Quick update: We made the call to migrate Skysquare from Jetstream to TAP to unlock the full historical graph and build a more complete data layer. That transition just hit a major milestone.
Testing this week—cutover next. Public release still on track for July 4.
Get early access: skysquare.app
All of us benefit from wider adoption. That's how public discourse works: the more of it, the better.
Rn discovery is the obvious problem on @bsky.app. Allowing users to construct their own algorithm is a great value proposition, but by itself it's not going to keep people using the application.
I like a lot of James's framing for this.
Pack up and go where?
The other provocation I'd offer is what are we individually or collectively going to do about any of this?
If these spaces are important then how do we value and share them with others?
Mike Masnick sitting on stage next to Alex Komoroske in front of AtmosphereConf banners
Mike @masnick.com & Alex @komorama.bsky.social talking about the Resonant Computing Manifesto resonantcomputing.org
#AtmosphereConf
what’s refreshing about #atmosphereconf is how interdisciplinary the subjects and speakers are - it’s not all code but instead showcasing the roles of scientists, journalists and creators. the community is multi-faceted and have a shared interest in combatting misinformation and abuse.
About the Atmosphere
I’m writing this from the beautiful UBC campus in Vancouver where ATmosphereConf 2026 is taking place. It’s a gathering of developers, researchers, and entrepreneurs who are passionate about keeping the...
https://toni.org/2026/03/27/about-the-atmosphere/
Technological determinism is real—how we communicate shapes who we are. Bluesky was built with that understanding at its core:
“The internet is reshaping society, and societies come to reflect the structure of their dominant form of communication.”
— Jay Graber, #ATmosphereConf Seattle 2025
Chris, we have agency, and we can fight this turn together—and being on Bluesky is a great start. What’s happening right now at #AtmosphereConf and #ATScience is smart folks working on how information, context, and discourse actually move across the web.
Livestream: stream.place/stream1.atmo...
Finally found a moment to upload a second short from #atmosphereconf, this time with @smcgrath.phd, on how #atscience launched with a "Twitter Dunkerque" beachhead operation involving an excel sheet with 20000 invite codes.
www.youtube.com/shorts/iBPdc...
🧪 @row1.ca shows off the power of what this modular approach to science can look like, by creating papers that are more interconnected.
#ATScience #AcademicSky #OpenScience
@ronentk.me introduces the challenge of information overload, and where Semble.so could possibly help
#ATScience
Rowan Cocket presenting on Modular Open Science at ATscience
Matt Akamatsu presenting on modular science and discourse graphs at ATscience
Full crowd excited for ATscience before Ronen Tamari presents on Semble
Maria Antoniak presenting on Lea, a bluesky client for scientists, at ATscience
If you couldn’t make it in person, you can check out our live stream of the #ATscience talks on stream.place - just login below with the account you’re seeing this from!
stream.place/stream1.atmo...
#OpenScience #AtmosphereConf 🧪💻🧬👩🏻🔬
ATMOSPHERE CONF VANCOUVER • 2026 Lea: A Social App for Researchers Maria Antoniak @mariaa.bsky.social
@mariaa.bsky.social speaking about her background Slide content: ATMOSPHERE CONF VANCOUVER • 2026 “A little bit more about me I'm a computer scientist at the University of Colorado Boulder. I've spent time in industry (Twitter Cortex, Facebook Core Data Science, Microsoft Research, Allen Institute for Al's Semantic Scholar) and at the Pioneer Centre for Al in Copenhagen. My research is in natural language processing + cultural analytics. My research intersects with related fields such as Al+humanities, science-of-science, narrative medicine, online communities. Generally, I'm interested in using computational methods to study language, society, and culture. And I'm passionate about the open and free internet as a space for privacy, community, and creativity.”
@mariaa.bsky.social speaking about goals for Lea, a research app ATMOSPHERE CONF VANCOUVER • 2026 “Goals Surface features already present in Bluesky (custom feeds, detach quotes, nuclear blocks) and make them easier to discover and use. Add new features (Remix Feed, Notifications Manager, Edit Button). Highlight papers and research content (while not censoring other content). Add context: how is this person connected to me, are they a Verified Researcher, who do they collaborate with, what is their affiliation...”
@mariaa.bsky.social speaking about Rewilding the internet, Rewilding the internet, and more
The energy at #atscience is wild. @mariaa.bsky.social gave a wonderful talk about Lea, an AT network app for researchers.
So so so inspired by the hope in the room right now. Rewilding in real time!
@loriemerson.net, @mariafarrell.eurosky.social and @robin.berjon.com mentioned
#atmosphereconf
Sooooo many cool projects presented so far at #ATScience @ #AtmosphereConf! I especially loved @mariaa.bsky.social showing off Lea, a social network client for researchers that's compatible with Bluesky but extends it in some really cute ways
A glimpse of science (comms) from the future at #ATscience
So many good science-oriented features on the upcoming Lea browser, presented at #ATsciemce by @mariaa.bsky.social. #Atmosphereconf.
@davidfrum.bsky.social and the historian Andrew Roberts discuss the rise of algorithmically driven pseudo-historians, and why they appeal to some on the American right.
Watch “The David Frum Show”:
Last year we had 179 people and one and a half tracks of content.
This year is three jam packed tracks and twice the attendees. Super excited for @atmosphereconf.org's second arrival at the end of this week.
Even if you aren't able to attend #ATScience in-person this time, you can still join the remote live-stream this Friday (March 27 @ 9am Pacific) courtesy of @stream.place ! Talks will be recorded as well.
The Atmosphere is a new open network.
The features:
- Your account works on all atmosphere apps
- You can switch to a new provider with no fuss
- Easy to make your own apps on it
- Works great with personal websites
And, Bluesky is an atmosphere app.
If Plato had a Substack, it would be overlooked. The old system of gatekeeping was replaced with one that rewards engagement over truth. We need to protect the ideas an algorithm can’t measure.
That’s the idea behind Skysquare. It centers the authored work—the thing that was actually written—and makes the surrounding discourse visible right where it belongs. You don’t lose the crowd, and you don’t lose the source. You see them together, in context, where meaning is actually made.
A different approach is to focus on context instead of control. Instead of deciding who gets to speak, we can change how speech is organized and interpreted. We can reconnect the conversation to the thing it’s about, so meaning is constructed in place rather than scattered across feeds.
..to see how those were being produced.
So the question isn’t how to go back. We’re not going to re-create the old gatekeeping systems, and we probably shouldn’t. The openness of the current system is a real gain. But openness without structure makes it harder to understand what we’re looking at.
The result is a strange tension. We gained a more egalitarian discourse, but lost some of the structures that made meaning legible. Authority became suspect, but so did everything else. It’s not that people stopped caring about truth or credibility—it’s that the environment stopped making it easy...
But the structure of the system changed in a way we’re still grappling with. Conversation has often become detached from the ideas being discussed. Content circulates without common context. Commentary fractures into algorithmic feeds. Interpretation often travels farther than the source itself.
At the same time, something real and valuable emerged. More people could participate. Voices that had been excluded or marginalized could speak directly. Public discourse became more open, more plural, more dynamic. The barrier to entry collapsed, and with it, a certain kind of gatekeeping.
