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is in hot water after meta Announcement of plan to remove politics From its recommendations on Instagram and threads, to its new Twitter-like app for text-based posts. This leaves a window of opportunity Startup BlueskyWhose CEO Jay Graber recently explained that Meta’s decision epitomizes the types of problems that can emerge when you have “an algorithm run by one company,” and how Bluesky’s app is different.
“It’s like a black box, the company can do whatever it wants, and users don’t really have a choice,” Graber said during an interview in response to a question about Meta censoring politics. Techmeme Ride Home Podcast, “The goal of initially creating algorithmic choices with Bluesky was so that you could always choose what kind of feed you were going to get. You can control your scroll,” she added.
On Bluesky, Graber said, users can choose to have a highly political social experience by following politically themed custom feeds and trending topics, or they can choose to filter out politics altogether.
Graber suggested, “Two people using the same Bluesky app – one might have a very relaxing, calm experience, no politics, just seeing their friends’ posts and maybe pictures of moss and cats.” “And then someone else can follow trending topics, Super Bowl sermons, politics, whatever is going on.”
Or, as Graber herself does, they could switch back and forth between different modes depending on what they wanted to see at that moment.
Unlike meta-driven Facebook, Instagram and Threads or even centralized platforms like Elon Musk-run X (formerly Twitter), Bluesky presents a different approach to social media. It’s like an open source Twitter competitor MastodonIn this it will also provide a decentralized social networking service, albeit powered by a different networking protocol – the AT protocol rather than ActivityPub, with which Mastodon integrates.
Although threads also, Plans to integrate with ActivityPub, Meta’s moderation decisions will eventually apply to everyone using threads, even if it becomes a node on the larger federated network that includes Mastodon and other ActivityPub-powered apps. and at Over 130 million monthly active users According to Meta’s fourth quarter, The threads would dwarf the rest of the Mastodonwhich currently has approximately 1 million monthly active users, Its website says,
Meanwhile, Bluesky is already bigger than Mastodon, having nearly doubled its user base since opening its doors to the public last week, app today Reaching 5 million users (it currently stands at 4.86 million) and is working to enable federation later this month, the company previously said.
But its big attraction for users may not be which protocols it uses for social networking, but rather the ease with which users can customize their experience – something that Mastodon is more lacking in, Which struggles with usability. Until release in SeptemberFor example, Mastodon users couldn’t even search posts; They had to rely on hashtags.
Bluesky also aims to introduce hashtags, Graber said. “It’s really on its way,” he said in the interview, referring to the hashtag’s introduction.
But at BlueSky, hashtags won’t just be a way to surface terms and trends; The CEO said they can also power custom feeds. Thanks to Bluesky’s API, developers have created custom tools, like skyfeedWhich lets anyone – even non-developers – create their own feeds using a graphical user interface.
“You can start creating custom feeds that work — based on lists, based on hashtags, based on words, based on regular expressions, based on machine learning,” Graber said. “And these tools are getting better and better and creating more options for people who want to be creative, who have an idea for a feed, but don’t know how to code.”
As election season approaches, the promise of customized, personalized social media could attract a group of users who want a Twitter alternative – X is going in a different direction related to payments, shopping, and manufacturer content – but where the rules are not determined by one person, or, In terms of metaCreated by fear of punishment by lawmakers and regulators.
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