What is Bluesky?

How did it start, and who owns it?

Bluesky began as a research project at Twitter in 2019 to decentralize the platform. Then-CEO Jack Dorsey announced the initiative's intent to "develop an open and decentralized standard for social media." In August 2021, Jay Graber was hired to lead the project, and by October of that year, Graber had incorporated Bluesky as an independent company known as Bluesky Social.

In February 2022, Bluesky Social became a Public Benefit LLC and, according to the Bluesky website, it is currently owned by Jay Graber and the Bluesky team.

Key features of Bluesky

Bluesky functions like a more customizable version of X. It offers features that give users control over their social media experience.

Custom feeds and handles

Bluesky offers a custom feeds feature where users can choose from preconstructed algorithmic feeds via a marketplace of algorithms or create their organization. A similar concept is used to select which feeds to follow. Users can pick up starter packs that allow them to instantly follow multiple feeds related to a certain theme or topic.

Bluesky offers custom domains, and users can add domain names to their handles, which is their unique identifier on the platform.

Moderation and privacy features

Bluesky also offers a custom approach for selecting moderation services. They have also implemented anti-toxicity features, including disassociating a quote post from its original post and hiding posts from view. Users can also opt out from letting logged-out users see their posts. However, making posts private from other logged-in Bluesky users is impossible unless they are blocked.

Other features

Other notable features of Bluesky include the following:

• Activity feed. All activity related to a user's Bluesky account, including posts and mentions from accounts they follow, is consolidated into a single feed that the user can scroll through.
• Trending topics. Users can insert hashtags in their posts. Hashtags can help identify what topics are trending and categorize posts to aid with search results.
• Searching. In addition to hashtags, users can search across profiles and posts. Search parameters can get even more granular, allowing users to search by posts that mention them, posts in a specific date range or language or even posts that contain a specific URL.
• Notifications. In-app and push notifications notify users of any activity related to their Bluesky account, including DMs, likes and replies.
• Multimedia sharing. In addition to text, Bluesky posts can also contain photos, video and audio.
• Reporting. Another moderation/anti-toxicity feature is the ability to report posts. Users can flag posts as inappropriate, making them subject to a review process.

Is Bluesky decentralized?

Yes, Bluesky is decentralized. It is not solely controlled by a private company, meaning that users always have the option to move their data to other servers, even a privately hosted one.

Bluesky was built using the AT Protocol, which is an open source, decentralized framework developed in-house. Because of the decentralized nature of the AT Protocol, it can be used to develop other online communities that work on the network as well. Users would be free to move to those communities and bring their handles, data and followers.

How does Bluesky handle misinformation?

Though Bluesky's moderation features allow users to block accounts that push misinformation or spam easily, there are no inherent anti-misinformation measures on Bluesky. There is no algorithmic or human flagging of fake news or AI-generated content on the platform. However, Bluesky will warn users that a post contains a "misleading link" if there is a discrepancy between the linked text and the destination URL.

It's also worth noting that Bluesky does not have a traditional verification process, which has led to several imposter accounts on the platform. Instead of verifying accounts, Bluesky leaves it up to users to verify themselves by using a domain name as their handle; NPR's handle, for example, is @npr.org. To do this, the owner would need to edit the domain name system record. So, while it's a secure process and a way to confirm an account's legitimacy, it's also complicated enough that the average user might not be able to do it themselves.

What are Bluesky's moderation features?

Like the rest of Bluesky, its moderation is designed with transparency and user control in mind. Users can choose their moderation settings and services to customize their experience without losing access to anything. With other social networks, moderation algorithms are controlled solely by the platform's owner. The AT Protocol, however, uses a technique called labeling to gather community input on what content should be flagged or taken down. While labeling is technically similar to how centralized moderation works, the AT Protocol's system is different in that it opens up the process to allow all users to contribute.

Additionally, labeling decouples moderation from other services -- with other platforms, whoever hosts/owns the service controls the moderation, and users must accept those moderation choices. With the labeling approach, moderation operates independently of other services such as hosting. This means there is no "overreach," according to Bluesky, and the distributed nature of labeling ensures that a single entity is not making moderation decisions on behalf of all users.

While the Bluesky app features hardcoded "in-house moderation to provide a strong foundation that upholds community guidelines," labeling produces community-designed moderation services to which users can subscribe. Bluesky's recommendation is for users to take a combination approach to moderation: have at least one of Bluesky's built-in moderation services, and then stack additional community services to tailor their experience.

Is Bluesky secure?

Bluesky's decentralized nature offers some security benefits such as identifying users with domain names or a decentralized identifier (DID). A user's DID maps to cryptographic URLs to protect their account and data.

Bluesky also has other basic security measures such as email verification, but its security features remain a work in progress. For example, direct messages on Bluesky lack end-to-end encryption, which is an important security feature that many apps have.

How to sign up for Bluesky

As of February 2024, Bluesky is open to everybody and is no longer an invitation-only service. Creating an account is similar to other social media platforms: you provide basic information such as your email, password, birthdate and user handle. However, you can select your own hosting provider. You can use the default option of having Bluesky as the host or choose your own server.

Users can sign up either on Bluesky's website or through the app, which can be downloaded from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store.