(NewsNation) — For anyone tired of using X, there’s a new social media platform available: Bluesky.
The company announced Tuesday it’s opening up the service to everyone after initially being invite-only. Championed by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, Bluesky resembles Dorsey’s former brainchild that was renamed “X” after it was bought by Elon Musk.
Here’s a look at Bluesky and how it says it’s different from other social media platforms.
Company’s creation and app’s launch
Bluesky was created in 2021, the same year Dorsey stepped down as CEO of Twitter. It was initially pitched as a decentralized social protocol that could power multiple social networks all connected to one another.
At the time, Dorsey described Bluesky as a “decentralized open source social media protocol” that no single person owned, eliminating corporate interests and allowing for the free flow of conversation and ideas.
The Bluesky app launched on iOS in February 2023 as an invite-only beta.
It was opened up to everyone Tuesday and saw more than 800,000 sign-ups, according to the company. The site has more than 4 million users.
Interface and usability
Bluesky looks similar to Twitter (when it was still Twitter), blue font and all. The default feed shows posts by people a user follows, and there are also “Discover” and “For You” feeds, which show content based on an algorithm. There are also custom feeds that are created by users themselves.
The app does not have a direct message feature. Posts can include texts and photos, but no videos, and there is a 300-character limit.
Bluesky touts its platform as one that gives a user total control over what they see.
“Whether it’s your timeline or content filters, on Bluesky, you can easily customize your social experience,” the company said in a Tuesday blog post.
Later this month, Bluesky will roll out an early version of its “federation” customization feature.
“On Bluesky, you’ll have the freedom to choose (and the right to leave) instead of being held to the whims of private companies or black box algorithms,” the company said. “And wherever you go, your friends and relationships can go with you.”
Bluesky plans to set users free by allowing them to move their collections of friends, followers and other data to competing social networks. As the company says in a whimsical cartoon page included in Tuesday’s announcement, Bluesky aims to be “ the last social account you’ll ever need to create.”
Moderation
One of the chief complaints about X, particularly after Musk took over, is the lack of moderation on the site that can allow hate speech to fester. X does have Community Notes, which allows users to “fact-check” posts by adding context to them.
In a January blog post, Bluesky said it is “doing things differently than a lot of social media sites,” such as hiring moderators directly instead of relying on third-party vendors.
Users made more than 358,000 reports in 2023, nearly a quarter of which were made in October, the month that Hamas attacked Israel. Bluesky says every single report was reviewed by humans, though it may use automated tools in the future.
More than 4,600 accounts were taken down and an additional 1,800 individual pieces of content were removed from the site last year as a result of the reports.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.