It's a social network that looks/works remarkably like Twitter (it was actually created by Twitter a few years ago as an experiment on how to make a next-generation "networking protocol" for Twitter, in the belief that twitter is too centralised and controllable by whomever owns twitter - they wanted to create a new system that was more "open" and couldnt be controlled (eg like email). It was spun off as a separate business prior to Musk buying Twitter. So from a user perspective it's remarkably like twitter, has no adverts, and the userbase is a lot friendlier (it feels a lot more like the early days of twitter before all the racists etc turned up).
Is there a functioning trust and safety system so that it's not just a free-for-all of racists/porn?
Why yes, there's a number of things they do - as it's an open network standard they can't stop someone creating an account and posting what they like, but they can make it really hard for people to see it unless they specifically want to, as:
- The platform has the concept of moderators (that you can 'subscribe' to) who label content - the core bluesky team themselves provide a default one where they filter out people/posts creating posts that go against their rules - within the official bluesky app you can choose in your settings what kinds of content you want to see - eg by default you're not gonna see posts flagged as racist, but it you loved racist content you could disable that filter in your app to view it. There's currently a 3rd party org enabled by default that also flag (and optionally filter out) untruthful/missleading news posts/links (again you can disable that filter if you desperately wanted to).
- Theres a pretty flexible functionality for filtering/blocking all content with certain keywords you can set up yourself in the app for if theres stuff you just dont want to see.
- It also has the concept of "mute/block lists" that you can optionally subscribe to - your feed will then not show you posts/comments from any account listed in a block list you subscribe to. https://boringstorybook.com/bluesky-mute-lists-for-beginners/
- Bluesky also has the concept of custom timeline algorithms - you can for example just look at posts by your friends. They also provide a "discover" timeline (which is like twitter of old where it surfaces posts that friends/randoms are liking that are on subjects you seem to like), but anyone can also create their own algorithm for a timeline that anyone else can then subscribe to if they like it (you can subscribe to multiple, they each have a separate tab) - eg if you like gardening then you can have a feed of just gardening related content: https://bsky.app/profile/eepy.bsky.social/feed/aaao6g552b33o
Generally the current population of Bluesky are "nice" and looking to create a more welcoming environment than the binfire the "X" has become. Case in point - GBNews have an account and have less than 200 followers our of 15 million+ bluesky users. #Wokerati
Sign up for an account at https://bsky.app . There's mobile apps - an official one (which is great) but it's an open platform so 3rd party ones will also come.
Default username are in the format @your-chosen-username.bsky.social if you sign up at https://bsky.app (again, as its an open platform and there may be other providers later - think of how like with email theres lots of providers but it all interoperates).
FYI for companies/brands, you can customise your handle to your business/brand domain name instead and use it as proof/verification that you are the official account (as only the owner of a website domain can create a handle the same as it) - eg only theguardian.com could create the bluesky handle @theguardian.com (how to: https://bsky.social/about/blog/4-28-2023-domain-handle-tutorial). You can also use a similar trick to give eg employees their own handle eg @grace-dent.theguardian.com as you control the domain so it acts as proof that account is authorised by your company.
If you're using Google Chrome or Firefox as your web browser, install the following plugin, go to your 'following' page on twitter and run the plugin - it will try to find each of the people you follow on twitter on bluesky that have the same username (or failing that the same name) and let you choose which to follow on bluesky (twitter charge an absolute fortune for API access these days, so the browser plugin is a sneaky work-around - take that Musk!)
Bluesky allows any user to create one or more "starter packs" - a named list of people they recommend - many people have created lists of interesting people for any given subject area - you can browse a directory of most of the packs here: https://blueskydirectory.com/starter-packs
Someones created a knock-off of Tweetdeck for bluesky here: https://deck.blue/
FYI I'm @fortybelowzero.com on Bluesky ( https://bsky.app/profile/fortybelowzero.com )