Signal Out-of-network attention dynamics on Bluesky

Summary

The authors analyze 173 million interactions on Bluesky, a decentralized microblogging platform, collected between February and September 2023. About 74.5% of interactions reach users through accounts they already follow. Within two follow hops lies 80.6% of interactions, far above the 22.4% that an expected-degree null model predicts. A small group of broad-reaching users produces three quarters of exploratory activity. Attention that reaches beyond two hops converts into new follow ties at less than one third the rate of two-hop-local exploration. The paper concludes that out-of-network exploration is substantial in volume but constrained by network proximity.