Twitter alternative Bluesky launches as Android app

Former Twitter boss Jack Dorsey aims to create ‘decentralised standard for social media’

Former CEO of Twitter Jack Dorsey at the Bitcoin 2021 Convention at the Mana Convention Center in Miami on 4 June, 2021 (Getty Images)

A Twitter alternative created by the former head of the social media giant has launched for billions of users around the world.

Nearly four years after it was first conceived, Jack Dorsey’s Bluesky app is finally available for Android users to download, however an invite code is still required for full access.

Bluesky positions itself as a “social internet” that has no corporate oversight and aims to offer users personalised and transparent algorithms that serve content.

Mr Dorsey first announced the creation of Bluesky in 2019 when he was still in charge of Twitter, tasking a group of five developers with building a “decentralised standard” for social media.

The project initially received funding from Twitter but became an independent company in 2022 during Elon Musk’s takeover of the firm.

“The biggest and long term goal is to build a durable and open protocol for public conversation. That it not be owned by any one organisation but contributed by as many as possible. And that it is born and evolved on the internet with the same principles,” Mr Dorsey wrote in an initial brief for developers working on the app in 2020.

Controversy with Twitter following Mr Musk’s takeover, including mass layoffs and the removal of blue checkmarks for non-paying users, has led some users to seek alternatives to the platform.

Options like Mastodon and Hive have so far failed to attract anywhere near the same number of users as Twitter, though Mastodon saw user growth of more than 700 per cent last year.

Bluesky says it offers users ‘a composable, customizable marketplace of algorithms that lets you take control of how you spend your attention’ (Bluesky)

Bluesky so far has more than 50,000 downloads, according to metrics from Google’s Play Store for Android apps, despite still being in invite-only mode.

The app is already available for iPhone users after launching on iOS in February, helping its user growth jump from around 1,000 new members a day to more than 2,500.