineer. “Those teams were cut by over 80%, and their systems weren’t properly maintained. What we’re seeing today was explicitly predicted by those of us who were shown the door.”

Mass Migration Driven by X’s Silence

As the outages continue, X’s leadership team and Elon Musk have maintained complete silence, exacerbating user frustration and accelerating migration to BlueSky. Multiple enterprise clients have publicly announced temporary moves to BlueSky for critical updates during the outage, including several Fortune 500 companies.

BlueSky, built on the AT Protocol, emphasizes user control, data portability, and algorithmic choice—elements many former Twitter users have cited as missing from X under Musk’s leadership. Before today’s outages, BlueSky had approximately 6.2 million active users compared to X’s reported 250 million.

The platform is now seeing:

• 300% increase in new account registrations
• 175% growth in daily active users within 24 hours
• 500% increase in messages containing phrases like “moved from X” or “X refugee”

The “Network Effect” Accelerates Platform Shift

“What we’re witnessing could be the beginning of a classic platform migration cascade,” explains digital sociology professor Dr. James Williams. “Once a critical mass of a user’s network has moved to a new platform, the incentive to follow becomes increasingly strong.”

Analytics services report “cluster migrations” where entire communities—including technology journalists, academic researchers, progressive political commentators, and software developers—are moving to BlueSky together rather than as individuals.

The Bottom Line

Today’s attack on X may be catalyzing a significant shift in the social media landscape. The combination of security vulnerabilities exposed by the Dark Storm Team, the communication vacuum from X leadership, and BlueSky’s availability as an alternative has created what industry analysts call a potential “extinction-level event” for X’s dominance among certain user communities.

While X will likely recover from this immediate crisis, the accelerated migration to BlueSky raises fundamental questions about the platform’s long-term viability under its current leadership and security posture.