Is the grass greener on the other side? We’re not sure, but the sky is certainly blurry. Nearly two years have passed since Elon Musk acquired Twitter (now X), and people have started flocking to alternative platforms. Mastodon, Post, Pebble (which has already ceased operations) and Spill have been presented as possible alternatives, but apart from the Metas thread, few have achieved the growth rate that Bluesky has achieved.
After being invite-only for almost a year, Bluesky opened to everyone in February 2024 and gained nearly 800,000 new users in a single day. As of September 2024, Bluesky has over 9 million users thanks to an influx of users following the ban of X in Brazil. While this number is promising, the network has a lot of work to do to compete with Thread’s 130 million active users and even Mastodon’s 1.8 million.
What is Bluesky?
Bluesky is a decentralized social app designed by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and developed alongside Twitter. The social network has a Twitter-like interface with algorithmic selection, federated design, and community-specific moderation.
Bluesky uses a self-developed open source framework, the AT Protocol, which means that people outside the company have insight into the creation and development.
Dorsey introduced the Bluesky project in 2019, when he was still CEO of Twitter. At the time, he said Twitter would fund a “small, independent team of up to five open source architects, engineers, and designers” tasked with developing a decentralized social media standard, with the initial goal of the standard being developed by Twitter itself. But that was before Elon Musk acquired the platform, so Bluesky is completely separate from Twitter.
As of May 2024, Dorsey is no longer a member of the Bluesky board of directors. Bluesky is now an independent, non-profit corporation led by CEO Jay Graber.
How do you use Bluesky?
Upon logging in, users can create a handle, represented as @username.bsky.social, and a display name, which appears more clearly in bold. Optionally, you can convert a domain name you own into the username. For example, I’m known in Bluesky as @amanda.omg.lol.
The app itself works just like simple Twitter, where you can click the plus sign to create a 256-character post that can also include a photo. The post itself can be replied to, retweeted, liked, reported using the More menu, shared with other apps using the iOS share sheet, or copied as text.
You can search for and follow other people to see their updates in your home timeline. In the Bluesky app, popular posts appeared in a “What’s Hot” feed. This feed has since been replaced by a “Discover” feed that is personalized based on an algorithm as well as trending content.
Bluesky has introduced a “Starter Pack” feature for new users that creates a curated list of people to follow and custom feeds to find interesting content right from the get-go.
User profiles include the same features you’d expect, such as a profile picture, background, bio, metrics, and number of people you follow. Similar to Twitter, the profile feed is divided into two sections: “Posts” and “Posts & Replies.”
The app also has a “Discover” tab at the bottom center of the navigation, which displays further suggestions for people to follow, as well as a running feed of recently released Bluesky updates.
Who’s on Bluesky?
When Instagram Threads launched in early July 2023, Bluesky achieved over 1 million downloads on iOS and Android. Celebrities such as Neil Gaiman, Dril, and Chelsea Manning have switched to Bluesky. It is also home to news organizations such as Bloomberg, The Washington Post, and Engadget. Since August 2024, heads of state have also been able to sign up with Bluesky and join the platform for the first time.
Does Bluesky work the same as X?
In many ways, yes. Until recently, Bluesky didn’t have DMs like X, but they have since implemented them. However, DMs in Bluesky are currently limited to individual messages rather than group messages. Bluesky has also stated that they are interested in implementing functionality similar to X’s Community Notes feature. Additionally, X does not use a decentralized protocol like ActivityPub or AT.
Bluesky was originally launched as a project by Jack Dorsey in 2019 when he was CEO of Twitter, but the social app has been an independent company since its founding in 2021.
Is Bluesky free?
Yes, it is currently available to the public.
How does Bluesky make money?
Bluesky’s goal is to find another means of maintaining the network beyond advertising through paid services, and to remain free for end users. On July 5, Bluesky announced additional seed funding and a paid service that offers custom domains to end users who want to use their own domains as usernames for the service.
Is Bluesky decentralized?
