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Bluesky now supports better quality photos

Posted on April 23, 2026 by faz_business

Bluesky is beefing up its social network as a better place to post photos. Late Wednesday, the company announced a new version of its app (version 1.121), which boosts the quality of images in posts both in terms of upload size and resolution.

Before, Bluesky only supported photo uploads of 1MB or less. Now, that limit has doubled to 2MB. In addition, photos will render at up to 4000px, instead of 2000x, as before.

In addition, the company replaced its old image grid with a swipeable carousel that can handle mixed aspect ratios without cropping. (Although early feedback from some Bluesky users indicates that they would prefer the choice between posting as a grid or carousel.)

The changes could make Bluesky’s app more competitive with other social networks, like X or Meta’s Threads.

The latter became well known after its launch as a showcase for photos, thanks to its support for a variety of aspect ratios and its carousel, which offered clever ways to split up larger photos for viewing in this way. In fact, it even inspired a developer to create a standalone app to help users post their panoramic photos to Threads. (Threads still supports a larger maximum image size, though it isn’t published in Threads’ documentation.)

Barack Obama joins Bluesky | TechCrunch

Posted on March 23, 2025 by faz_business

Social network Bluesky, an alternative to X built on open source technologies, has scored a big win in terms of attracting notable users to its platform. The company on Sunday confirmed that former president Barack Obama has joined its service.

Bluesky OOO Rose Wang replied to a post where someone wondered if the account posting as Obama was legitimately him by writing “Confirmed!”

In his first few posts on the platform, Obama celebrated the 15th anniversary of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), calling it “a reminder that change is possible when we fight for progress.”

The former president maintains a large following on other social media platforms, including X and Facebook, where he has 130.6 million followers and 55 million followers, respectively.

However, Elon Musk’s X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, has lost a number of users to alternative social networks, including Bluesky, after the 2024 U.S. elections. Musk used X to campaign for President Trump and promote MAGA-aligned political views. He also now holds a prominent position in Trump’s circle thanks to his involvement with DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency), which has been working to reduce the federal government workforce, cut spending, and dismantle government agencies.

Not surprisingly, many left-leaning U.S. users no longer want to participate on X. Their exodus from the platform led to a large bump in user growth for Bluesky in late 2024. Today, the new social network has over 33 million users and is continuing to grow.

Other U.S. politicians are already active on Bluesky, including well-known names like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Al Green, Gavin Newsom, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who became the first person on Bluesky to hit a million followers. Many other representatives, senators, and governors have also joined the network.

Bluesky adds 3-minute video uploads and inbox management features

Posted on March 10, 2025 by faz_business

Bluesky continues to beef up its video capabilities. The app’s adds support for uploads of up to 3 minutes, a notable expansion from its previous limit of one minute. The change should give video creators on Bluesky much more flexibility in what they can post. It will also likely be appreciated by fans , the new Bluesky-based photo and video app.

The update also brings some much needed inbox-management tools to Bluesky DMs, with the addition of a new “requests” section for incoming messages from users you don’t know. You’ll also now be able to reject incoming chats, which should help reduce the number of that have been flooding many users’ inboxes in recent weeks.

The latest Bluesky update rolled out as CEO Jay Graber appeared onstage at SXSW for a keynote about the growing decentralized social media platform, which has just under 33 million users. Graber, who was wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with a Latin slogan “mundus sine caesaribus” (a world without Caesars) — an apparent play on Mark Zuckerberg’s affinity for Roman Empire-inspired — spoke about why Bluesky is “billionaire-proof” compared with other apps.

Zuckerberg's shirt translates to — Zuckerberg’s shirt translates to “All Zuck or all nothing.” Graber’s says “A world with no Caesars.” (Screenshot via X)

“If a billionaire came in and bought Bluesky or took it over, or I decided tomorrow to change things in a way that people really didn’t like, then they could fork off and go on to another application,” she said. “That openness guarantees that there’s always the ability to move to a new alternative, still using the same network. There’s much less tolerance in the ecosystem for a very heavy-handed change.”

