Twitter rival Bluesky halts sign-ups after huge surge in demand following Musk’s rate limits

‘Everything that once made Twitter special seems to be leaching away,’ one convert writes

The decentralised Bluesky app was created by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

Twitter rival Bluesky has been forced to temporarily pause sign-ups after experiencing a surge of interest following Elon Musk’s decision to introduce new limits to his social network.

The tech billionaire began limiting the number of tweets people can read on Saturday, claiming that it was necessary to address “extreme levels of data scraping and system manipulation”.

The move prevents unverified users from seeing more than 600 Twitter posts a day, while paid subscribers can view up to 6,000. It prompted renewed interest in rival apps, including Mastodon, whose creator said 110,000 new users joined the platform in just one day.

Bluesky, which was founded by former Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey, is currently in private beta, meaning people can only sign up if they have an invite code from another user.

“We will temporarily be pausing Bluesky sign-ups while our team continues to resolve the existing performance issues,” the company said over the weekend.

“We’ll keep you updated when invite codes will resume functionality. We’re excited to welcome more users to our beta soon!”

Among those making the transition from Twitter to Bluesky to Twitter is Paul Cooper, host of the Fall of Civilization podcast.

Last month, Mr Musk encouraged the history podcast to “please upload your podcasts” to Twitter, though Mr Cooper replied that he considered the platform “too compromised” to make such a move.

“It’s become a safe haven for hate speech, and meanwhile crypto scammers and bots are paying to be boosted to the top of replies,” the podcast host wrote.

“Everything that once made Twitter special seems to be leaching away.”

Mr Musk said the limits introduced for Twitter users would be temporary, though did not specify when they would be removed. Twitter responded to a request from The Independent for more information with its customary poop emoji.