‘The open architecture of Bluesky actually enables at least tech-savvy users to make a decisive contribution to the core aspects of a social network, namely the recommendation and moderation of content,’ explains Professor Björn Scheuermann, Head of the Communication Networks department. ‘And we have found that this option is very much utilised by the community.’ With its transparency and openness, Bluesky is ‘a paradise’ for science, especially as Twitter/X has practically prevented access to usage data for independent research purposes by introducing exorbitant fees.

In addition to the major advantages, the decentralised platform is also associated with disadvantages, according to the study. For example, there is an increasing debate about who has the rights to the content and how open data access can be protected against misuse, explains Balduf. It has also been shown that the system could possibly be overwhelmed by the huge growth and that the future financing of the currently ad-free service is an open question. Since the relatively new platform was opened to the general public in February 2024, the number of users has increased tenfold from around 2.5 million to around 28 million today.

In addition to TU Darmstadt, five other universities from the UK, France and China were involved in the study. The TU scientists contributed the majority of the data collection and analysis. Among other things, they analysed the moderation of content. The study was partly financed by funds from the recently expired Collaborative Research Centre ‘Multi-mechanism Adaptation for the Future Internet’ (MAKI).