What Is Bluesky? Twitter’s Decentralized Social Media Rival

Social media platform Bluesky is commonly touted as an alternative choice to Twitter, and seen as a competitor to the tech big.

Nevertheless, its underlying structure is sort of completely different—the place Twitter is a single firm with a siloed ecosystem, Bluesky is predicated on a decentralized infrastructure.

Right here’s the way it works.

What’s Bluesky?

Bluesky is a decentralized social media platform primarily based on the authenticated transport (AT) protocol.

The fundamental underlying concept behind decentralized social media platforms is that customers ought to have the ability to personal their very own information, and migrate to completely different servers, of which Bluesky is just one amongst many.

Whereas it’s been portrayed as a competitor to Twitter, Bluesky can truly hint its roots again to the social media platform. In December 2019, Twitter introduced that it was funding an impartial group to work on an open and decentralized social media normal. 

On the time, Twitter founder Jack Dorsey expressed a need for Twitter to ultimately be a consumer (consumer) of the usual that Bluesky was engaged on.

In August 2021, it was introduced that Jay Graber, previously a developer for privateness coin venture Zcash, can be helming the Bluesky group and its initiatives going ahead. In February 2022, Bluesky turned a very impartial group following the formation of its Public Profit LLC. 

In October 2022, the iOS Bluesky app was introduced to notable fanfare—with its waitlist receiving roughly 30,000 signal ups in two days. 

Following its beta launch in February 2023, Bluesky launched on Android in April 2023 earlier than absolutely opening to the general public in February 2024, having amassed some 3 million customers because it launched in beta. Inside 24 hours of its public launch, Graber claimed that 550,000 new customers had signed as much as the platform. An additional inflow of latest customers got here in September 2024, when some 2.6 million customers joined the platform in per week after Twitter was banned in Brazil.

Following the U.S. presidential election in November 2024, Bluesky noticed one other development spurt, with over 1,000,000 new customers becoming a member of the platform within the week following the election, and utilization of its app rising by over 500% versus the primary 10 months of the yr, in accordance with SimilarWeb. In accordance with social media researcher Axel Bruns, Bluesky gives a “refuge” for “the extra liberal form of Twitter neighborhood.”

By late November, Bluesky’s consumer numbers within the U.S. had overtaken these of Meta’s rival social media platform Threads, surging previous 20 million (and counting).

The Bluesky consumer expertise

Bluesky as an app seems to be largely modeled on Twitter itself, with options together with feedback, likes, and reposts. This consists of how these posts, replies, and the feed itself are visually offered to Bluesky customers. Whereas there are some variations, they’re largely minor (a publish character restrict of 265 as a substitute of 280, for instance).

These similarities have develop into extra obvious with every new replace, as Bluesky has added options together with direct messaging, GIFs and video.

Novel options embody the flexibility to create customized feeds (of which extra later) and “starter packs,” a set of customized invitations that allow customers to advocate customized feeds and customers. 

Bluesky additionally allows customers to block different customers, hiding their posts and proscribing their means to work together with you. In August 2024, Bluesky launched a set of “anti-toxicity options” together with the flexibility to detach posts from quote posts and conceal replies.

Whereas the Bluesky consumer expertise (UX) is acquainted to Twitter customers, others level out that it’s good to look under the surface-level UX to grasp why the platform could possibly be a social media gamechanger.

Bluesky’s revolutionary networking expertise: AT Protocol

Whereas the UX and the options of Bluesky resemble Twitter to a major diploma, the important thing objective of Bluesky isn’t aesthetics, options, or the UX. Certainly, the chief objective wasn’t even to create a decentralized Twitter competitor; superseding all of those goals was the will to create a decentralized social community protocol that could possibly be utilized by anybody. Referred to as authenticated transport (AT) protocol, that is the expertise upon which Bluesky is constructed. 

Whereas Bluesky is the primary main launch on AT protocol, the expertise is open and out there to be used by any consumer, developer, or firm (in a lot the identical means anybody can construct on a public blockchain like Ethereum). Which means others might create their very own social media platforms utilizing AT protocol expertise. Even Twitter might probably be run on AT protocol, as Jack Dorsey had hoped, though with Twitter’s change of possession this can be a much less probably state of affairs.

