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    • What you need to know about Bluesky – and how it compares to X
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    What you need to know about Bluesky – and how it compares to X

    Vaseline Posted on

    Topline

    Bluesky, a text-based social media platform that is functionally similar to (and even shares the same co-founder as) Trump won the election and recruited Musk to head a government efficiency department.

    Key facts

    Bluesky was conceived in 2019 by then-CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey as a research project to “decentralize” Twitter, eventually launching as its own company in 2021 and opening to the public in a beta phase in 2023.

    Bluesky now operates as a ‘decentralized’ social media platform, meaning users can create their own servers on which to store data and set their own rules, rather than using company-owned servers.

    Many of the features on Bluesky are similar to those on can like and reply to other users.

    Users can follow other people to create their own timeline and send users direct messages, just like on X.

    Bluesky users can also block each other, an attractive feature for users who have criticized Musk’s changes to the X block feature, which now makes an X user’s post visible to everyone else, including those they’ve blocked.

    Bluesky has a moderation team to enforce community guidelines – which prohibit the promotion of “hate or extremist behavior,” a common criticism of X under Musk – and lets users use a collaborative moderation tool called Ozone to moderate communities on the platform.

    News Peg

    Bluesky added more than 1.5 million new users in the past week, company spokesperson Emily Liu told Forbes. The influx of Bluesky signups coincided with Trump’s victory, as Musk, an increasingly vocal right-wing figure, has emerged as a key Trump ally. Trump announced that Musk would lead the new Department of Government Efficiency together with Vivek Ramaswamy.

    How does Bluesky’s usership compare to X?

    Although Bluesky’s user base is increasing, it still lags far behind X. Liu told Forbes that Bluesky has a total of about 14.5 million users, while X said in March that about 250 million people use the social platform every day.

    Which notable users have migrated to Bluesky?

    The Guardian news organization announced that its dozens of X accounts, with around 27 million followers, would cease operations. “We believe that the benefits of using Celebrities with large followings this week, including journalist Don Lemon and actress Jamie Lee Curtis, announced they were leaving X. Other celebrities left after Musk took over the platform in 2022, including Elton John, Whoopi Goldberg, Gigi Hadid and Shonda Rhimes.

    Surprising fact

    Dorsey has distanced himself from Bluesky, confirming in May that he had left the company’s board, months after deleting his personal Bluesky account. Dorsey instead praised X as “freedom technology” and seemingly urged users to stay on the platform. “We sincerely thank Jack for his help in financing and initiating the Bluesky project. Today, Bluesky thrives as an open source social network running on atproto, the decentralized protocol we built,” according to the official Bluesky account. Dorsey’s comments were a shift from last year, when he openly criticized Musk, claiming he had not “done the right thing” and that the platform went “south” after he took over.

    Crucial quote

    “Our online experience doesn’t have to depend on billionaires making unilateral decisions about what we see. On an open social network like Bluesky, you can shape your experience,” Bluesky says on its website – a possible dig at Musk’s ownership of X.

    Important background

    Bluesky’s user numbers rose for the first time last year when the app opened a beta version to select users who had received an invite code. Many of the users who migrated to the platform were frustrated by Musk’s various changes to to proliferate.

    Forbes rating

    We estimate Musk’s net worth at $300.9 billion, making him the richest person in the world. Dorsey is ranked No. 669 on the Real-Time Billionaires List, with an estimated net worth of $5 billion. Ramaswamy has just entered the rankings of the world’s billionaires, with an estimated net worth of around $1 billion.

    Read more

    Prominent X accounts, including The Guardian and Don Lemon, are leaving Elon Musk’s site. Here’s why. (Forbes)

    Jack Dorsey leaves Bluesky board and urges users to stick with Elon Musk’s X (The Guardian)

    Vaseline
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