Yes. The Bluesky team is developing the decentralized AT protocol that Bluesky is based on. In beta, users can only join the bsky.social network, but Bluesky plans to federate. This means that there can be an infinite number of privately run communities within the open source network. So if a non-Bluesky developer creates their own new social app using the AT protocol, Bluesky users can switch to the new app and transfer their existing followers, handles, and data.
“You’ll always have the freedom to choose (and to exit) instead of being held to the whims of private companies or black box algorithms. And wherever you go, your friends and relationships will be there too,” Bluesky said in a blog post.
Is Bluesky safe?
In October 2023, Bluesky added email authentication as part of a larger effort to improve security and authentication of accounts on its network. The addition marks an important step forward in making Bluesky more competitive against larger networks like X that have more robust security controls. Following user backlash, in December 2023, Bluesky allowed users to opt out of the changes that would have made their posts accessible on the public web.
Is Bluesky customizable?
Yes. In May 2023, Bluesky released a custom algorithm they call “Custom Feeds”. Custom Feeds allow users to subscribe to several different algorithms that show different types of posts they want to see. You can pin your custom feeds, which appear at the top of your timeline as different tabs you can choose from. Any feeds you pin or save can be found in the My Feeds menu in the app’s sidebar.
In March 2024, the company announced “AT Protocol Grants,” a new program that offers small grants to developers to encourage growth and adaptation. One of the receivers, SkyFeed, is a custom tool that allows anyone to create their own feed using a graphical user interface.
Is Bluesky available for iOS and Android?
Yes. Bluesky was released for Android users on April 20 and debuted for iOS users in late February. Users can access Bluesky on the Internet from here.
Are Bluesky’s posts really called “Skeets”?
Although technically the posts don’t have names, Internet users have adopted the name “Skeets,” a combination of “Tweet” and “Sky.” Despite protests from Bluesky CEO Jay Graeber and others who find the slang unfunny, users still widely refer to the posts as “skeets.”
How does Bluesky fight misinformation?
After an October 2023 update, the app now flags and warns users about misleading links. If a link shared in a user’s post doesn’t match the user’s text, the app will display a “misleading” warning to the user, warning them that the link may redirect them to a place they don’t want to visit.
Has there been any controversy with Bluesky?
Bluesky has been plagued by moderation issues since it launched. The app has been accused of failing to protect marginalized users and moderating racist content. After a controversy over the app allowing racial slurs in account names, disgruntled users launched “posting strikes” and refused to interact with the platform until protections were introduced against allowing slurs and other offensive terms in username marks.
What moderation features does Bluesky have?
A December 2023 post from the Bluesky Safety account announced a slew of moderation updates.
Bluesky is introducing “more advanced automated tools” designed to flag content that violates its community guidelines, which will be reviewed by the app’s moderation team.
Bluesky introduced moderation features similar to X’s, including user lists and moderation lists. The latter can be used to mute or block multiple users at the same time. The app is also developing a feature that will allow users to restrict who can reply to their posts.
Some Bluesky users are still requesting the ability to set their accounts to private. This feature has become increasingly necessary since Bluesky announced it would be introducing a public web interface.
In March 2024, the company launched Ozone, a tool that allows users to create and run their own independent moderation services, giving them “unprecedented control” over their social media experience.
What is the difference between Bluesky and Mastodon?
Bluesky’s architecture is similar to Mastodon’s, but while many users find Bluesky more intuitive, Mastodon can feel inaccessible. Choosing an instance to join can seem like an impossible task in Mastodon, and longtime users are very defensive of its established posting standards. It’s hard to join a conversation without being threatening. To stay competitive, Mastodon recently simplified its sign-up flow and made mastodon.social the default server for new users.
However, the introduction of federation makes it a more Mastodon-like feature, allowing users to choose which server to join and move accounts freely.
Who owns Bluesky?
Jack Dorsey funded Bluesky but is not involved in its day-to-day development, nor is he currently a member of the company’s board of directors. Bluesky’s CEO is Jay Graber, who previously worked as a software developer for the cryptocurrency Zcash and later founded an event planning site called Happening.