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Bluesky
A simplified silhouette of a butterfly, with two symmetric pairs of wings, colored with a sky-blue gradient
Current logo introduced December 2023
Web interface showing a user account on Bluesky. To the left, a list of different modes. In the center, a header and profile description above a feed with posts, threading, and embedded content. To the right, a list of user-selected custom feeds.
Screenshot of the Bluesky desktop interface, featuring the official company account, October 2024
Type of site
Social networking service
Available in19 languages[1]
Founded
Area servedWorldwide
OwnerBluesky Social, PBC[3]
CEOJay Graber
URLbsky.app
RegistrationRequired for interaction (like, comment, repost, etc), Not required to view posts and profiles that haven't disabled anonymous access.[a]
Users
  • Increase 21 million total registered users (as of November 21, 2024)[5][6]
  • Increase 11.5 million MAU (as of November 19, 2024)[7]
Current statusActive

Bluesky[b] is a decentralized microblogging social media service primarily operated by Bluesky Social, PBC.[8] It was created as a reference implementation for the AT Protocol, a communication protocol for decentralized social networking.[9][10] Modeled after and inspired by Twitter, users can similarly share short text messages, images, and videos in short posts colloquially known as "skeets".[11][12]

Bluesky Social claims the social app was "designed to not be controlled by a single company" through the use of the AT Protocol as its foundation, promoting a composable user experience, "stackable" moderation, and algorithmic choice as core features of Bluesky.[13][14] The platform offers a "marketplace of algorithms" where users can choose or create algorithmic feeds, user-managed moderation and labelling services, and user-made "starter packs" that allow users to quickly follow a large number of related accounts within a community or subculture.[14][15][16] The AT Protocol offers a domain name-based handle system within Bluesky, allowing users to self-verify an account's legitimacy and identity by proving ownership of a domain name through a DNS text record or HTTPS page.[17][18]

Bluesky began in 2019 as a research initiative at Twitter, led by then-CEO Jack Dorsey, to explore decentralizing the platform.[19] In August 2021, Jay Graber was hired to lead the Bluesky project and development of what is now the AT Protocol, with initial funding provided by Twitter.[20] Jack Dorsey left Bluesky Social's board by May 2024.[21] After the acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk in October 2022, Twitter severed all legal and financial ties with Bluesky Social, leading to the rapid development of the Bluesky social app and the AT Protocol as a minimum viable product.[22][23] Bluesky launched as an invite-only beta in February 2023. In February 2024, the social app opened registration to the public, having reached around 3 million users by that time.[24][25] It became publicly federated later that month, allowing for third-party services on the AT Protocol to operate with Bluesky data.[26][27]

History

[edit]
Graph showing an increase in the amount of registered users on Bluesky.
The total number of users on Bluesky increased from approximately 200,000 in July 2023 to over 5.9 million by July 2024, with a marked increase in early 2024.

Research initiative

[edit]

Twitter's then-CEO Jack Dorsey first announced the Bluesky initiative in 2019 on Twitter to explore the possibility of decentralizing Twitter.[28][29] The original goal was to find or develop an open and decentralized standard for social media that would give users more control over their data and experience.[8]

Twitter collected a working group of experts in decentralized technology in a Matrix group chat to achieve a consensus on the best path towards decentralization.[30] However, this group did not achieve consensus toward these goals. As a result, Twitter decided to field individual proposals from these experts.[31]

In early 2021, Bluesky was in a research phase, with 50 people from the decentralized technology community active in assessing options and assembling proposals for the protocol.[8] This ultimately led to the hiring of Jay Graber in August 2021 to lead the Bluesky project and the development of the "Authenticated Data Experiment" (ADX), a custom-built protocol made for the purpose of decentralization.[32][33][34] Twitter provided $13 million in initial funding to the Bluesky project to begin development.[35]

Incorporation and independence from Twitter

[edit]

In October 2021, Graber incorporated the Bluesky project as an independent company called "Bluesky Social", citing Twitter's "very entrenched existing incentives" as a reason to operate independently.[22] Bluesky Social became a public benefit LLC in February 2022, with the mission to "develop and drive large-scale adoption of technologies for open and decentralized public conversation".[36] The company's first three employees were hired in March 2022.[37]

After Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter, Twitter severed all legal and financial ties with Bluesky Social. Musk's takeover did not immediately affect Bluesky Social's operations as a separate entity, but affected its prospects for further funding. This led to Bluesky Social's rapid development of the AT Protocol, alongside a reference implementation in the form of a social media app, as a minimum viable product.[22] The company began a waitlist for this app in October 2022.[38]

Invite-only open beta

[edit]

Bluesky launched as an invite-only iOS beta in February 2023.[39] In April 2023, it was released for Android.[40][41] Soon after the launch of the Android app, the social network reached about 50,000 users.[42] The app was made open source under the MIT license in May 2023, with the server software being dual-licensed with the Apache license.[43]

Bluesky garnered media attention soon after its launch despite its invite-only nature due to its close association with Twitter and Jack Dorsey. The social app quickly became home to a significant population of black, artist, left-wing, transgender, sex worker, and furry communities after its launch, which is often credited for the platform's historically left-leaning culture.[44][45][46]

On July 5, 2023, Bluesky Social announced it had raised $8 million in a seed funding round led by Neo.[47] Bluesky Social pledged to use the funds to grow its team, manage operations, pay for infrastructure costs, and further develop the AT Protocol.[47] The company also announced its conversion to a public benefit C corporation.[47]

In July 2023, Bluesky experienced a controversy after users discovered the social app did not prevent users from using racial slurs within their handles, as well as the removal of discriminatory slurs from the platform's list of flagged words.[48] This led to a "posting strike" from users, in which users refused to use the app until Bluesky Social addressed the controversy.[49] The controversy led to a public apology from Bluesky Social, an update to the platform's terms of service specifying a prohibition of conduct that "targets people based on their race, gender, religion, ethnicity, nationality, disability, or sexual orientation", and the establishment of a trust and safety team within the company.[50]

In December 2023, Bluesky Social announced a company logo to replace the previous use of a cloudy sky stock image, which was also used as the icon for the official app and website. This icon was a blue butterfly, inspired by existing users' usage of the butterfly emoji to indicate their handles on the service.[51]

Bluesky saw rapid growth during its open beta period, reaching 1 million registered users by September 2023 and surpassing 2 million users in November of that same year.[52][53] By the time of its public launch in February 2024, the social app had reached over 3 million users.[25]

Public launch

[edit]

Bluesky opened registrations to the general public on February 6, 2024, a year after its release as an invite-required beta.[25] It became publicly federated within the AT Protocol soon afterwards, allowing users to build apps within the protocol and host their own data independently from Bluesky Social.[54][55]

Bluesky has experienced several bursts of growth following its public launch, mainly in relation to controversies and changes at Twitter. These bursts were referred to as "Elon Musk Events", or EMEs, by developers at Bluesky Social.[56][57]

Bluesky saw a large influx of registrations by Japanese-speaking users soon after public launch, partly driven by notable Japanese social media personalities such as artist Ui Shigure registering accounts in the platform.[58]

On May 4, 2024, Jack Dorsey, who had initiated and funded the Bluesky research initiative, posted on Twitter that he was no longer on Bluesky Social's board.[59] Bluesky Social confirmed his departure the next day.[60] Dorsey had previously deleted his account from the platform and vouched his support for both Twitter and Nostr, another decentralized protocol.[61][62] In an interview, Dorsey criticized Bluesky Social, stating that they were "literally repeating all the mistakes [Twitter] made as a company", taking issue with Bluesky Social's company structure and the introduction of moderation tools into the AT Protocol.[63]

In August 2024, following the blocking of Twitter in Brazil, Bluesky gained over 4 million users in under two weeks, becoming the most popular app in the Brazilian App Store and Play Store.[64][65] Shortly afterwards, on September 16, Bluesky announced it had reached 10 million users.[66]

In October 2024, following changes to Twitter's block feature and Terms of Service to analyze users' content for AI training purposes by default, over 1.2 million users joined Bluesky within 2 days.[67][68] On October 24, Bluesky Social announced it had reached 13 million users. It also announced a $15 million Series A financing round led by Blockchain Capital.[69][70] The company pledged to not integrate cryptocurrency into the social app or the AT Protocol, so as to not "hyperfinancialize the social experience".[71]

