Following the controversial changes made by tech billionaire Elon Musk on the microblogging site Twitter, its former CEO Jack Dorsey has launched Bluesky for those who are missing the old platform.
As the app opens and the option of creating an account is clicked, it says: “This is the company that keeps you online”.
The Bluesky was launched on iOS in February and on Android this month.
Its system is run on a decentralised network providing users more control over how the service is operated, giving more control over data storage and content moderation to users.
Recently Dorsey’s Bluesky gained the attention of people such as Democratic Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Chrissy Teigen, among others.
Find out what this Jack Dorsey’s new platform is.
What is Bluesky?
It is a new social network for microblogging same to Twitter, in which its users post different kinds of updates posts on their timelines. However, in the new app, there are no hashtags or options to message directly to other users.
The Bluesky was created independently of Twitter when Jack Dorsey was its CEO. However, it was funded by the company until it became independent in February last year.
Dorsey introduced his idea in a Tweet back in 2019, saying it also plans to “build an open community around it, inclusive of companies [and] organisations, researchers, civil society leaders.” Still, he warned, “this isn’t going to happen overnight.”
Dorsey said last year: “The biggest issue and my biggest regret is that [Twitter] became a company.”
He later clarified that “if a service was a protocol, it can’t be owned by a state or company.”
Twitter facing exodus?
People are finding alternatives to Twitter who are frustrated by the decisions of its CEO Elon Musk, who acquired it for $44 billion last year.
In the time span of six months, Elon Musk decided to make several controversial changes, such as blue ticks from prominent figures, sparking fears of disinformation and fake news.
Some of the important public figures are opting for Bluesky after Musk’s new direction.
Data.ai reported that Bluesky has been downloaded more than 375,000 times from the Apple App Store and the waitlist continues to be flooded with signup requests.
The number of downloads on Google Play can be seen more than 100,000 times.
It remains to be seen how Bluesky would sustain its presence and won’t be eclipsed as Mastodon — a similar platform gained attention last year.
The early shift toward Bluesky is a positive one, as it gives social media users more choice over where they spend their time, said Mark Bartholomew, a professor at the University at Buffalo School of Law who writes about online privacy.
“Competition might actually help users find the product features they want, like greater privacy protection, portability, and more significant content moderation,” added Bartholomew.
“Social media platforms have features that users dislike but they still feel like they must accept them to just be in the online space where everyone else is,” he said.
He also noted that People went to Bluesky because Musk forced them to, by “sabotaging his own platform.”
The New York-based cybersecurity firm Wiz has discovered a cache of sensitive data from the Chinese artificial intelligence business DeepSeek that was mistakenly exposed to the public internet.
In a blog post released on Wednesday, Wiz reported that examinations of DeepSeek’s infrastructure revealed that the company had inadvertently exposed over a million lines of unencrypted data. The materials were digital software keys and chat logs that seemingly documented prompts transmitted from consumers to the company’s complimentary AI assistant.
The chief technical officer of Wiz stated that DeepSeek promptly safeguarded the data following the notice from his organisation.
“It was removed in under an hour,” stated Ami Luttwak. “However, this was exceedingly easy to locate, leading us to believe we are not the sole discoverers.”
DeepSeek did not promptly respond to a request for comment.
DeepSeek’s rapid success after the introduction of its AI helper has exhilarated China and incited concern in America. The Chinese company’s evident capacity to rival OpenAI’s skills at a significantly reduced cost has raised concerns regarding the viability of the business models and profit margins of U.S. AI behemoths like Nvidia and Microsoft.
By Monday, it surpassed the U.S. competitor ChatGPT in downloads from Apple’s App Store, prompting a worldwide decline in technology stocks.
WhatsApp has initiated testing of a bulk channel administration feature on iOS for select beta users, enabling the simultaneous selection of many channels, hence enhancing the efficiency of managing following channels.
This essential update enables users to perform bulk activities, including muting many channels simultaneously, designating them as read, and altering notifications. If the chosen channels are muted, users will now have the option to activate notifications. Users can swiftly silence unmuted channels in one action.
Additionally, this feature enables users to unfollow many channels simultaneously, thereby optimizing the process of decluttering their channel list. This change is particularly beneficial for users that oversee numerous subscriptions, as reported by WABetaInfo.
Previously, users were required to manage each channel individually, rendering tasks such as muting or designating channels as read laborious and time-consuming.
The functionality provides enhanced flexibility and control over channel subscriptions, enabling users to efficiently manage notifications. The solution streamlines laborious operations for consumers who subscribe to numerous channels, hence enhancing their entire experience.
Accessibility The bulk management feature is presently accessible exclusively to a limited number of beta testers who installed the latest WhatsApp beta for iOS using the TestFlight application. WhatsApp, owned by Meta, plans to expand the feature’s availability to a larger user base in the next weeks.
This update demonstrates WhatsApp’s dedication to enhancing user experience by offering a clear and efficient method for managing channels and notifications.
Even after two weeks, the global submarine cable AAA-1 problem that was discovered on January 2 near Qatar has not been fixed, causing sluggish internet connection in several Pakistani towns.
According to a representative for Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL), the issue has affected customers’ capacity to effectively access social media applications and browse the online. Even with initiatives to fix the problem, social networking sites still lag during busy times.
Internet traffic has been redirected via alternate channels to lessen the impact, and more capacity has been set up to stabilize the service.
The PTCL representative promised that “Internet service across the country is operating normally, and there will be no issues with web browsing,” noting that social media applications’ lag is common during