Thanks to those options, many see the AT protocol, slightly than the Bluesky app, as the important thing innovation. Whereas Bluesky will get all of the headlines, the AT protocol might essentially change the social media panorama in ways in which aren’t merely technical or summary (extra on that later). The AT protocol is an amalgamation of decentralized applied sciences (however not a blockchain writ massive). In essence, the AT protocol would allow the creation of not a single social community, however a federation of social networks that might work together with one another.AT protocol allows new methods for customers to transparently talk with one another. At a technical stage, this may mean you can self-host the servers of your individual firm, profile, or social media platform. That is in stark distinction to present social media platforms the place the self-hosting of servers and information merely isn’t attainable. 

The objective of such a design is to safe consumer information and make the consumer platform expertise proof against affect from firms, governments, and different centralized entities. As Bluesky’s head of development Emily Liu put it, the corporate’s motto is that “the corporate is a future adversary,” including that, “if bluesky ever tried pulling humorous enterprise, customers can simply pack their baggage (take all of their information and relationships with them) and transfer to a special server.”

AT protocol has the flexibility to place customers answerable for their information and the way it’s used (or not used). Whereas with the ability to host your individual servers is an possibility, customers that don’t wish to run their very own servers can merely delegate a number of their selecting and use Bluesky like another social media app.

What Bluesky and AT Protocol imply for social media customers

Within the present panorama, main social media platforms (Twitter, Fb, TikTok, Instagram, Youtube) are largely siloed ecosystems that don’t work together with one another. In case you are on a number of social media platforms, you probably have completely different followers, pals, and content material—and consider completely different content material. And if you happen to don’t like a social media community you’re utilizing, you don’t have lots of good choices. Whilst you can all the time use an app much less, cease utilizing it, or discover another, it could typically be a tough option to make.

In case you resolve to depart, you typically end up in a smaller ecosystem than the one you left. Additional, you typically have to begin over by creating a brand new account, including new pals and followers, and so forth. Past that, it’s possible you’ll discover that most of the individuals you wish to interact with don’t use these social media options. No matter your cause for disliking a platform or sure facets of it (over/underneath moderation, the algorithm, information privateness, censorship, and so forth), customers typically proceed to make use of these platforms as a result of a scarcity of viable options and the headache related to ranging from scratch on a brand new social community. With AT protocol, one key function is the flexibility to port over a social media profile to a different community—with out shedding the important thing information and social contacts you worth. 

For instance, as an example you have got a Bluesky account with a username deal with, a whole lot of contacts, messaging historical past, and so forth. If for some cause you didn’t like how Bluesky was working, you might merely port over your total account to a Bluesky various that’s constructed on the AT protocol and proceed as if nothing modified. This solves one of many main ache factors of leaving and becoming a member of social networks.To not say that you’d essentially wish to depart Bluesky, nevertheless, because it permits for an amazing diploma of customization and consumer management not out there on different social media platforms. One objective of Bluesky is to revitalize clear and public dialog on social media by tamping down on the disinformation and authoritarian manipulation generally discovered within the digital social media panorama.

Bluesky’s objectives information its growth

In a lot the identical means that the web is public infrastructure out there to all, Bluesky’s group needs the social media layer to even be frequent infrastructure by way of their AT protocol framework. 

“We needed this to sometime be the final social identification you’ll ever should create as a result of you may transfer it in between apps and companies,” Bluesky CEO Jay Graber mentioned in a March 2024 interview. “You’ll be able to take your identification and your relationships and your information with you. And in order that’s the underlying protocol layer.”

They wish to see an “evolution from platforms to protocols.” Satoshi Nakamoto designed Bitcoin as an impartial blockchain protocol; Bitcoin (BTC) wouldn’t be despatched by way of wire switch or a bank card community; it wanted a very new technological framework. In a lot the identical means that Bitcoin decentralized forex, Bluesky’s group needs to decentralize—and revolutionize—social media. With the interoperability baked in, your social media contacts and interactions are saved intact. In a lot the identical means that you may now change your crypto pockets and preserve your crypto, AT protocol will mean you can change social media platforms and preserve your contacts (in a comparatively painless method).