In the weeks following the 2024 United States presidential election on November 5, 2024, in which former president Donald Trump was re-elected for a second non-consecutive term, millions of Twitter users from the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom joined Bluesky in a movement known as the "Xodus".[72][73] By November 13, Bluesky had reached 15 million users, growing by around 1 million user per day and reaching the top of the Apple's App Store and Google's Play Store in the United States.[74][75][76] On November 19, Bluesky officially crossed 20 million users, tripling its userbase within 3 months.[77][78] This surge also triggered a significant uptick of moderation reports, including child sexual abuse material; Bluesky Safety noted on November 16, "In the past 24 hours, we have received more than 42,000 reports (an all-time high for one day). We're receiving about 3,000 reports/hour. To put that into context, in all of 2023, we received 360k reports."[79]

Features

[edit]

Bluesky is largely analogous to Twitter in its structure. Users can send 300-character text messages, images, and video in short posts. Users can reply, repost, quote post and like these posts. Frequent users have called posts on the platform "skeets", a portmanteau of "sky" and "tweets", despite CEO Jay Graber's vigorous disapproval of the term.[11][45][46]

Bluesky offers a domain name-based handle system via the AT Protocol, allowing users to self-verify an account's legitimacy and identity by proving ownership of a domain name through a DNS text record or HTTPS page.[80]

Bluesky promotes a "marketplace of algorithms" through its Custom Feeds feature, where users can choose or create algorithmic feeds. Bluesky CTO Paul Frazee stated that "In future updates [Bluesky] will make it easy for users to create custom feeds in-app."[81] Third-party tools to publish Custom Feeds on Bluesky have been created by independent developers, including a popular client named Skyfeed.[82]

Bluesky offers user-managed moderation and labelling services based on the AT Protocol. These services allow for custom user-run composable moderation tools. Bluesky open-sourced its in-house moderation software called "Ozone" in March 2024 for these services.[83]

Bluesky offers user-made "starter packs" which allow users to quickly follow a large number of related accounts.[14][84][85]

Bluesky introduced "anti-toxicity" features in August 2024, allowing users to "detach" quote posts from their original post and to hide replies to a user's post. Bluesky also promised the addition of a community notes-like feature.[86][87]

Technology

[edit]

Bluesky unveiled open source code in May 2022 for an early version of its distributed social network protocol, Authenticated Data Experiment (ADX),[88] since renamed the Authenticated Transfer (AT) Protocol.[8][89][90][91][92][93] The team opened its early code and placed it under an MIT License so that the development process would be seen in public.[88]

The AT Protocol's initial federation architecture centers around three main services: a Personal Data Server (PDS), Relay (previously referred to as a Big Graph Service, or BGS), and an AppView.[94] A PDS is a server which hosts user data[94] in "Data Repositories", which utilize a Merkle tree.[95] The PDS also handles user authentication and manages the signing keys for its hosted repositories. A Relay is described as analogous to an indexer on the web, ingesting repositories from a variety of different PDS hosts and serving them in a single unified stream for other services to ingest. AppViews, meanwhile, are services which consume data from a Relay and hydrate that data to provide behavior for specific clients, e.g. the microblogging feature set for the Bluesky app.[94]

Reception

[edit]

Reviewing the app in February 2023, TechCrunch called it "a functional, if still rather bare-bones, Twitter-like experience".[96]

Lance Ulanoff of TechRadar originally signed up in April 2023 and at the time declared Bluesky "quiet, reserved, thoughtful, or even polite. Overall, BlueSky is the equivalent of a social media Shangri-La." When he revisited it in November 2024 after the post-US election surge in signups he declared that "for the moment, it's the most exciting place on social media" and "I wasted my day on Bluesky Social and no, I'm not sorry"[97].

Jason Perlow of ZDNet straplines his article "It's not a direct replacement for Twitter (X), but Bluesky has a lot to offer those who want a fresh start in a decentralized, privacy-minded network." He highlights the decentralised nature of Bluesky, the lack of algorithmic feeds and in a lukewarm manner says that "Bluesky might be worth your time if you're ready to leave algorithm-driven feeds behind and try a network that prioritizes user control."[98]

Jay Peters of The Verge is much more upbeat in his review from April 2023, declaring upfront "Bluesky is really, really fun." and "I’m just really enjoying the vibes in my Bluesky feed."[99]

See also

[edit]

References and notes

[edit]
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  98. ^ Perlow, Jason (November 14, 2024). "7 things to know about Bluesky before you join - and why you should". ZDNet. Archived from the original on November 19, 2024. Retrieved November 20, 2024.
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  1. ^ Registration has been publicly available since February 6, 2024. Was previously invitation-only.[4]
  2. ^ Commonly abbreviated as Bsky
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