She also opened up about how Bluesky is thinking about its business model and generative AI. On the business side, she said the company is “exploring subscriptions” as well as paid “developer services” for those who build experiences on top of Bluesky. In a similar vein, she also said the company was considering how it could eventually turn some of its features, like moderation services or custom feeds, into a “marketplace” where the company may get a cut of potential transactions.

When it comes to large language models, she said the company was “working with some partners on developing a framework for user consent, for how they want their data to be used for generative AI.”

Bluesky implements a ‘more aggressive’ impersonation policy

Posted on November 30, 2024 by faz_business

Bluesky has updated its impersonation policy to be “more aggressive” after third-party analysis highlighted its verification problem. The Bluesky Safety account said that the social media service is removing accounts that are impersonating other people and those squatting on handles. Bluesky doesn’t have a conventional verification system, so it’s easy for unscrupulous users to pretend to be someone else either for attention or to scam other people. That may not have been a serious problem in the past, but the recent influx of new users threw the issue into stark relief.

While users can verify their identities on Bluesky by linking their account to a domain name, the process isn’t as straightforward as paying for a checkmark. They’d have to add a string of text to the DNS record associated with their domain so that they could claim their URL. For instance, we could claim the Engadget.com handle on Bluesky if we go through this self-verification process. Individuals can link their accounts to personal domains or pay for Bluesky’s custom domain service. In its new announcement, the platform say’s it’s working with organizations and high-profile individuals to set up their verified handles.

That said, when a user verifies their account, their old handle (typically username.bsky.social) gets freed up and becomes available to other people who sign up. Alexios Mantzarlis, the third party from Cornell Tech who analyzed the app’s userbase, found that 44 percent of Bluesky’s 100 most-followed accounts have a doppelganger. That is why Bluesky now requires parody, satire or fan accounts to label themselves as such in both their handles and their bio. If they don’t, or if they only indicate the nature of their account in one of those elements, then they’ll be treated as an impersonator and will be removed from the platform.

Bluesky now explicitly prohibits identity churning, as well. Accounts that start as impersonators with the purpose of gaining new users, and who then switch to a different identity in an attempt to circumvent the ban, will still get booted off the app. Finally, it says it’s exploring “additional options to enhance account verification,” though they’re not quite ready for rollout.

Jack Dorsey departs Bluesky board

Posted on May 6, 2024 by faz_business

Bluesky’s most prominent backer has left its board.

On Saturday, Jack Dorsey posted on X about grants for open protocols from his philanthropic Start Small initiative. This prompted someone to ask Dorsey if he was still on the Bluesky board, and he responded with a terse “no.” Dorsey did not answer any of the follow-up posts asking him to explain his departure.

It’s not clear when Dorsey left the board; as of Sunday morning, Bluesky’s corporate FAQ still identified him as a board member. Later that afternoon, the company published the following statement:

We sincerely thank Jack for his help funding and initiating the bluesky project. Today, Bluesky is thriving as an open source social network running on atproto, the decentralized protocol we have built.

With Jack’s departure, we are searching for a new board member for the Bluesky public benefit company who shares our commitment to building a social network that puts people in control of their experience. More to come!

Dorsey first announced Bluesky in 2019, back when he was still CEO of Twitter. He wrote that Twitter (now X) was “funding a small independent team of up to five open source architects, engineers, and designers to develop an open and decentralized standard for social media.”

Since then, Bluesky has become an independent public benefit corporation, led by CEO Jay Graber, with VC backing, and it opened to the general public in February.

Dorsey appears to have deleted his Bluesky account at some point last year, though his departure was only acknowledged at the time by a smattering of social media posts. (He also deleted his Instagram account.) Despite this, he remained the biggest name associated with the project.

Back on X, Dorsey has had a pretty active weekend. In addition to dropping corporate news, he’s also weighed in on the beef between Drake and Kendrick Lamar, unfollowed nearly every other account, and posted, “don’t depend on corporations to grant you rights. defend them yourself using freedom technology. (you’re on one)”

This story has been updated with a statement from Bluesky confirming Dorsey’s departure.