What to know before signing up for Bluesky

If you’re on Twitter, you’ve probably seen people flocking to Bluesky, a social platform hailed as a promising alternative to the now-ailing bird app. It looks nearly identical to Twitter, was initially funded by Twitter, and calls itself a “social network for microblogging” which, huh, is funny because that’s exactly what Twitter is. Anyway! Before you go running for Bluesky’s greener pastures, it’s important to know what you’re agreeing to when you sign up for the platform.Bluesky currently owns everything you postOn Thursday Apr. 27, Twitter user Ashley Gjøvik tweeted about Bluesky’s disconcertingly broad terms of service. She tweeted several screenshots of the terns, including a snippet that reads “If you post any content to the Bluesky Web Services, you hereby grant Bluesky and its licensees a worldwide, perpetual, royalty-free, non-exclusive right and license to use, reproduce, publicly display, publicly perform, modify, sublicense, and distribute the content, on or in connection with the Bluesky Web Services.”In plain English that means: we own everything you post. Rose Wang, who works in Strategy and Operations at Bluesky according to her LinkedIn profile, replied to Gjøvik’s screenshots with an explanation of how Bluesky’s team intends to interpret the terms: “In order for us to operate, we need to be able to promote the app,” wrote Wang. “That means, we will take screenshots of Bluesky, which will include your users’ content. That said, we have explicitly told our community that if we are using your content in a way you disapprove of, please email…What to know before signing up for Bluesky