Vast numbers of people are taking to Bluesky, as it quickly becomes one of the world’s most popular social networks.
Founded in 2019, initially as a spinoff within Twitter, Bluesky is an attempt not only to build a new social network but a whole new kind of social network, which is decentralised and open.
In the years since it was born, it has largely continued as a small and relatively niche part of the internet. But since Elon Musk bought Twitter and renamed it to X in 2022, and especially since he made a number of tweaks to the platform including those to promote his own posts, vast numbers of people have left and taken to Bluesky instead.
Here’s everything you need to know about making that change – including why you would want to, and what you need to do once you do.
How similar is Bluesky to X/Twitter?
The first thing you’ll notice about coming from X to Bluesky is that not much has changed. The latter grew out of the former, and includes some of the same team – and it shows in both the visual design of the app as well as the ideas that power it.
So you can scroll to read, post text as well as pictures and videos, reply to other such posts, quote them or share them. (The latter is called a repost, rather than a retweet – though X adopted that language after it went through its rebrand anyway.)
In many ways, Bluesky is largely similar to Twitter before it was bought by Elon Musk. It bears more similarities to that than today’s X, and probably is more similar to that earlier version of Twitter than X is today.
So, as Twitter once did, Bluesky supports an array of third-party clients, some of which offer additional features while others just give simple and sometimes more aesthetically pleasing ways of getting the Bluesky feed.
How is it different to X/Twitter?
Central to the founding of Bluesky was one key idea: that the future of social media should be decentralised, with the aim of removing power from big platforms and putting into the hands of users. That was why Twitter established it in the first place, and it has been working towards that since.
Much of that decentralisation isn’t immediately obvious. Bluesky is built on open protocols that lets it integrate with other platforms and hand more control to users.
But it is also clear in more obvious and useful ways, too. Bluesky lets people choose custom algorithms, with the hope that the platform will avoid the problems that have befallen Facebook, Instagram and X when they have favoured certain kinds of content – intentionally or unintentionally – that have led to division, false information, or other negative experiences.
How do I get started on Bluesky?
Setting up an account on the site was once a complicated and slightly mysterious process of trying to get hold of early access codes and going through a not especially straightforward setup process. Now that’s all a little easier, and anyone can join.
To sign up, just head to the Bluesky homepage and click the options to register. It’s almost identical to signing up to any other online service, though you’ll have to choose your public handle – be aware that, unless you have your own domain, it will append the words “bsky.social” at the end of it.
Once you are in, you’ll see your feed, but for now it will be empty. Now it’s time to start following people (you can find The Independent here, or this journalist’s account here).
As you begin to follow people, you will find yet more of them. Just as in the early days of Twitter, users will share other potentially interesting accounts, and the site has a “popular with friends” section that will let you find other accounts.
But the real innovation of Bluesky has been the launch of starter packs, which arrived earlier this year. As the name suggests, they are a set of people that can be followed all at once – they might be everything from a group of friends to the employees of a certain organisation, and anyone can make them.
Twitter/X has been gradually making it more difficult to import your lists of friends and followers onto other platforms. While some extensions – such as Sky Follower Bridge – aim to offer that functionality, they have been hindered by X and it may be easiest to simply start afresh, or choose to manually follow any accounts that you would like to bring over to the new platform.
What now?
Once you’ve followed some people – and hopefully got some followers of your own – you can get to using the site. You can lurk and never post, or use it as a broadcast platform, or somewhere in between.
Bluesky also has some other useful features intended to make it a more helpful place to be. Click the “feeds” option from the menu and you can choose from some different algorithms – just pictures of cats, for instance – and it is offering more all the time.
Similarly, the “discover” feed will take what you are already following and also offer new posts, from which you might find something diverting or whole new people to follow.
How should I post on Bluesky?
Bluesky is still a new platform: nobody has worked out exactly what works best there, and besides it is changing rapidly. But some things are becoming clear.
As a still relatively new and largely non-algorithmic platform, the best way to get involved and grow a following seems to be posting and engaging on the site in genuine ways. It stands in contrast to Threads, for instance, which has heavily favoured its own algorithm and led to the promotion of content that tends to be at one end of two extremes: intentionally inflammatory or corporate posts from brands.
Despite its relative youth, some people have grown their platforms rapidly. Some of this might be the result of good posts, but Bluesky’s start packs also help, since they make it easy to rack up new followers – if you really want to grow your account, it might be worth trying to get in one of those, or at least becoming friends with people who are.
Are there any problems with Bluesky?
It is still relatively new – even the very ideas underpinning Bluesky are somewhat untested – so there are plenty of teething problems with the app. They run from the practical, such as sometimes going offline, to the more principled.
Recently, Bluesky faced questions over its use for AI training, for instance – the app’s API is open for anyone to scrape, which means that it can be used to gather posts to train an artificial intelligence. But Bluesky has said that it will not train generative AI on its users’ data, and is working to offer options to make it easier for those users to make clear that they do not consent to that.
