Tag Archives: Bluesky

People Are Flocking To Bluesky As X Makes More Unwanted Changes

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A handful of changes coming to X may be pushing users to its competitor. Bluesky, the decentralized social media platform, says it added 500,000 new users in a day this week. The new wave of signups could be related to several controversial changes on X in the last few days, The Verge reported.

This week, X users got a pop-up message notifying them that their posts will be visible even to users they’ve previously blocked. Those accounts still won’t be able to interact with their posts, but it’s a substantial change to how the block feature works that could open up users to harassment.

“Today, block can be used by users to share and hide harmful or private information about those they’ve blocked,” an official X account posted. “Users will be able to see if such behavior occurs with this update, allowing for greater transparency.”

It goes without saying that blocking is a safety issue, particularly for users facing harassment on a platform or people wanting to create distance between themselves and someone else in their life. But Elon Musk has expressed his distain for blocking, and this change to blocking was teased last month. After users got an explicit notification about it this week, Bluesky wasted no time in using it as a recruitment tool.

Mashable reported: We warned you that this change was coming – but X has just made it official: Blocking on Elon Musk’s social media platform, formerly known as Twitter, will no longer actually block users from viewing content — and now users appear to be fleeing X once again.

Essentially, a block on X will now just mean that a blocked user can’t interact with your posts. They can still see them, though, which was not the case before this change. The change to the block function was met with largely negative reactions, with even Musk supporters pointing out the user safety concerns that come with this shift.

And it appears that the change in the block function was enough for some users to flee to a new social media platform. X alternative Bluesky announced Thursday that it had gained half a million new users in the 24 hours since X made the formal announcement about the change. 

TechCrunch reported: Social networking startup Bluesky, which just reported a gain of half a million users over the past day, has now soared to the top five apps on the U.S. App Store and has become the No.2 app in the Social Networking category, up from No. 181 a week ago, according to data from app intelligence firm Appfigures.

In addition, the growth is not limited to the U.S. market, either. A number of countries are showing four-digit growth in downloads, compared to last Wednesday, leading Bluesky to enter the top 10 in countries like Japan, Thailand, and Taiwan, where it’s No. 1; Hong Kong, where it’s No.2; Canada and South Korea, where it’s No. 4; and Singapore, where it’s No. 8.

On X, users are understandably upset over the company’s decision to change how the block function operates. Soon, users with public accounts can have their X posts viewed by anyone, including those they blocked, unlike before. 

In my opinion, Bluesky is currently gaining a whole lot of people who don’t want to put up with X’s shenanigans anymore. This could – potentially – encourage those who are tired with Elon Musk’s X to stop using it.

Jack Dorsey Departs Bluesky Board

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Bluesky’s most prominent backer has left its board. On Saturday, Jack Dorsey posted on X about grants for open protocols from his philanthropic Start Small initiative.

This prompted someone to ask Dorsey if he was still on the Bluesky board, and he responded with a terse “no.” Dorsey did not answer any of the follow-up posts asking hime to explain his departure TechCrunch reported.

It is not clear when Dorsey left the board; as of Sunday morning, Bluesky’s corporate FAQ still identified him as a board member. Later that afternoon, the company published the following statement:

“We sincerely thank Jack for his help funding and initiating that Bluesky project. Bluesky is thriving as an open source social network running on atproto, the decentralized protocol we have built.

With Jack’s departure, we are searching for a new board member for the Bluesky public benefit company who shares our commitment to building a social network that puts people in control of their experience. More to come!”

Dorsey first announced Bluesky in 2019, back when he was still CEO of Twitter. He wrote that Twitter (now X) was “funding a small independent team of up to five open source architects, engineers, and designers to develop an open and decentralized standard for social media.”

The Verge reported that Twitter founder Jack Dorsey is no longer on the board of Bluesky, the decentralized social media platform he helped start.

