Among technology lovers there has been a lot of talk lately about Blueskythe brand new social platform that has become extremely popular since the American elections, especially in relation to X (formerly Twitter). The latter in fact belongs to the tycoon Elon Muskaccused of using it to publish low-quality advertisements (often clickbait) in favor of the tycoon Donald Trump. In protest, many US citizens have decided to boycott the social media that tweets, landing on Bluesky, and after the November 5 elections the platform went from 14 to 22 million users in just over a week, growing at a rate of one million new users per day.
Bluesky therefore lacks around 3 million users to reach Threadsthe platform launched by Meta in 2023 which on paper has 150 million registered users but actually has 25 million active users.
What is Bluesky and how the social network was born
Bluesky is a social media platform created in 2021 by a group of US developers, many of whom were former X employees disappointed by the policies followed by the platform (among them stands out Jack Dorseyco-founder of Twitter), which has gradually been increasingly centralized. For those who don’t know, “centralization” means that decisions about content, moderation and platform expansion are made by the company – in this case by X Corporation – and users must fully abide by these rules . This may also mean not being able to avoid false news or news related to political propaganda, which is precisely what happened with the platform’s support (by the South African tycoon) for Donald Trump during the American presidential elections of November 5th.
Wishing for a freer and more decentralized social network, in 2021 the former members of allow users to have more control over their data and their online experience. Here the contents and data management are distributed between various servers, which can be managed by anyone who wants to participate in the network, thus ensuring greater transparency compared to the X and Facebook platforms. It can be said that Bluesky is what the former Twitter was many years ago, before being handed over to the companies that owned the web.
How Bluesky works and the differences with X
Bluesky and Starting from the interface, Bluesky is even more minimal of X, which has added new features over the years (long video support, sponsored posts, etc.). The user experience is focused on conversation and interaction between communities. Users can then choose their own moderation rulesbased on the servers they interact with. Some servers have stricter rules, others more lax, and users can choose to participate on one or more servers that have the policies they prefer. Furthermore, this platform also allows you to apply content filters that you see, such as keywords or specific users. So if a user wants, they can block or silence some words, hashtags or specific people, customizing the flow to their liking.
Bluesky, which is supported by a non-profit foundation, has not yet implemented any forms of monetization on the platform, because it is still focusing on technological and creative experimentation, although this does not mean that this cannot happen in the future. On the contrary, for a few years now
Is Bluesky really an alternative to X?
X has changed a lot under the leadership of Elon Musk, becoming a much more complex platform, combining both the social side and financial transactions and e-commerce. Bluesky instead aims to be one free platformwhich transforms and evolves thanks to its communities. But what do users think?
According to many, this social network would do rediscover the pleasure of observation and sharing. In fact, it is now a common opinion that social media in recent years have become a “toxic” environment for many people, due to the algorithms designed to offer us what the platforms think we want, and it seems like we are constantly window shopping that never ends, and no longer the feeds of the past where we could learn, laugh and share.
On Bluesky, there is a algorithmic feed (more precisely “You discover“, based on your own interests), but it is optional. In fact, the default feed is completely devoid of algorithms, and only offers a chronological list of posts and shares of people you follow. In this sense, it will therefore be possible to continue to see posts outside of your own bubble, since followers share the contents of people who do not follow you. On Bluesky so things can still become viralbut it will be on merit, and not because the person who published them paid.
The “vibes”, if you can call them that, are good. Only time will tell if this new platform will truly be the turning point, the return to the times when going on social media was truly a pleasure, without being buried by avalanches of personalized advertisements.
