Bluesky accounts can't be private, and likely never will

Users seeking private profiles on the decentralized social media platform Bluesky are out of luck. The platform currently does not, and likely never will, offer private profiles due to the fundamental nature of its technical architecture, the AT Protocol.

This information comes from several sources, including Bluesky’s official User FAQ (accessed Aug. 28, 2024), and discussions within the Bluesky developer community on GitHub.

While centralized platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and X (formerly Twitter) allow users to restrict visibility of their profiles and posts to approved followers, Bluesky's decentralized design makes such privacy controls technically challenging. For the decentralized system to function, servers, or "instances" within the network, must be able to freely exchange posts. This open exchange of data inherently conflicts with the concept of private profiles.

"The current version of the federated protocol that Bluesky is built on, atproto, only supports public content, not private content,"— bnewbold, Bluesky maintainer, on GitHub (July 31, 2023)

Bluesky developers are exploring ways to support shared and non-public content, but have not provided any estimates for when or how these features might be implemented. In the meantime, users can block specific accounts to prevent unwanted interactions, though this information is public. Likes and posts also remain public.

Users concerned about privacy should be aware that third-party tools and apps exist that can access and archive Bluesky content, even if the user deletes it from their account. Bluesky encourages users to consider the permanence of online content and emphasizes that its platform prioritizes public conversation.

As Bluesky evolves, its development team is working on features to enhance privacy within the constraints of its decentralized architecture. They are aiming for methods of sharing private content. The recently added direct messaging (DM) feature (June 6, 2024) and the ability to temporarily deactivate accounts (June 6, 2024) offer some level of control, but true private profiles are not currently technically feasible.