Bluesky’s trifecta of goals is: belief, scale, and portability. The aforementioned means emigrate your social community contacts and deal with to a competing community contains the portability element. If you wish to depart a community (or it goes offline by way of chapter or technical points), you don’t wish to lose every thing. Simply as you may change your smartphone supplier with out shedding your quantity, Bluesky envisions this identical portability for social community profiles. Whereas altering your supplier with out shedding your cellphone quantity appears pure now, you truly did lose your quantity when altering suppliers previous to 2003 within the U.S. Whereas cellphone quantity portability required a Federal Communications Fee ruling, Bluesky is enabling portability by way of the non-obligatory adoption of its AT protocol-powered app.

In addition they need Bluesky to allow conversations at a world scale. Whereas some decentralized networks do an excellent job of giving customers management and transparency, lots of them can solely operate easily and reliably as smaller on-line communities. They envision a social community that may deal with the worldwide conversations of centralized social media websites whereas preserving the liberty and choices offered by an open protocol. 

Maybe most desired by social media customers, Bluesky needs to reestablish belief. Utilizing cryptography, Bluesky customers can confirm the authenticity of content material that was created by different customers—guaranteeing that they created the content material themselves. One other function is the flexibility to make use of a site identify (a web site handle) as your username. That is one other means you may construct belief and confirm your self to different customers—and vice versa.

AT Protocol’s algorithmic selection and moderation instruments

One other level of rivalry that sows mistrust on the massive, centralized social media platforms common right now is how their proprietary algorithms form public discourse and curate your social media feed. 

In maybe certainly one of its most praised options, Bluesky gives “algorithmic selection.” This lets you see how an algorithm operates, modify it, or just select to make use of a special algorithm. The open-source nature of the venture allows builders and customers to introduce their very own bespoke algorithms; many alternative algorithmically generated feeds are already dwell, encompassing every thing from posts by furries to posts by accounts that observe you, to posts about moss. 

Whereas algorithms themselves have largely been written off as social media manipulation, Bluesky doesn’t see algorithms as the difficulty, however slightly the shortage of transparency and management of those algorithms as the main shortcoming of centralized social media choices.

If you would like a easy chronological timeline algorithm, that can be an possibility. For those who need one thing completely different, an open “market of algorithms” will enable customers to decide on which algorithm they wish to use—and change algorithms at will (very like now you can freely change cellphone carriers). In actual fact, customers can swipe between their favourite algorithms or view a multi-algorithmic feed. These algorithms are searchable, permitting you to search out new algorithms, share them, and even publish your individual algorithms that others can use.

Whereas algorithmic selection will largely allow you to resolve what you see, Bluesky’s imaginative and prescient for moderation will decide what you don’t see. Bluesky sees “composable moderation” as a key function of their social app. Whereas there’s a fundamental default moderation filter, customers also can change it, or layer in customized filters that may work in tandem with one another. In the end, this moderation would have elements which can be accomplished robotically and likewise manually by way of both community admins or by the neighborhood itself.

The way forward for Bluesky and decentralized social media

Bluesky is certainly one of quite a lot of completely different decentralized social media platforms which have gained traction following Elon Musk’s 2022 acquisition of Twitter, together with Nostr, Mastodon and Threads. Every takes a special strategy to decentralization; Mastodon and Threads assist the rival ActivityPub protocol, for instance.

Different social media platforms have leveraged blockchain, together with Farcaster and Lens Protocol.

Bluesky and its AT protocol appear to carry promise as a two-pronged various and answer (app and decentralized protocol) that might ameliorate the critiques aimed on the centralized social media behemoths.

Nevertheless, Bluesky’s 20 million-strong consumer base, whereas rising, is small in comparison with the social media behemoths it is difficult; Twitter has over 335 million customers, for instance. Bluesky has attracted funding, although; in mid-2023 it raised $8 million in a seed funding spherical, with an additional $15 million raised in October 2024. Whereas it is too early to find out if most decentralized social media will largely be on the blockchain or just use technological facets of decentralized networks, many predict that the social media panorama will more and more develop into extra clear, versatile, and open as we transition from a Web2 to Web3 paradigm.