BlueSky: Social Media 2.0
With the rapid evolution of social media, BlueSky has become one of the most exciting platforms to hit our phones: a platform on a mission to take down tech giants including Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. BlueSky was launched in 2022 and brought itself into the limelight by offering a daring dream of a decentralized social media platform focused on privacy, openness, and user agency.
In this article, we will be discussing everything about BlueSky; its main features, the technology behind it and how it plans to transform social media in a way that the current platforms have not been able to.
What Is BlueSky?
BlueSky is a social network that hopes to change the entire model behind how social media operates and provide meta-competitiveness, allowing you greater control over your data and algorithmic discovery of tailored content. BlueSky is a decentralized social networking protocol that was initially incubated by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, as part of his decades-long fascination with decentralized tech.
BlueSky differs from other social media networks as it is built on a decentralized protocol — meaning that unlike owned and operated traditional social media networks (Meta, Twitter etc),)init would run on an independent consensus layer. So, that means there is no ownership or control of the platform by a central entity. Instead, BlueSky runs on an open-source system called the AT Protocol (Authenticated Transfer Protocol), enabling external developers to build their own applications or services that can work with the BlueSky network.
Or, BlueSky is built to not be a mere social media app. It imagines a landscape where instead of private companies laying down the law with their so-called “standards” for privacy, social networks are all interconnected, and controlled by communities in line with federation principles.
The Tech Behind BlueSky: The Decentralisation That Underpins It
And this leads us to the crux of BlueSky vision — its decentralization. To then, here is a simple explanation of the basics:
Why Decentralization is Important: Look at the Problem of Centralized Social Media
The main drive behind BlueSky is to establish a social media ecosystem that can solve the problems which have become so widespread in conventional platforms. Decentralization Is Important — Here Are A Few Reasons Why
Data Control: The huge concern with social media giants such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram is the control of user data and These services collect a lot of personal data and sell it to other third parties such as ad agencies or some other tech giants. BlueSky operates on a decentralized model, meaning data is under the power of its users rather than any entity and thus privacy will once again be in the hands of the people.
Censorship Prevention: In centralized platforms, content moderation is done by a few corporate executives or a centralized team deciding whether to allow or ban particular content. This too frequently ends with the charge of bias or censorship. The key here is the federated system of BlueSky which gives every individual community its own content policy, so the chances of any single entity silencing dissenting voices are pretty low.
The great irony is that most social media platforms nowadays are built on algorithms, yet those algorihms we have no visibility over. These algorithms tend to promote sensational, controversial or divisive content since this is more effective in retaining users. BlueSky wants its algorithms to be more transparent so that people have more say in the content they are exposed to.
Liberating Itself from Corporate Interests: BlueSky is trying to appear a social media platform that is not based on ad revenue — and therefore engagement-based algorithms. This approach of decentralisation seeks to escape from the hamster wheel of prioritising profit over user experience.
