Bluesky “federalizes” itself to become a healthier alternative to Musk’s Twitter

The small world of microblogging continues to be bustling. Determined to offer a healthier platform than Musk’s Twitter, Blue Sky is now opening up to “federation” and decentralization. We’ll explain it to you.

It was a promise, it is now a reality. Bluesky, the alternative Twitter which enjoyed great success after the countless controversies caused by Elon Musk, is now opening its network more widely. In a press release published on February 22, the company announced that all its users will now be able to host their data themselves. A way to preserve privacy and ensure greater resilience to the platform.

What does that mean exactly ?

Concretely, what is changing? From now on, those who want to register on Bluesky will be able to choose to do so on the central server bsky.social or on a “federated” server, that is to say managed by a company, an association or even an individual. This server will be able to connect to all other machines on the network to provide a unified experience, but will host your data according to its own rules. Rather than entrusting all your data to Bluesky, you can choose to save it elsewhere altogether.

This opening of the network brings it a little closer to its competitor Mastodon which also operates on a decentralized architecture. On the other hand, there is no question of interconnecting Mastodon and Bluesky, the two networks use a different communication protocol and will not be able to “talk” to each other.

There is also no question of being accused of “complicating” the experience as was the case for Mastodon. Bluesky writes it in black and white, this development “will not change anything for you” and the experience will, truth be told, “so similar that you may have to think twice to make sure you’re connecting to the correct server», promises the company.

Is it like Mastodon then?

Unlike the ActivityPub used by Mastodon (and Threads), the Atproto protocol used by Bluesky binds the user profile less to a particular server. So it is easier to jump from one server to another and see messages from everyone registered on the network rather than just those from the server on which you are registered. “Changing hosts should be like changing operators — you should be able to keep your identity and data», summarizes Bluesky.

The company explains its approach by arguing that social networks should be “a public good, belonging jointly to users and the companies that run them. The social web should be as resilient as the web itself» advances the platform.

Source : Blue Sky