Neither Bluesky nor Dorsey himself seem to have said how or what he left the board. For now, two board members remain: CEO, Jay Graeber, and Jabber / XMPP inventor Jeremie Miller. Dorsey originally backed Bluesky in 2019 as a project to develop an open-source social media standard that he wanted Twitter to move to. He later joined its board of directors when it split from Twitter in 2022.

But Dorsey hadn’t seemingly been a particularly active participant at the company. In March, when The Verge’s Nilay Patel asked Graeber for Decoder, about his level of involvement with Bluesky, she said she gets “some feedback occasionally,” but implied he’s otherwise “being Jack Dorsey on a cloud,” as Nilay put it. Months after that interview, Dorsey had closed his Bluesky account.

Engadget reported Jack Dorsey has apparently exited the Bluesky board. The former Twitter CEO who was previously Bluesky’s highest-profile proponent shared the life update this weekend on X, where he’s been posting a lot lately.

The decentralized social network started as a project by a team at then-Twitter back in 2019, but it eventually split off on its own. It only opened to the public this March after being invite-only for almost year.

Dorsey has said mixed things about X since Elon Musk’s takeover, but it seems he’s now swung back around. On Saturday, he posted on X “don’t depend on corporations to grant you rights. Defend them yourself using freedom technology (you’re on one).”

In my opinion, Jack Dorsey appears to be someone who puts a lot of himself into a social media site, and then leaves it in favor of the next big thing.

Bluesky Launches Ozone

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Bluesky posted: Today, we’re excited to announce that we’re open-sourcing Ozone, our collaborative moderation tool. With Ozone, individuals and teams can work together and review and label content across the network. Later this week, we’re opening up the ability for you to run your own independent moderation services, seamlessly integrated into the Bluesky app. This means that you’ll be able to create and subscribe to additional moderation services on top of what Bluesky requires, giving you unprecedented control over your social media experience.

At Bluesky, we’re interested in safety from two angles. First, we’ve built our own moderation team dedicated to providing around-the-clock coverage to uphold our community guidelines.

Additionally, we recognize that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to moderation — no single company can get online safety right for every country, culture, and community in the world. So we’ve also been building something bigger — an ecosystem of moderation and open-source safety tools that give communities power to create their own spaces, with their own norms and preferences. Still, Bluesky feels familiar and intuitive. It’s a straightforward app on the surface, but under the hood, we have enabled real innovation and competition in social media by building a new kind of open network.

In designing these moderation services, Bluesky operated by three principles:

Simple and Powerful: Give users a pleasant default experience, with customization options under the hood.

User Choice: Empower users and communities to develop their own moderation systems.

Openness: Create an open system that increases trust in the governance of our digital spaces.

Decentralized Twitter/X rival Bluesky announced on Tuesday that it’s open sourcing Ozone, a tool that lets individuals and teams collaboratively review and label content on the network. The company plans to open up the ability for individuals and teams to run their own independent moderation services later this week, which means users will be able to subscribe to additional moderation services on top of Bluesky’s default moderation, TechCrunch reported.

In a blog post, Bluesky said the change will give users “unprecedented control” over their social media experience. The company’s vision for moderation is a stackable ecosystem of services, which is why it will start allowing users to install filters from independent moderation services on top of what Bluesky already requires. As a result, users will be able to create a customized experience tailored to their preferences.

The Verge reported Bluesky will soon let users customize how its content is moderated in their feeds. The social platform announced that it’s open-sourcing its moderation tool, Ozone, to let developers create additional moderation services that can be selected by users.

As an example, Bluesky says someone could use Ozone to create a moderation services that specifically blocks images of spiders. A user could then subscribe to that service to remove photos of spiders from their feeds. They can also report any spider images that fall through the cracks, allowing the moderation service’s creator to review them.

In my opinion, Bluesky is doing something innovative that other social media sites have ignored. Giving users control over what they want to see — and to suppress things they don’t want to see (such as spiders), will make the platform much more friendly.

