Is the grass greener on the other side? I'm not sure, but the sky is definitely bluer. Nearly two years after Elon Musk acquired Twitter (now X), people have started launching alternative platforms. Mastodon, Post, Pebble (now defunct), Spill, etc. have been suggested as alternatives, but few have achieved the growth rate that Bluesky has, except for Meta's Threads.
After being invite-only for almost a year, Bluesky opened up to the public in February 2024, gaining roughly 800,000 new users in a single day. As of September 2024, Bluesky has over 9 million users, due to an influx of users after X was banned in Brazil. While the numbers are promising, the network has a lot of catching up to do if it wants to compete with Threads' 130 million monthly active users or Mastodon's 1.8 million.
What is Bluesky?
Bluesky is a decentralized social app conceived by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and developed alongside Twitter. The social network has a Twitter-like user interface with algorithmic selection, federated design, and community-specific moderation.
Bluesky uses the AT Protocol, an open-source framework built in-house, so that outsiders can have transparency into how the framework is built and what is being developed.
Dorsey announced the Bluesky project while he was still CEO of Twitter in 2019. At the time, he said Twitter would fund “a small, independent team of up to five open source architects, engineers, and designers” to build a decentralized standard for social media, with the initial goal being for Twitter itself to adopt the standard. But that was before Elon Musk bought the platform, and Bluesky is completely separate from Twitter.
As of May 2024, Dorsey has stepped down from his position as a director at Blue Sky. Blue Sky is now an independent public benefit corporation led by CEO Jay Glover.
How do I use Bluesky?
Once signed up, users can create a handle that will appear as @username.bsky.social and a display name that will be displayed prominently in bold. If you prefer, you can also make your username a domain name that you own. For example, I'm known as @amanda.omg.lol on Bluesky.
The app itself works pretty much like a bare-bones Twitter, with a plus button that lets you create a 256-character post that can also contain a photo, and the post itself can be replied to, retweeted, liked, reported via the three-dot menu, shared to other apps via iOS's share sheet, or copied as text.
You can search for and follow other users and view their updates in your “Home” timeline. Previously, the Bluesky app featured popular posts in a “What's Hot” feed. This feed has since been replaced by a “Discover” feed that features trending content as well as algorithmic and personalized recommendations.
Bluesky has introduced a “Starter Pack” feature for new users that creates a curated list of people to follow and custom feeds to help you find interesting content quickly.
User profiles contain the expected features like a profile picture, background, bio, metrics, number of people you follow, etc. The profile feed is divided into two sections, similar to Twitter: Posts and Posts & Replies.
There's also a “Discover” tab at the bottom center of the app's navigation, which offers suggestions of people to follow and a feed of recently posted Bluesky updates.
Image credit: Natalie Christman
Who's in Bluesky?
By early July 2023, when Instagram Threads was released, Bluesky had surpassed 1 million downloads on iOS and Android. Celebrities such as Neil Gaiman, Dorrille, and Chelsea Manning have migrated to Bluesky. News organizations such as Bloomberg, The Washington Post, and Engadget are also based on Bluesky. Starting in August 2024, Bluesky is also allowing heads of state to sign up and join the platform for the first time.
Does Bluesky work the same as X?
In many ways, this is true. Until recently, Bluesky did not have DMs like X, but they have since implemented them. However, Bluesky's DMs are currently limited to one-to-one messages, not group messages. Bluesky has also stated that it is interested in implementing something similar to X's community notes feature. Additionally, X does not use a distributed protocol like ActivityPub or AT.
Blue Sky initially started as a project launched by Jack Dorsey in 2019 when he was CEO of Twitter, but the social app has been an independent company since its launch in 2021.
Is Bluesky free?
Yes, it is currently open to the public.
How does Bluesky make money?
Bluesky's goal is to find alternative means to sustain the network outside of advertising through paid services, while remaining free for end users. On July 5, Bluesky announced additional seed round funding and a paid service that offers custom domains for end users who want to have their own domain as a handle on the service.
Is Bluesky decentralized?
