On the 18th of October, Twitter through BlueSky, previewed its Authenticated transport (AT) protocol which was initially ADX.
Bluesky is building a social protocol. We released “ADX” (the X stood for Experiment) in May. Now that the design is starting to solidify, we’re renaming it to the “Authenticated Transport Protocol” — the “AT Protocol.” https://t.co/Q0XUF8OhVD
— bluesky (@bluesky) October 18, 2022
Following the ban of the former United States President, Donald Trump, from Twitter’s platform, Jack Dorsey came out to announce the funding of Bluesky.
Bluesky is a social protocol for social medias and content platforms that act as a decentralized standard for these platforms. Similar to bitcoin, it aims to ensure that no single entity or establishment can have full control over global communication.
Bitcoin was created because of the distrust of centralized financial authorities. Bluesky is created because of the current distrust against established social media enterprises like Facebook.
Bluesky announced the creation of ADX in May.
The ADX protocol utilizes “self-authenticating” data which allows the network to independently certify data without the need for a central authority.
The project is a work in progress, and currently, the BlueSky initiative announced the upgraded project, changing its name from ADX to the AT protocol. This utilizes the current blockchain technologies to create a fast and simple federated network, that allows users to pick from a list of providers, and also be able to transfer information from one provider to another.
The AT protocol aims to promote account portability, interoperability, and algorithmic choices. In order to ensure healthy competition, there is a need for a diverse marketplace with an interoperable framework, and a united standard.
Unfortunately, within any social platform, there will always be threats of negativity and dangerous people, thus the protocol allows the network to control moderation on multiple levels. These levels are dubbed the “speech” and the “reach” levels.
Unlike centralized social media platforms that make moderation decisions based on corporate policies and stock prices, the network does not erase the moderated content from history, but it would decide the level of reach each content has across the network.
All of these new features will be accessible through the Bluesky app. Since the initiative is decentralized, its content can be kept up permanently, and the threats by Elon musk to purchase Twitter would have no bearing on the project.
