Decentralized social network and Twitter rival Bluesky is finally letting users look at posts on its platform without logging in. People still need an invite to create an account and start posting but can read posts through a link.
This move will also let publishers link to or embed Bluesky posts in blogs. Plus, users can share them in individual or group chats.
Bluesky users can toggle on a setting through Settings > Moderation > Logged-out visibility to stop the social network from showing their posts for logged-out users. However, that limit only applies to Bluesky’s website and own app. The company said other third-party clients might not respect the toggle and show your posts anyway. So if you want to not share posts with a wider audience, you will need to make your profile private.
Bluesky’s logged-out user visibility settings apply to its own applications and websites. Photo credit: blue sky
In a blog post, company CEO Jay Graber also unveiled a new butterfly emoji logo, which replaces the generic “um… blue sky and white clouds” logo.
“Early on, we noticed that people were naturally using the butterfly emoji 🦋 to show off their Bluesky handles,” Graber said. “We really liked it and adopted it as word spread. The butterfly represents our mission to transform social media into something new.”
This year, Bluesky launched iOS and Android apps and reached 2 million users. The social network has also launched various moderation tools after facing criticism over the type of content allowed on the platform. While Bluesky is currently the only entity on the AT protocol, the company aims to establish the alliance “early next year.” This means there may be more servers and instances that are compatible with Bluesky and have their own rules.
Bluesky’s announcement comes at a time when Meta’s Threads has started experimenting with ActivityPub integration. After Meta’s announcement earlier this month, Instagram head Adam Mosseri and other folks from the Threads team have started making their accounts and posts visible on Mastodon and other compatible apps.