Yes. The Bluesky team is developing the decentralized AT protocol on which Bluesky is built. In the beta phase, users can only join the bsky.social network, but Bluesky plans to federate, allowing for an infinite number of independently run communities within the open source network. This means that if a non-Bluesky developer builds their own new social app using the AT protocol, Bluesky users will be able to jump into the new app and port their existing followers, handles and data over.
“You'll have the freedom to choose (and exit) whenever you want, without being bound to the whims of private companies and black box algorithms. And wherever you go, your friends and relationships will be there, too,” Bluesky's blog post explains.
Is Bluesky safe?
In October 2023, Bluesky added email authentication as part of a larger effort to improve security and authentication of accounts on the network. This addition is an important step forward in terms of making Bluesky more competitive against larger networks such as X, which have more robust security controls. In December 2023, Bluesky allowed users to opt out of a change that exposed their posts to the public web after receiving backlash from users.
Is Bluesky customizable?
Yes. In May 2023, Bluesky released a custom algorithm called “Custom Feed”. Custom Feeds allow users to subscribe to multiple different algorithms to display different types of posts that users want to see. Once you pin a custom feed, it will appear as different tabs at the top of your timeline from which you can select. Your pinned or saved feeds can be found under the “My Feeds” menu in the app's sidebar.
The company announced a new program, AT Protocol Grants, in March 2024 to provide small grants to developers to spur growth and customization. One of the grant recipients, SkyFeed, is a custom tool that allows anyone to build their own feed using a graphical user interface.
Is Bluesky available for iOS and Android?
Yes, Bluesky was released for Android users on April 20th and was first released for iOS users in late February. Users can access Bluesky on the web here.
Is the Blue Sky post really called “Skeet”?
While the post technically has no name, internet users have adopted the name “Skeets,” a portmanteau of “tweet” and “sky.” Users still commonly refer to the post as “Skeets,” despite protests from Blue Sky CEO Jay Glover and others who are not amused by the slang.
How does Bluesky address misinformation?
Starting with the October 2023 update, the app will begin flagging misleading links and warning users. If a link shared in a user's post doesn't match the text, the app will show the user a “misleading” warning, letting them know the link may lead them somewhere they don't want to go.
Image credit: Bluesky on GitHub Image credit: Bluesky on GitHub
Has there been any controversy with Bluesky?
Bluesky has been plagued by moderation issues since it was first released. The app has been accused of not protecting marginalized users and not moderating racist content. Following controversy over the app allowing racist slurs in account handles, disgruntled users launched “posting strikes,” refusing to use the platform until it established guardrails to flag usernames that contained slurs or other offensive language.
What moderation features does Bluesky have?
A December 2023 post on the Bluesky Safety account announced a ton of updates regarding moderation.
Bluesky is rolling out “more advanced automated tools” designed to flag content that violates its community guidelines for review by the app's moderation team.
Bluesky has launched moderation features similar to X, including user lists and moderation lists. Moderation lists can be used to mute or block many users at once. The app is also developing a feature that will allow users to restrict who can reply to their posts.
Some Bluesky users have been asking for the ability to set their accounts to private, a feature that became more popular after Bluesky announced it was launching a public web interface.
In March 2024, the company will release Ozone, a tool that will enable 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, but many users find Bluesky more intuitive. Mastodon, on the other hand, can feel less accessible: choosing which instance to join can feel like an impossible task on Mastodon, and long-time users can be so defensive about established posting norms that they're intimidated from joining the conversation. To stay competitive, Mastodon recently simplified its signup flow and made mastodon.social the default server for new users.
But with the launch of federation, it will operate more like Mastodon in that users will be able to choose which servers to join and move accounts around freely.
Who owns Bluesky?
While Jack Dorsey has funded Blue Sky, he is not involved in its day-to-day development and is not currently a director at the company. Blue Sky's CEO is Jay Glover, who previously worked as a software engineer for the cryptocurrency Zcash before founding an event planning site called Happening.
If you have any frequently asked questions about Bluesky that haven't been covered here, please leave a comment below.