Bluesky Opens Up Federation, Letting Anyone Run Their Own Server

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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.

Bluesky Announces A New Look – The Social Butterfly

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Bluesky remains an invite-only decentralized Twitter alternative, but now, you don’t have to be logged in to be able to see posts on the platform, according to a blog post from Bluesky CEO Jay Grabber, The Verge reported. You can now see posts from both the web and from the Bluesky App.

According to The Verge, if you want to prevent logged-out users from seeing your posts, you can “discourage” that by clicking a toggle in settings. But Bluesky notes that “other apps may not honor this request” and that the toggle doesn’t make your account private.

Bluesky posted the following in the Bluesky blog:

A New Look for Bluesky: The Social Butterfly (written by Jay Graber)

Today, we announced a new logo for Bluesky.

Why did we choose a butterfly?

Well, of course, it flies. But more importantly, it is a symbol of change and transformation. Early on, we noticed that people were organically using the butterfly emoji ? to indicate their Bluesky handles. We loved it, and adopted it as it spread. The butterfly speaks to our mission of transforming social media into something new.

Like a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis, we are starting to open up. Posts on Bluesky have been public from the start through the open protocol, but today, we’re making them publicly accessible through the app. We’re unfolding a little bit at a time, and are excited to bring you along on this journey of metamorphosis!

What’s in a name?

The name “Bluesky” was originally a placeholder for the project started by Twitter to build an open source protocol. I decided to keep the name when I was chosen as the lead of the project. It’s memorable and symbolizes the open space of possibilities: The Twitter bird freed from a closed platform to fly in Bluesky’s open ecosystem.

As the project matured, we named the underlying standard the AT Protocol, or atproto. Bluesky, as the more colorful (and less technical) name everyone was familiar with, is also what we named the first app we built on atprotp. But Bluesky is not the limit. Many more apps and experiences are already beginning to emerge – there are thousands of custom feeds, dozens of other clients, and atproto will eventually support other apps. We hope that Bluesky, as the first app, will be a catalyst for change and transform how social media works, like a butterfly flapping its wings…

TechCrunch reported that decentralized social network and Twitter rival Bluesky is finally letting users look at posts on the platform without logging in. People still need an invite to create an account and start posting but can read posts through a link.

This move will also let publishers link to or embed Bluesky posts in blogs. Plus, users can share them in individual group chats.

Personally, I have been enjoying Bluesky. I think the new butterfly emoji/logo is cute and feels like a good fit for the platform.

X Rival Bluesky Hits 2M Users

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Bluesky, the company building a decentralized alternative to Twitter/X, announced it has hit 2 million users – up by another million since September, despite remaining an invite-only app. It also revealed its timeframe regarding other key goals, indicating that it planned to have a public web interface go live by the end of the month and would launch federation by early next year, TechCrunch reported.

The latter is one of the most important differentiating factors between Bluesky and X, as it would allow Bluesky to function as a more open social network. This means it will work more like Mastodon where users can pick and choose which servers to join and move their accounts around at will. This is what Bluesky today says makes it “billionaire proof” – a swipe at Elon Musk’s ownership of Twitter, now called X.

The Bluesky Team posted on its blog “Toward Federation and an Open Network”:

Toward Federation

Imagine you’ve spent 10 years building your audience and making friends on a social platform, only to decide that it’s no longer for you. When you leave this platform, you’re essentially leaving behind all of your relationships, your saved posts, and more.

We’ve been there too, and we’re similarly tired of packing our bags each time another platform winds down and everyone collectively moves to the next big thing. Signing up for a new social network every few years and losing all our data on former ones shouldn’t be the price that we have to pay in order to keep our relationships online.

That’s why our biggest priority right now is launching federation, which is timelines for early next year. This is one of the core features of Bluesky that makes it “billionaire-proof” – 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.

More exciting news: around the end of this month, we’ll release a public web interface. With this, you’ll be able to view posts on Bluesky without being logged in on an account.

