Bluesky now allows videos that are up to three minutes long, the decentralized social network announced on Monday. The platform launched support for video back in September with a 60-second time limit.
With the new expanded time limit, Bluesky is bringing its user experience more in line with its competitors, X (formerly Twitter) and Meta’s Threads. X allows nonpaying users to upload videos up to two minutes and 20 second in length, while Threads lets users upload videos up to five minutes long.
The change is also welcome news for all of the apps working to become the “TikTok for Bluesky,” such as Bluescreen and Skylight. The developers behind these apps are working to bring a video experience to Bluesky, either through a video-first Bluesky client or as an entirely new app built on the same AT Protocol that Bluesky uses. The expanded time limit allows them to offer a TikTok alternative that aligns more closely with the popular short-form video app, which lets users share videos up to 10 minutes long.
Bluesky also announced that it has added a new “Chat requests” screen that lets people sift through messages from unknown users. Once users receive a DM request, they can choose to accept or reject the conversation via this new screen.
In addition, Bluesky now allows users to mute accounts more quickly by clicking the three-dot menu on a post and then selecting the “Mute account” option. The social network has also added better tablet-size layouts on the web and an improved moderation reporting flow.
