Under the leadership of Elon Musk, Twitter remains a trending topic in national news broadcasts. One day, labor experts could discuss the company’s decision to lay off thousands of employees. Twenty-four hours later, political pundits could discuss Musk’s decision to reactivate the account of former President Donald Trump. As Musk steers the platform into troubling news discussions, news outlets declare that the platform is “losing its most active users.”
Within the last few weeks, the decline in “active” Twitter users has coincided with the growth of Hive Social. Described as a Twitter alternative, Hive Social is a microblogging site run by 24-year-old CEO Raluca Pop and two other full-time employees. The platform pulls together a series of concepts from Instagram, Twitter and MySpace to create a new playground for social media users. In recent weeks, Raluca Pop’s brainchild has passed TikTok on the Apple App Store and grown to two million users.
“We’ve really created and maintained a safe and healthy community. If you get on the app, it just feels really pleasant and relaxed,” Pop told Insider.
An increase in active users has led to a few issues. Most notably, users reported seeing several accounts with the same or similar usernames, opening the door for potential impersonators. With that said, Pop and her two teammates have been able to corral one issue that has plagued Twitter — content moderation.
“At the time when I took this on, I had a separate full-time job, but now that I’m able to dedicate myself fully to it… now we’re able to take a lot more steps and truly hyperfocus on this,” Pop told Insider.
“Content moderation is a priority for us because our user safety is a priority for us.”
Alongside Mastodon, Hive Social is a potential alternative to Twitter. Still, the company that Musk recently acquired remains in the leadership position.
