Bounce, a new technology that plays a vital role on the open social web, is presented to the public on Monday. The cross-protocol conversion tool offers a service that allows users to move their follow graphs between their accounts, even though open social networks like Bluesky and Mastodon use different underlying protocols.
While Bluesky is working on technology that will enable users to move their accounts to a new PDS (Bluesky’s term for “personal data server”) on its network, Mastodon users who are dissatisfied with the service can currently choose to relocate their accounts to a separate Mastodon server. But up until recently, the ability to move accounts between the two platforms has been restricted since Bluesky uses the AT Protocol and Mastodon uses the ActivityPub Protocol.
In order to function, Bounce makes use of technology that was initially created for Bridgy Fed, a tool that links Mastodon and Bluesky by allowing users’ profiles from one service to be seen on the other.
Before moving a user’s Bluesky account to their Mastodon account, Bounce first transfers the user’s Bluesky account to a bridging account that spans the two networks. Pixelfed, a social app similar to Instagram that uses ActivityPub, like Mastodon, is also supported by this migration.
Users can switch from Bluesky to Mastodon or Pixelfed with Bounce at launch, but not the other way around. This is due to Bluesky’s infrastructure, which at the moment only permits users to migrate away from their servers—not back. Bounce will also initiate migration in the opposite direction when that shifts.
Early adopters should also be advised that they will no longer be able to use their Bluesky login credentials to access the app or other AT Protocol-based services after they have moved their account off of Bluesky.
The debut of Bounce, created by A New Social, a nonprofit that also makes Bridgy Fed, is especially relevant for Bluesky customers in Mississippi. Instead of complying with a new age assurance rule that Bluesky deems excessively intrusive from a privacy perspective and that would take too many resources for Bluesky’s small team to handle, the company said on Friday that it will restrict its service in the state. Because of this, Bluesky users in the state are no longer able to access the social network, underscoring the necessity for solutions that would enable users to move their accounts to another location.
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