Bluesky, the open source social media platform that started its life as an internal project of Twitter, has gained a new feature that can give it an advantage in its competition with X and Threads. The platform, which opened its doors to all users a while ago, also started to offer the direct messaging feature. The company had recently announced this plan.
The company announced on its official blog that the messaging feature is available both in the application and on the website. Under the default setting, users allow receiving messages from people they follow. However, the settings can be changed to receive messages from “everyone” or “nobody”.
Bluesky's DM feature is currently quite simple. Users can only send text messages to each other. However, it is said that work is continuing for features such as media sending, group chat and end-to-end encryption.
Until then, the company says it will be able to access users' messages in some cases when “absolutely necessary,” such as when investigating spam or harassment. The blog post on the subject states: “In rare cases, the Bluesky moderation team may need to open your DMs to investigate broader patterns of abuse, such as spam or coordinated harassment. This will only be done when absolutely necessary to keep Bluesky safe. “Access is extremely limited and monitored internally.”
Bluesky is not suitable for sharing sensitive information
So, like many other social platforms, Bluesky DMs are probably not the ideal space for sharing sensitive information. But the addition of messaging could probably be described as welcome news for users hoping for more connections and non-public conversations on the service.