What Is Bluesky? Twitter’s Decentralized Social Media Rival

Social media platform Bluesky is commonly touted as a substitute for Twitter, and seen as a competitor to the tech big.

Nevertheless, its underlying structure is kind 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 based mostly on the authenticated transport (AT) protocol.

The fundamental underlying concept behind decentralized social media platforms is that customers ought to be capable of 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 really hint its roots again to the social media platform. In December 2019, Twitter introduced that it was funding an unbiased group to work on an open and decentralized social media commonplace. 

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

In August 2021, it was introduced that Jay Graber, previously a developer for privateness coin challenge Zcash, could be helming the Bluesky group and its initiatives going ahead. In February 2022, Bluesky grew to become a totally unbiased 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 totally 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 users had signed as much as the platform. An additional inflow of latest customers got here in September 2024, when some 2.6 million users joined the platform in every week after Twitter was banned in Brazil.

Following the U.S. presidential election in November 2024, Bluesky noticed one other progress spurt, with over a million new users 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, based on SimilarWeb. In line with social media researcher Axel Bruns, Bluesky offers a “refuge” for “the extra liberal sort of Twitter group.”

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

The Bluesky person 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 introduced 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 grow to be 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 personalised invitations that allow customers to advocate customized feeds and customers. 

Bluesky additionally permits customers to block other users, hiding their posts and limiting their capacity to work together with you. In August 2024, Bluesky launched a set of “anti-toxicity features” together with the flexibility to detach posts from quote posts and conceal replies.

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

Bluesky’s modern networking know-how: AT Protocol

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

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

Thanks to those options, many see the AT protocol, fairly than the Bluesky app, as the important thing innovation. Whereas Bluesky will get all of the headlines, the AT protocol might basically 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 giant). 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 permits 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 aim of such a design is to safe person information and make the person platform expertise proof against affect from firms, governments, and different centralized entities. As Bluesky’s head of progress Emily Liu put it, the corporate’s motto is that “the corporate is a future adversary,” adding 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 in charge of their information and the way it’s used (or not used). Whereas having the ability to host your individual servers is an choice, customers that don’t wish to run their very own servers can merely delegate a bunch of their selecting and use Bluesky like every other 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 possible have completely different followers, pals, and content material—and think about completely different content material. And when you don’t like a social media community you’re utilizing, you don’t have lots of good choices. When you can at all times use an app much less, cease utilizing it, or discover an alternate, it may typically be a tough option to make.

When you resolve to go away, you typically end up in a smaller ecosystem than the one you left. Additional, you typically have to start out over by creating a brand new account, including new pals and followers, and so forth. Past that, you might discover that lots of the folks you wish to have interaction with don’t use these social media alternate options. No matter your cause for disliking a platform or sure elements of it (over/beneath moderation, the algorithm, information privateness, censorship, and so forth), customers typically proceed to make use of these platforms attributable to a scarcity of viable alternate options and the headache related to ranging from scratch on a brand new social community. With AT protocol, one key characteristic is the flexibility to port over a social media profile to a different community—with out dropping the important thing information and social contacts you worth. 

For instance, as an instance you may have a Bluesky account with a username deal with, lots of of contacts, messaging historical past, and so forth. If for some cause you didn’t like how Bluesky was working, you can merely port over your complete 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, nonetheless, because it permits for an ideal diploma of customization and person management not out there on different social media platforms. One aim of Bluesky is to revitalize clear and public dialog on social media by tamping down on the disinformation and authoritarian manipulation typically discovered within the digital social media panorama.

Bluesky’s targets information its growth

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

“We wished this to sometime be the final social identification you’ll ever should create as a result of you possibly can transfer it in between apps and companies,” Bluesky CEO Jay Graber mentioned in a March 2024 interview. “You may 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 unbiased blockchain protocol; Bitcoin (BTC) wouldn’t be despatched by way of wire switch or a bank card community; it wanted a totally new technological framework. In a lot the identical approach that Bitcoin decentralized foreign money, 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 approach that you could now swap your crypto pockets and hold your crypto, AT protocol will mean you can swap social media platforms and hold your contacts (in a comparatively painless method).

Bluesky’s trifecta of targets is: belief, scale, and portability. The aforementioned capacity emigrate your social community contacts and deal with to a competing community contains the portability part. If you wish to depart a community (or it goes offline by way of chapter or technical points), you don’t wish to lose the whole lot. Simply as you possibly can change your smartphone supplier with out dropping your quantity, Bluesky envisions this identical portability for social community profiles. Whereas altering your supplier with out dropping your cellphone quantity appears pure now, you really 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 means of the elective adoption of its AT protocol-powered app.

In addition they need Bluesky to allow conversations at a worldwide scale. Whereas some decentralized networks do a great job of giving customers management and transparency, a lot of them can solely perform 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 supplied 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—making certain that they created the content material themselves. One other characteristic is the flexibility to make use of a website identify (a web site handle) as your username. That is one other approach you possibly can construct belief and confirm your self to different customers—and vice versa.

AT Protocol’s algorithmic alternative and moderation instruments

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

In maybe one in every of its most praised options, Bluesky presents “algorithmic alternative.” 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 challenge permits builders and customers to introduce their very own bespoke algorithms; many alternative algorithmically generated feeds are already dwell, encompassing the whole lot from posts by furries to posts by accounts that comply with 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 fairly the shortage of transparency and management of those algorithms as the most important shortcoming of centralized social media choices.

If you’d like a easy chronological timeline algorithm, that will probably be an choice. 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 swap algorithms at will (very similar to now you can freely swap cellphone carriers). In truth, customers can swipe between their favourite algorithms or view a multi-algorithmic feed. These algorithms are searchable, permitting you to seek out new algorithms, share them, and even publish your individual algorithms that others can use.

Whereas algorithmic alternative 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 characteristic of their social app. Whereas there’s a fundamental default moderation filter, customers may also change it, or layer in customized filters that may work in tandem with one another. Finally, this moderation would have parts which are finished mechanically and likewise manually by means of both community admins or by the group itself.

The way forward for Bluesky and decentralized social media

Bluesky is one in every of various 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 person base, whereas rising, is small in comparison with the social media behemoths it is difficult; Twitter has over 335 million users, 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 elements of decentralized networks, many predict that the social media panorama will more and more grow to be extra clear, versatile, and open as we transition from a Web2 to Web3 paradigm.