Brazilians Flock to Bluesky After X Ban: What Is X’s Decentralized Microblogging Rival?
Alexandre de Moraes has ordered the immediate suspension of X in Brazil.| Credit: aviation-images.com / Getty Images.
Key Takeaways
- Bluesky has surged in Brazil following the suspension of X.
- The social media platform was released to the public in February 2024.
- Bluesky was first introduced in 2019 by former Twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey.
Brazil’s Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes ordered the “immediate and complete suspension” of X on Friday, Aug. 30.
The country with the fifth-largest digital population and the biggest market for X was suddenly locked out of the social media platform.
With X no longer accessible, Brazilians began exploring alternative platforms, and Bluesky has quickly emerged as a popular choice, drawing users looking for a new digital community.
Brazilians Flock to Bluesky
Bluesky, a US decentralized microblogging social media platform, claims to have experienced a surge in Brazilian users since the ban.
On Friday, the platform announced that it had 500,000 new users join over the past two days with “all time-highs for activity”.
The platform has also topped the iPhone app chart in Brazil since the ban, ranking above Threads and Instagram.
In a post on the platform, Bluesky CEO Jay Graber wrote “good job Brazil, you made the right choice.”
What Is Bluesky?
Introduced when he was still Twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey first launched the Bluesky project in 2019. The platform opened to the public in February 2024.
At the time, the former Twitter CEO said he would fund a “small independent team of up to five open source architects, engineers, and designers” to build a decentralized standard for social media.
Dorsey announced that he had left the Bluesky board in May 2024.
“We sincerely thank Jack for his help funding and initiating the bluesky project. Today, Bluesky is thriving as an open source social network running on atproto, the decentralized protocol we have built,” the company shared in a statement.
Since Dorsey’s departure, Bluesky has been run as an independent public benefit corporation with venture capital backing.
How Is Bluesky Decentralized?
Instead of being hosted on a single company’s servers, as with traditional social media platforms like X or Facebook, Bluesky operates in a decentralized manner, meaning that various nodes or instances can host and manage content independently.
Bluesky’s decentralized protocol, called the Authenticated Transfer Protocol (AT Protocol), allows anyone to run their own server that connects to Bluesky’s network, dictating how their data is used and the rules within the platform.
This structure is intended to give users more autonomy over their data and reduce the concentration of power in the hands of a single entity.
Bluesky’s Moderation Woes
However, In the past, Bluesky has struggled with enforcing consistent moderation standards across a decentralized network while still respecting user autonomy.
Despite the so-called autonomy provided by decentralized systems, individual aspects of a system have moderation policies. This means that content acceptable in one instance might be flagged or banned in another, leading to inconsistencies.
Shortly after Bluesky’s public launch, an account with a racist handle appeared on the platform for weeks without any action. This led to significant backlash from users, who felt that the company had slacked against hate speech.
The platform responded with a series of small statements, including updating the username code and the community guidelines. A week later, CEO Graber published a formal apology to the community, admitting that the platform “should have had automated filters on user handles.”
Bluesky announced in March that it was releasing Ozone, an open-source moderation tool that lets developers create additional moderation services for users.
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