BLUESKY
– SCI & TECH
News:
Explained | What is
Bluesky and how does it affect Twitter?
What's
in the news?
●
Since Elon Musk’s takeover, Twitter has
been roiling. The social media company’s workforce has dropped from nearly
8,000 to around 1,000. Alongside the drop, technical glitches and outages have
increased.
Key
takeaways:
●
Separately, as the blue tick verification
and API access become paid features,
several users are searching for alternative social media platforms.
●
Though the decentralised Mastodon emerged as an early contender, Bluesky has
come to the fore as a potential claimant to Twitter’s throne.
Bluesky:
●
Bluesky is a micro-blogging platform and social web built on the AT Protocol (Authenticated Transport Protocol).
●
Bluesky might be classified as a Twitter competitor due to its founding
team but is different in terms of its structure, as it is meant to form part of
a decentralised ecosystem.
●
Users of apps built on the AT Protocol
would be able to move between platforms without losing their followers, media,
work, and data.
Objective:
●
Bluesky says its founding mission is to
“develop and drive large-scale adoption of technologies for open and decentralized public conversation.”
Who
is behind Bluesky?
●
The CEO of Bluesky is Jay Graber, a software engineer with a background in
cryptocurrency. Bluesky was launched in 2019 by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey,
who choose Ms. Graber to lead the project.
Features
of Bluesky:
●
Bluesky is currently in private beta, meaning that only a
select group has been allowed to join via invite codes.
●
Others interested in trying it out can add
themselves to a waitlist.
●
Regular Bluesky members are also given a new invite code at periodic intervals
that they can share with new applicants they deem trustworthy.
●
Bluesky said it had more than 50,000 users at the end of April but maintained that it
would distribute invites at its own discretion to maintain the integrity of the
platform.
How
is Bluesky different from Mastodon?
●
While Bluesky and Mastodon both strive to
be decentralised social media platforms, Bluesky is still highly controlled by
its team of creators, and entry is based on an invite code.
●
On the other hand, Mastodon has multiple
servers that users can join or apply to join, making it less controlled in
terms of entry.
○
Mastodon is also older, going back to
2016. Its servers saw over 2.5 million active users late last year and its
popularity surged after Twitter came under Mr. Musk’s leadership. However,
Mastodon’s active users soon dropped to less than two million.
○
Complaints included the fact that
Mastodon’s multiple server structure confused users, and that it lacked a
significant user base.