Bluesky now open to everyone

Bluesky is building an open social network where anyone can contribute, while still providing an easy-to-use experience for users. For the past year, we used invite codes to help us manage growth while we built features like moderation tooling, custom feeds, and more. Now, we’re ready for anyone to join.

We’ve been working on more features that put you in control of your social media experience. Here’s what you can expect to see soon:

Stackable Moderation Services​

Safety is core to social media. Bluesky moderates the app according to our community guidelines, and our vision for composable moderation allows users to stack more moderation services together, such as subscribable moderation lists.

In the coming weeks, we’re excited to release the labeling services which will allow users to stack more options on top of their existing moderation preferences. This will allow other organizations and people to run their own moderation services that can account for industry-specific knowledge or specific cultural norms, among other preferences.

One potential use case for labeling is fact-checking. For example, a fact-checking organization can run a labeling service and mark posts as “partially false,” “misleading,” or other categories. Then, users who trust this organization can subscribe to their labels. As the user scrolls through posts in the app, any labels that the fact-checking organization publishes will be visible on the post itself. This helps in the effective distribution of the fact-check and keeps users better informed.

We’ll be sharing more in the coming weeks. In the meantime, if you’re interested in partnering with Bluesky and setting up a labeling service, contact us at [email protected].

An Open Social Network​

When you log in to Bluesky, it might look and feel familiar — the user experience should be straightforward. But under the hood, we’ve designed the app in a way that puts control back in your hands. Here, your experience online isn’t controlled by a single company. Whether it's your timeline or content filters, on Bluesky, you can easily customize your social experience.

This month, we’ll be rolling out an experimental early version of “federation,” or the feature that makes the network so open and customizable. On Bluesky, you’ll have the freedom to choose (and the right to leave) instead of being held to the whims of private companies or black box algorithms. And wherever you go, your friends and relationships can go with you.

For developers: We’ve already federated the network among multiple servers internally, and later this month, you’ll be able to self-host a server that connects to the main production network. You’ll be part of the first batch of servers that federate with the network, so expect to experiment alongside us! We’ll share more information on how to join the production network with your own server soon. In the meantime, you can test out your server set up via our developer sandbox. Find instructions here.