Jack Dorsey's Bluesky is a decentralized Twitter, clone?

[Jimmy2x]

Something to look forward to: Social media companies and platforms have been turned on their heads over the last several years. Companies have changed hands, users have come and gone as fast as checkmarks and metaverses, and multiple startups have made a run at picking off users in hopes of becoming the next big platform. Now, a formerly Twitter-backed project is attracting a lot of attention and being heralded as the answer to our "social media problems."

Jack Dorsey's decentralized social media platform was established in 2019 as a Twitter-funded project designed to establish a decentralized social media standard. Bluesky's original goal was to create and bring Twitter onto a new, decentralized platform. The company instead broke away several years later establishing itself as Bluesky PBLLC in 2022.

At first glance, the platform very closely matches Twitter's UI. Social media veterans will find the color schemes, icons, layouts, and other design choices resemble what they've come to know for the last 17 years. But unlike its blue bird-based progenitor, Bluesky runs on a decentralized network designed to ensure that content moderation, data storage, and platform control responsibilities are passed back to the community rather than a single governing body.

The platform is currently running an invite-only closed beta, reportedly gaining steady momentum since its iOS launch in February and Android app launch earlier this month. While the platform currently serves approximately 40,000 authorized users, downloads of the Bluesky iOS app indicate more than 375,000 Apple users awaiting access. The app has also been downloaded more than 100,000 times since the Android release.

Bluesky isn't the first attempt at establishing a decentralized social media platform. Launched back in 2016, Mastodon provides users with independently run instances that function according to their own codes of conduct, terms of service, privacy policies, and content moderation rules. The servers operate using the W3C's ActivityPub standard, allowing users to interact with users existing on other federated servers. Bluesky works in a similar manner using the more recent AT Protocol.

The new social media solution has started to attract some of Twitter's bigger names. While it is too early to tell if Bluesky will become their "new home," Twitter mainstays including Chrissy Teigen, James Gunn, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Twitter's infamous Dril have already begun advertising their presence on the new platform.

While some users see the platform as a breath of fresh air, others have criticized it for creating yet another decentralized solution rather than contributing to the already-established ActivityPub-based platform. The Mastodon team even took an early jab at Dorsey and Bluesky, offering the team a jumpstart into decentralized development back in 2019.

Time will tell if Bluesky has the momentum and staying power to become a real player. Fueled by hype as well as Twitter's ongoing checkmark and paywall saga, Bluesky is bound to attracting more long time and possibly even high profile users from Twitter, Mastodon, and other platforms. The big question now is, can they manage to keep them?

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https://www.techspot.com/news/98507-jack-dorsey-bluesky-decentralized-twitter-clone.html

 

[psycros]

There is room for, at most, three major social platforms. I wish there wasn't room for ANY of them. But hey, as long as Musk keeps harvesting neo-fascist tears I guess we can at least enjoy the show.

 

[polvooo]

I tried Mastodon the other day for the first time and it was a terrible experience, it's like the polar opposite of Truth... no civil discussions, just people bashing people who don't think the same... it's a shame everything has to be that way

 

[McMurdeR]

I tried Mastodon the other day for the first time and it was a terrible experience, it's like the polar opposite of Truth... no civil discussions, just people bashing people who don't think the same... it's a shame everything has to be that way

Perhaps social media as a concept is doomed to failure? Certainly anything unmoderated seems destined to drift into the echo chamber fringes or collapse under the chaos. People seem to confuse freedom of speech with freedom to publish anything they like. That was never the case with traditional media - they always had to be careful. Lets make no mistake, if we're posting our opinions on social media, we are effectively publishing them, and must own the consequences.

 

[pcnthuziast]

As a general thing, people have too many opinions and having any opinion with no power to affect change is useless. Just noise in the head. Unfortunately people tend to enjoy sharing that noise with anyone who will listen as either a means to connect or a reason to fight. Trending more often than not to the latter because people morbidly enjoy conflict.

