Bounce, a technology designed to make your social media account more portable across open social services, is making it possible for users to move their Mastodon accounts to Bluesky. On Tuesday, the makers of Bounce introduced its latest beta version, Bounce 2, which lets you take your Mastodon social graph and migrate it or merge it into a profile for your Bluesky account.
With this change, arriving on October 20, users on the open social web will be able to move in either direction: from Mastodon to Bluesky or vice versa. The idea is that this account portability prevents users from getting stuck on a service if they come to disagree with its state of development, terms of use, moderation decisions, or anything else. Instead, they can simply pick up their account and go elsewhere.
Bounce’s cross-protocol migration tool was first introduced in August by the nonprofit A New Social, which is developing technologies designed to make the open social web more accessible and functional.
Today, the open social web includes different underlying technologies, called protocols, like ActivityPub, which powers Mastodon, Threads, Flipboard, PeerTube, Pixelfed, and others; and the AT Protocol, which underpins Bluesky, Skylight, and other social apps.
The two protocols don’t interoperate, which is why bridges — tools that connect different platforms — were introduced. Currently, users can bridge their accounts so others on different networks can follow their content, no matter what service they prefer to use.
Bounce is built on technology that was first developed for Bridgy Fed, another tool that connects Mastodon and Bluesky by making users’ profiles on one service visible on the other.
Originally, the service was able to move a user’s Bluesky account to a bridged account that straddles the two networks, and then to the user’s Mastodon account.
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Image Credits:Bridgy Fed diagram (A New Social)
With today’s launch, Bounce 2 can now do the reverse: it can move a Mastodon user’s social graph to Bluesky, or merge it into a bridged profile for their existing Bluesky (or ATProto) account.
Things are a little bit different when moving in this direction, the organization notes.
When “bouncing” from Bluesky to Mastodon, if the Mastodon account was already bridged, then the user’s follower lists will be merged, not replaced. In addition, when you bounce from Mastodon to Bluesky, your original posts and content won’t come with you, unlike when moving in the other direction.
“We believe services like Bluesky and Mastodon are only entry points into the open social web, but those entry points should not be a trap into yet another ecosystem,” an announcement from A New Social reads. “People should be able to change their minds, use the technologies that work best for them, and still connect with their people, no matter what they use.”
Bounce 2 launches later this month, and users can support the nonprofit via its Patreon or merch store.