Bluesky and the AT Protocol: Usable Decentralized Social Media

Bluesky is a new social network built upon the AT Protocol, a decentralized foundation for public social media. It was launched in private beta in February 2023, and has grown to over 10 million registered users by October 2024. In this paper we introduce the architecture of Bluesky and the AT Proto...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inarXiv.org
Main Authors Kleppmann, Martin, Frazee, Paul, Gold, Jake, Graber, Jay, Holmgren, Daniel, Ivy, Devin, Johnson, Jeromy, Newbold, Bryan, Volpert, Jaz
Format Paper Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Ithaca Cornell University Library, arXiv.org 16.10.2024
Subjects
Computer Science - Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing
Computer Science - Social and Information Networks
Cryptography
Digital media
Modernization
Social networks
User experience
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Summary:Bluesky is a new social network built upon the AT Protocol, a decentralized foundation for public social media. It was launched in private beta in February 2023, and has grown to over 10 million registered users by October 2024. In this paper we introduce the architecture of Bluesky and the AT Protocol, and explain how the technical design of Bluesky is informed by our goals: to enable decentralization by having multiple interoperable providers for every part of the system; to make it easy for users to switch providers; to give users agency over the content they see; and to provide a simple user experience that does not burden users with complexity arising from the system's decentralized nature. The system's openness allows anybody to contribute to content moderation and community management, and we invite the research community to use Bluesky as a dataset and testing ground for new approaches in social media moderation.
ISSN:2331-8422
DOI:10.48550/arxiv.2402.03239