You’ve left Twitter and moved to Bluesky: here’s what you need to know

Listen, I get it. We’re not young anymore; our bones creak, we’re a bit cranky all the time and there’s no point in trying to down pints like we used to. Once upon a time, we could join a new social media platform and, within days, make it feel like home. It was nice, wasn’t it? Feeling so alive, so excited by the world? Oh, how that life feels distant now.

Still, sometimes we do as we must, and even the laziest among us can see that Twitter is no longer a viable platform on which to spend our days. I could explain why that is but, unless you’ve been living in a cave for the past few years, you’ll know what I’m talking about.

Bluesky seems to be the place to which most escapees are flocking, and while it looks similar to the Artist Formerly Known As Twitter, some of its features and customs may seem a bit bewildering. Worry not, however! I, Marie Le Conte, somehow one of the first 50,000 people to join the place, can give you a few pointers to get you started.

Follow, follow, follow

If you’ve come straight from Twitter, you may have got used to the algorithm pushing new and random people into your timeline every day, for good or ill. Bluesky – happily! – has no such algorithm, meaning that what you see on your timeline is what you decide to put in there. If you want things to feel busy, there’s only one thing you can do: find interesting people and follow them. It will feel a bit labour-intensive at first but will be worth it.

One tip I can offer is to download the Sky Follower Bridge, which will help you find the people you followed on Twitter before everything collapsed.

There’s a starter pack for everything

Luckily for you, some clever people over at Bluesky realised a while ago that, without an algorithm, new people may be hard to find. As a result, they decided to launch “starter packs”; essentially lists of like-minded people to follow, either individually or as a group. If you want to get started, there are a number of them here.

Many of them are made organically, however, so once you start following people you’ll get access to more starter packs, and through that you’ll get more people to follow, and isn’t that a nice virtuous cycle?

Get ready then get chatting!

Again, because there is no algorithm, people will only be able to find you if you want to be found. Follow accounts you find interesting then reply to their posts – that’s the only way they’ll be able to realise you exist. On the bright side, though, it is not a place where paying Elon Musk a few pounds a month guarantees you a spot at the top of a person’s replies, so it’s a real, democratic free-for-all.

One note of caution, though: please fill in your profile before you do this! If someone sees a reply from an empty profile and no bio or picture they won’t have any incentive to follow you back, and may even think you’re a bot.

Be nice, use alt text

Bluesky aims to be a friendly and inclusive space to all, and the etiquette there demands that you add a few words or lines of description to any image you may add to a post, so they can be read by people who, for whatever reason, can’t see well or at all. It can take a while to get used to but is a nice reminder that social media can be a pleasant and, well, social place.

Block early, block often

Another significant upgrade from Musk’s Kingdom is that Bluesky does not condone or encourage trolling and pile-ons, and takes abuse seriously. If you block someone on there, it will not only make them unable to read your posts, but will also delete every interaction that led to your blocking. This way, it is impossible for malevolent outsiders to pick up where your foe left off. If you decide an argument is done, it is done.

Perhaps most importantly, blocking is very much encouraged over there; no-one owes unpleasant users anything. On which note, this is probably all the wisdom I can offer – see you there, in our blue and pleasant land!