This will make posts on Bluesky much more accessible, which will be especially useful for real-time commentary and breaking news.

As a reminder, Bluesky is a public social network, so your posts, likes, etc. have always been publicly accessible through the API. We designed Bluesky with the openness of the internet in mind, and you can think of your profile as a blog on the internet…

Mashable reported that X rival and social media platform Bluesky now boasts over 2 million users, as announced by the team on Thursday. A year after its creation, the Jack Dorsey-backed app marked the milestone while detailing its pending plan of creating a “truly open social network” – and adding a major feature from Twitter.

According to Mashable, Bluesky, a decentralized social media app, is set to add a public web interface, which means users will be able to view posts without being logged in on an account – Bluesky currently still requires an invite code to sign up to its platform.

Personally, I am enjoying Bluesky a lot more than I do Twitter/X. I no longer find it comfortable to use Twitter/X because the majority of what X’s algorithm shows me are things I have no interest in at all.

Bluesky Says No ‘Heads of State’ On Its Twitter-Like Platform

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Bluesky, the buzzy social media platform that’s emerging as a Twitter competitor, said on Friday that it will not allow ‘heads of state’ on the service yet, as the fledgling company seeks to control its growth during its beta testing phase, Fortune reported.

In a post on Bluesky’s official account Friday afternoon, the company said that its “current policy is that we cannot accommodate heads of state to join us in our beta yet.” The app, which launched in beta testing mode at the end of February, is still in the process of developing or fine-tuning key features, including content moderation.

The invite-only social media app has grown to roughly 60,000 users, and currently has a waiting list of 1.2 million people. Among some of the big names already on the app are U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and CNN anchor Jake Tapper. In the post on Friday, Bluesky said that “we appreciate everyone’s enthusiasm in sending invitations” but ask that people give the team a heads up before inviting prominent figures.

The decision to exclude national presidents and other leaders, even temporarily, is an interesting move in a social media landscape that thrives on the presence of well-known figures who act as magnets that draw more users to a platform, Fortune reported.

Bluesky was initially a project kicked off by Jack Dorsey when he was CEO of Twitter in 2019. Jack chose Jay Graber to lead Bluesky, and Twitter paid Bluesky services income to build an open social protocol for public conversation that it could someday become a client on. Bluesky has been an independent company since its formation in 2021.

In late 2022, Twitter chose to sever its service agreement with Bluesky, and Bluesky agreed. The Bluesky PBLLC has continued to pursue its original founding mission to “develop and drive large-scale adoption of technologies for open and decentralized public conversation.”

Bluesky is building a protocol that can make social networks work more like email, blogs, or phone numbers – the open systems that power the rest of our online lives. The protocol we built, the AT Protocol, is close to completion, and the Bluesky app is a microblogging client built on it to showcase the protocol’s features. The Bluesky app also introduces people to how a social web on the AT Protocol will work.

The goal of the AT Protocol is to allow modern social media to work more like the early days of the web, where anyone could put up a blog or use RSS to subscribe to several blogs. We believe this will unlock a new era of experimentation and innovation in social media. Researchers and communities will have the ability to jump in and help solve the problems social networks currently face, and developers will be able to experiment with many new forms of interaction.

Part of Bluesky’s post asks the question “What is your plan for moderation?”

Our approach to moderation is three-fold: automated filtering, manual admin actions, and community labeling. It stacks new approaches to moderation on top of what centralized social sites already do, and exposes the internals of the system for anyone to observe.

The open and composable labeling system for moderation we’re creating will allow anyone to define and apply labels to content or accounts, and lets anyone choose to subscribe to these label sets. Labels can be automatically generated or manually generated, and can be applied by any service or person in the network.

In my opinion, it makes sense for Bluesky to limit its growth of incoming users while it is still in beta. I think it is smart for Bluesky to hold off on allowing ‘heads of state’ to join in right now.