 

[p51d007]

I just wish twitter, parler, bluesky, instagram, tik-tok, facebook etc would ALL disappear.

 

[TheBigFatClown]

Perhaps social media as a concept is doomed to failure? Certainly anything unmoderated seems destined to drift into the echo chamber fringes or collapse under the chaos. People seem to confuse freedom of speech with freedom to publish anything they like. That was never the case with traditional media - they always had to be careful. Lets make no mistake, if we're posting our opinions on social media, we are effectively publishing them, and must own the consequences.

Freedom of speech has never meant that you can scream "FIRE!" in a crowded public place if it's not true. The law has always given consideration to the motives for certain actions as well. If you yell "FIRE!" in a public place and you geniunely thought there was one then that issue is considered.

I'm curious by what you mean as owning up to consequences by simply publishing your personal opinions. If your opinions are stated as such what should be the consequences of somebody whose opinions are wrong? People change all the time based upon upbringing and their own personal experiences through life. So, I'm just curious what you meant by that.

 

[Lew Zealand]

Social media is great. It allows people who are itching for a fight to easily find other people with differing views also itching for a fight to go at each other. And whenever anyone else wants in on the fight they can all participate, too!

And the rest of us can do something more useful with our time like watching paint dry or TV golf coverage.

 

[TheBigFatClown]

As a general thing, people have too many opinions and having any opinion with no power to affect change is useless. Just noise in the head. Unfortunately people tend to enjoy sharing that noise with anyone who will listen as either a means to connect or a reason to fight. Trending more often than not to the latter because people morbidly enjoy conflict.

Your comments are a bit bizarre. Of course, that is the purpose of socializing in general. To connect with those you are in agreement with or to stand up against those you are in disagreement with.
Opinions shared always effect change even if it can't be perceived immediately.
People morbidly love conflict? Ummm, okay then.

 

[Timoo]

Perhaps social media as a concept is doomed to failure? Certainly anything unmoderated seems destined to drift into the echo chamber fringes or collapse under the chaos. People seem to confuse freedom of speech with freedom to publish anything they like. That was never the case with traditional media - they always had to be careful. Lets make no mistake, if we're posting our opinions on social media, we are effectively publishing them, and must own the consequences.

In NL we wave started to make a distinction between freedom of speech and freedom to insult; when you harm others, your freedom should be curbed. Not the fringy-toned short-sighted "I am easy to insult"-people (like religious zealots and maga's), just the ones enshrined in law.
Essentially: hate speech should be banned. And there are good laws for that: No calls for violence (or genocide), nazism is forbidden, don't insult groups of people (LGBTQ+, Jews, Blacks, women, etc. etc.), no doxxing. Just; how do program that into platforms to automatically filter it?
I remember the discussions of a few years back where parody got filtered, while nazism was passing the bar in automated filtering systems.

 

[Kashim]

Oh yeah, another social media platform is just what the internet needs. And the fact that it's decentralized makes it that much better. It means all the freaks, *****s, racists, fascists, etc. can say and do whatever they want with little to no oversight or any consequences. We're definitely headed in the right direction!

 

[Eldritch]

Tricky issue.
On one hand increasing censorship and on the other racists or worse.
As the moderation will fall on community, there will be great communities as well as communities filled with misinformation and poison.
All will have their own brand of bias.
No correct answers here but normally it is better to let people do stuff and only intervene when there is abject requirement. Otherwise you push them to even more dangerous, unreachable and unregulated communities.

 

[McMurdeR]

I'm curious by what you mean as owning up to consequences by simply publishing your personal opinions. If your opinions are stated as such what should be the consequences of somebody whose opinions are wrong? People change all the time based upon upbringing and their own personal experiences through life. So, I'm just curious what you meant by that.

