Social Media

Jack Dorsey beta testing new social media app to rival Twitter

Bluesky is now available in Apple's App Store. However, an invite code is needed to use the app.

Technology entrepreneur and former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey
Technology entrepreneur and former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey
Francois Mori / AP
SMS

Jack Dorsey has created a new social media app that will rival Twitter, which he co-founded. 

Bluesky is now available in Apple's App Store. However, an invite code is needed to use the app. Users can submit their email to join the waitlist to try the beta version before it's publicly available. 

Bluesky claims its different from Twitter because it's open source, meaning there is no centralized control. 

"We‘re building the AT Protocol, a new foundation for social networking which gives creators independence from platforms, developers the freedom to build, and users a choice in their experience," Bluesky says on its website. 

Dorsey stepped down from his role as the chief executive officer of Twitter in Nov. 2021. He left Twitter because he said the company was ready to move on from its founders.Parag Agrawal took over as Twitter CEO until Elon Musk purchased the company for $44 billion in 2022. 

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Dorsey initially supported Musk's takeover. 

"In principle, I don’t believe anyone should own or run Twitter. It wants to be a public good at a protocol level, not a company. Solving for the problem of it being a company however, Elon is the singular solution I trust," Dorsey tweeted. "I trust his mission to extend the light of consciousness."

However, Dorsey has recently taken a more confrontational tone. He has since mocked Twitter for abrupt outages. 

"Used to be when anything went down, people went to Twitter to talk about it," Dorsey stated on social media. 

Whether Bluesky will be as successful as Twitter remains to be seen. Twitter reportedly has about 450 million monthly active users.

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