On Thursday evening, the decentralized social network Bluesky experienced a significant outage, rendering the platform inaccessible on both web and mobile devices for approximately an hour. The issue was identified as Major PDS Networking Problems, referring to complications with the platform’s Personal Data Servers (PDS). The first status update acknowledging the problem was posted at 6:55 PM ET, followed by a subsequent message at 7:38 PM ET indicating that a fix was being implemented.
This incident raises questions about the resilience of decentralized networks. Despite Bluesky’s decentralized architecture, the majority of users currently access the service through its official app, which operates on the Authenticated Transfer (AT) Protocol. While the AT Protocol is designed to support decentralization by allowing multiple interoperable providers for each system component, the platform is still in its early stages. Consequently, few users have set up independent infrastructure components such as PDS, relays, and other elements. Those who had established their own infrastructure were not affected by the outage.
Bluesky’s vision is to foster a diverse ecosystem where various communities build their own infrastructure, moderation services, and client applications. An example of this is the Blacksky initiative, which aims to create safer and more inclusive online spaces utilizing decentralized tools. Over time, the goal is for Bluesky to be one of many entities supporting the infrastructure necessary for applications built on the AT Protocol. However, in the short term, outages affecting Bluesky’s infrastructure have a widespread impact due to the current centralized usage patterns.
The recent outage has also intensified the rivalry between Bluesky and Mastodon, another decentralized social network that operates on the ActivityPub protocol. Mastodon users were quick to comment on the incident, highlighting perceived weaknesses in Bluesky’s approach to decentralization. One user, Luke Johnson, remarked, See how the mighty Bluesky crumbles while the Raspberry Pi running Mastodon under my bed just keeps chugging along, referencing Mastodon’s ability to run on personal servers. Another user quipped, Nice decentralization ya got there.
Despite the temporary disruption, Bluesky’s services were restored shortly after the outage began, and the platform is now fully operational.