That's the point. Once we publish an opinion, we can't undo it. It's there forever, like a tattoo, and associated with us, even if our attitude changes. It's what makes social media so incredibly dangerous. If we say something stupid, we can't roll back, we can't deny.
Look at Fox news, they got a hard lesson in consequences last week.

 

[Kashim]

It's what makes social media so incredibly dangerous. If we say something stupid, we can't roll back, we can't deny.

Sure you can roll it back. Trump and Musk have done it many times after they said something stupid and there was a public outcry. They delete their post and pretend it never happened.

Look at Fox news, they got a hard lesson in consequences last week.

What lesson did Fox News learn exactly? The only consequence of their stupidity I saw was that they had to pay a big bag of money to make it all go away. No one went to jail, no one had to retract any of their statements. They didn't even have to admit to anything on air. No one who watches Fox even knows what really happened or the extent of damage they've done. Their own hosts were forbidden from even discussing the case on air. Fox learned exactly nothing, except to be more careful about directly accusing big companies who have the means to fight back. They'll go back to doing what they've always done. Nothing has changed.

 

[AlaskaGuy]

I wonder how many ex US intel agents he hires this time. He hired close to a dozen while at Twitter. He seems to have a preference for ex CIA employees.

 

[Axle Grease]

There is room for, at most, three major social platforms. I wish there wasn't room for ANY of them. But hey, as long as Musk keeps harvesting neo-fascist tears I guess we can at least enjoy the show.

But writing like that, you'd be the perfect social media consumer. You're a natural.

 

[TheBigFatClown]

That's the point. Once we publish an opinion, we can't undo it. It's there forever, like a tattoo, and associated with us, even if our attitude changes. It's what makes social media so incredibly dangerous. If we say something stupid, we can't roll back, we can't deny.
Look at Fox news, they got a hard lesson in consequences last week.

But that's not entirely true. If your opinion changes over time you just throw up a new "Tweet" or a new post or whatever. It's not social media that is the evil. Look at the stupid things people say in books, on radio and tv interviews. Social media is just another way of expressing your thoughts and opinions.

 

[JamesBlond]

Jack Dorsey's Bluesky
100% Spyware "Look at what he did with Twitter"
100% FBI Linked
100% Information for Profit no matter how many privacy laws are broken

100% never use it, let it flop, let him suffer for his evil abuse of power on Twitter, for forcing staff to get vaccines they didn't want. I wish no personal harm to him, but to all his business and wealth may they all fail

 

[JamesBlond]

Sure you can roll it back. Trump and Musk have done it many times after they said something stupid and there was a public outcry. They delete their post and pretend it never happened.



What lesson did Fox News learn exactly? The only consequence of their stupidity I saw was that they had to pay a big bag of money to make it all go away. No one went to jail, no one had to retract any of their statements. They didn't even have to admit to anything on air. No one who watches Fox even knows what really happened or the extent of damage they've done. Their own hosts were forbidden from even discussing the case on air. Fox learned exactly nothing, except to be more careful about directly accusing big companies who have the means to fight back. They'll go back to doing what they've always done. Nothing has changed.

Dont be Clueless
Who owns Fox, Who owns Dominion, Who owns the lawyers on both sides, how come it all came out as he was releasing tapes on Jan 6 fake insurrection... follow the money, it will show you who owns who and who is a puppet to who.

They have taken Tucker in their mistake and made him the most powerful tool for free speech and they had to pay to do it. He never lost, matter of fact his worth 100% more than he was at Fox

 

[JamesBlond]

I wonder how many ex US intel agents he hires this time. He hired close to a dozen while at Twitter. He seems to have a preference for ex CIA employees.

I would like to know truly, is He an asset like Jeffery Epstein... a billionaire just passing cash around they don't need for jobs they don't want to do

 

[monkeylove]

One problem with decentralization is that it leads to combinations of greater and lesser censorship. I recall articles about Mastodon referring to a lot of mod abuse plus proliferation of things like child porn.