Today marks the day when Twitter's (cough, X, cough) new terms of service goes into effect that essentially gives Twitter the rights to use anything shared on the platform to train Grok, their AI program, as well as some other stuff that a lot of people aren't thrilled about. As a result, I think we have seen the biggest jump from Twitter yet, and it appears most people are jumping to Bluesky.
I've used Bluesky for since August of 2023. Bluesky has felt like the closest clone to Twitter out there to me, and I always hoped that Bluesky would reach a point where I could use it as my Twitter replacement. Honestly, I would have preferred more people jump over to Mastodon as I love that platform, but it doesn't seem like that one is easy for people to jump in and use like Bluesky. Unfortunately for Bluesky, I would see a person I follow on Twitter appear and mention they were going to give it a try only for them to go quiet while they continued to use Twitter like they always had.
That started to change once Twitter announced their new Terms of Service (TOS). There was a group that jumped to Bluesky shortly after the announcement, and it continued to ramp up as we got closer and closer to November 15th. I got excited the closer we got because more and more of the accounts I followed or interacted with on Twitter were starting to use Bluesky more and more. The tipping point hit around the US election where I found myself on Bluesky more than on Twitter because I was getting almost the same content.
I'm happy to see one of the many Twitter clones out there finally feel like the one "everyone" is jumping on. I know Bluesky has a protocol that allows for federation much like Mastodon. I hope they start really pushing that part. It is also possible to follow the account @ap.brid.gy with your Bluesky account to make it possible for people on the Fediverse (like Mastodon users) to follow your posts as well. Connected accounts can also find Mastodon users that are connected too and follow them. For example, I follow Gargron, the creator of Mastodon, with my Bluesky account.
Speaking of following people, if you are interested in following me, I have links to my Mastodon, Bluesky, and Threads accounts below. Feel free to click the social network of choice. I primarily use Mastodon and Bluesky. Sometimes I jump on Threads.
It will be interesting to see how this all plays out going forward. I'm fascinated to see if Bluesky will continue its perceived dominance or if all of the networks pick up various people and we have to keep jumping around to talk to those we once knew on Twitter.
