Decentralized microblogging platform Bluesky, founded by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, is now getting a ‘Trending’ topics feature for both its desktop and mobile apps. With a user base of around 25 million, the company announced this as a Christmas Eve gift for its users. For now, the feature is limited to beta users only. Founded in 2019, Bluesky has announced that the trending topics feature is currently available only in English. However, the company is considering including other languages in the future.
Users can find the ‘Enable Trending Topics’ feature under ‘Content and Media’, which can be found while scrolling down in the ‘Settings’ on the platform. In fact, users also have the option to disable it.
Merry Christmas from us to you 🎄🎁💙 We launched Trending Topics today, and you can find it by tapping the search icon on the bottom bar of the app or the right sidebar on desktop.
— Bluesky (@bsky.app) December 26, 2024 at 6:39 AM
Notably, the social media platform recently also released a new update aimed at addressing cybersquatting and fake account problems that have troubled the app. These developments come at a time when the Seattle-headquartered Bluesky appears to be in hot water, facing government censorship, scam accounts, celebrity impersonation, propaganda, and accusations by a journalist of demonizing trans people. At the same time though, BlueSky has been gaining active users rapidly, with a massive shift seen post Musk’s Twitter acquisition and then recently post Trump’s electoral victory.
The journey of this nascent social media platform can be described as anything but smooth. At least two censorship-prone governments have blocked Bluesky. China began blocking Bluesky ahead of June 4 (according to the country’s internet censorship monitoring tool, the Great Firewall). Pakistan also joined the list, briefly blocking Bluesky in November, as reported by the global internet blocking tracker NetBlocks.
Interestingly, in the past few months (mainly during the U.S. presidential election), Bluesky witnessed rapid growth in terms of users, as millions of people alleged X (formerly Twitter) of biased feeds and accused Musk of manipulating algorithms to show a feed that was more pro-Trump.
Coming back to the topic, the “Trending” feature (which is also widely popular on the now Elon Musk-owned X) can be found on the right sidebar of the Bluesky desktop version. On the mobile app, users will have to tap the search button to access the trending section. Additionally, this feature will also carry over the user’s muted words to ensure those words or phrases do not appear in the section and feed unless the user wants them to.