Over the past couple of weeks, the social media site BlueSky has skyrocketed in popularity. With Elon Musk having made various big changes at X, formerly known as Twitter, including modifications to how profiles are blocked and all posts being used to train AI programs, there’s been a notable exodus from the once-beloved platform.

American author Stephen King and Star Wars actor Mark Hamill—both of whom had large followings and would post about politics as well as their own work—are two of the biggest stars to consciously uncouple from X. The Guardian also announced that it would no longer be using X to promote or share its reporting.

Enter BlueSky, the apparent heir to X. It publicly launched as an invite-only service back in February 2023, then opened to all in February 2024. Interestingly, following the 2024 US presidential election, the platform saw a 300 per cent increase in active daily users. It is now expected to overtake Threads (Meta’s X rival) within the next few months. So, what exactly is BlueSky and how does it differ from the social media platforms of yesteryear?

BlueSky started off as a project initiated by Jack Dorsey, founder of Twitter, when he was CEO in 2019. Twitter paid BlueSky “to build an open social protocol for public conversation.” It was then founded as an independent company in 2021. Supposedly, Dorsey envisioned developing a “decentralised” social network that was not controlled by any one company. However, in late 2022, Twitter (aka Musk) severed ties with BlueSky.

BlueSky is built on the AT Protocol: “an open-source toolbox for building social apps that can all talk to each other.” This includes the ability to choose and create its own algorithmic feeds and user-generated moderation and labelling services, instead of relying on a single authority.

It offers a domain name-based handle system, meaning users can verify themselves by proving ownership of a certain domain name. For instance, The Guardian uses the handle @theguardian.com—which is its central website—and this verifies the legitimacy of the account without the need for centralised validation.

I’ll be honest, I don’t fully understand how all of this works and what it all means. However, if you’re interested, BlueSky has an FAQ page that explains this all in more depth.

BlueSky is a Public Benefit Corporation (PBC), owned by CEO Jay Graber and the BlueSky team. A PBC is “a for-profit corporation that aims to produce public benefits while operating responsibly and sustainably.” The board members consist of Jay Graber, Jeremie Miller, Mike Masnick, and Kinjal Shah.

The project was first initiated by Jack Dorsey when he was still CEO at Twitter. The tech mogul left BlueSky Social’s board by May 2024.

Since Dorsey’s departure, X has taken a sharp turn for the worse, especially following Musk’s takeover. The site has become increasingly racist, homophobic, and generally bigoted, with less moderation. Although community notes have had a positive impact on fact-checking certain false claims and fake news, these are group-led and don’t always work as they should. 

Mastodon, another potential competitor, has somewhat fallen out of favour. In many ways, Mastodon is more similar to Discord, allowing users to find communities, usually tied to specific interests or subcultures.

Musk’s admiration for Trump is no secret, but now he’s set to be appointed to Trump’s cabinet in the new year. Shifting X to be pro-Trump and mega-MAGA feels like a strange choice, given Trump has his own social media service, Truth Social, which he uses for his own official announcements. The current president launched Truth Social after being banned from Twitter in the wake of the 6 January insurrection. Trump and Musk are now both rivals and allies.

BlueSky feels like the Twitter of a decade ago. Its light-blue butterfly logo even has echoes of Twitter’s bird. There’s a joyous nostalgia and a sense of building a community—or just reviving one after years of struggle. Also, there aren’t many corporations there yet: it feels social, rather than corporate. While many large corporations have stopped advertising on X (since the sharp rise in bigotry) they still use the platform for official communications. If and when this shifts to BlueSky, it could mark the point of no return. Major provocateurs—many of whom had been permanently banned from Twitter before Musk’s takeover—have already been banned from BlueSky.

Musk bought Twitter to turn it into the world’s town square: a place for discussion and a platform for a diversity of opinions. He’s turned it into a hellscape, where division and provocation are rewarded. It’s no longer a town square, more an unpleasant riot. This leaves room for a new town square, somewhere polite and fun, and it seems like BlueSky is it.