Social network Bluesky, a competitor to X, Threads, Mastodon and others, is opening up its doors with today’s news that the network is now opening up federation, following its public launch earlier this month, TechCrunch reported.
The move will allow anyone to run their own server that connects to Bluesky’s network, so they can host their own data, their own account and make their own rules. This decentralized model of social networking is similar to the one that Mastodon already uses, but is underpinned on Bluesky by a different protocol, keeping the two networks separate, for now.
The growing interest in federation stems from consumer demand to have more control over their personal data — something that gained more attention after billionaire Elon Musk bought Twitter, rebranded it to X and changed its focus to become an “everything app” with a focus on payments, creators, video shows, AI … and lax moderation. That sent some former Twitter users in search of alternatives that were more sustainable, like Mastodon and Bluesky.
Bluesky posted the following:
Today, we’re excited to announce that the Bluesky network is federating and opening up in a way that allows you to host your own data. What does this mean?
Your data, such as your posts, likes, and follows, needs to be stored somewhere. With traditional social media, your data is stored by the social media company whose services you’ve signed up for. If you ever want to stop using that company’s services, you can do that — but you would have to leave that social network and lose your existing connections.
It doesn’t have to be this way! An alternative model is how the internet itself works. Anyone can put up a website on the internet. You can choose from one of many companies to host your site (or even host it yourself), and you can always change your mind about this later. If you move to another hosting provider, your visitors won’t even notice. No matter where your site’s data is managed and stored, your visitors can find your site simply by typing the name on the website or by clicking a link.
We think social media should work the same way. When you register on Bluesky, by default, we’ll suggest that Bluesky will store your data. But if you’d like to let another company store it, (or even store it yourself), and you can change your mind at any point, moving your data to another provider without losing any of your existing posts, likes, or follows. From your follower’s perspective, your profile is always available at your handle — no matter where your information is actually stored, or how many times its been moved…
The Verge reported that Bluesky is taking a big leap toward federating. On Thursday, the social network announced that it is opening up early access for users and developers who want to self-host their data. While this isn’t true federation yet, the company plans to open up federation to larger servers with even more users in its next phase. When the dust settles, anyone can (in theory) create their own server with their own rules on Bluesky’s AT Protocol.
In my opinion, this change could be interesting if it rolls out well. The next step would be for Bluesky to actually engage in federation with Mastodon.