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Last weekend, an ugly rumor of a tragic death spread began rocketing around Bluesky. What made it odd was the identity of the dearly departed: Bluesky itself. Its not entirely clear what prompted this discussion, which ultimately seemed to be dominated by Bluesky fans rejecting the possibility that the social network had died (or at least jumped the shark). According to one theory, a story by Semafors Max Tani ignited the debate by mentioning Democratic congressional staffers whod given up on Bluesky after their bosses kept getting yelled at by Democratic users angry at their impotence. That doesnt sound like evidence of death to me. Another contributing factor might have been slowing user growth after millions of disaffected Twitter users arrived en masse in the wake of the U.S. November presidential election results and Elon Musks Trump boosterism. The service grew from 11 million users to 25 million between late October and mid-December, but has added only about 10 million more since then. Again, not a sign of rigor mortis or even a dreaded vibe shift. For a social network, being prematurely written off is a rite of passage. Its even a compliment of sortsa sign that people are paying attention and care. Way back in 2014, for instance, when Twitter was still ascendant, I wrote about the fact that cranky users had started predicting its demise less than a year after it launched in 2006. So when I chatted with Bluesky CEO Jay Graber this week, I wasnt surprised that she didnt seem fazed by the debate on her platform and saw the parallels with early-days Twitter. Reports of our death are greatly exaggerated, she told me. It’s a similar thing, because with social sites, it’s not straight up all the time. [Growth] comes in waves, and at each stage, there’s a new era of communities being established and formed. We’re still seeing a lot of community formation, and one of the most exciting things is how structurally different this is. It’s not just another social site that has to be a singular winner takes all in an ecosystem with existing incumbents. I spoke with Graber backstage at the Web Summit conference in Vancouver, shortly after shed been interviewed by Wireds Katie Drummond during the events Tuesday night opening session. (I should note that shes also appearing at a Fast Company event next week.) Her assertion that social networkings days of corporatized centralization are over seems manifestly true to me, and its a phenomenon bigger than Bluesky itself. In November, I stopped posting to Twitter and began using a wonderful multi-network app called OpenVibe to post to three alternatives. Bluesky is one of them. So is Mastodon, an even more grass-roots operation that makes Bluesky, with its 25 employees, look like a tech giant. And the thirdMetas Threadsactually does hail from a tech giant. Ive had rewarding experiences on all three, though Threads, which has around 10 times as many users as Bluesky, feels too much like a purposefully sterile planned community to me. I prefer havens for wandering conversations and playful weirdness, which Bluesky and Mastodon both provide at their best. All three show every sign of remaining relevant for the long haul, unlike some of the Twitter wannabes that didnt make it (RIP, T2 and Post) or turned out not to matter all that much (hello, Substack Notes). Like The Atlantics Charlie Warzel, Im surprised that so many reasonable people remain active on Twitter, which has come to resemble a dystopian carnival ride. (Exhibit A, for the moment: The bizarre recent incident in which Musks Grok bot wouldnt shut up about supposed white genocide in South Africa.) But I wouldnt argue that Twitter is dyingjust that its a disfigured shell of its former self. I dont expect any social network to replace the Twitter of yore as the internets uncontested go-to destination for real-time chatter about current events and pop culture. Bluesky, however, is still making progress in its quest to fill the hole left by Musks dismantling act. A new Pew Research Center study confirms that the presidential election results led to a major influx of news influencers at Bluesky, though even more are still on Twitter. Moreover, Bluesky is beginning to build functionality to cultivate conversations around the days events. Earlier this month, for example, the service began beta testing a feature that lets the NBA use its Bluesky profile picture as a portal that sends users to live content. The company says the WNBA account will also get the capability, whichif deployed more widelywould be pretty useful for anybody who offers live video, including individuals on YouTube and Twitch. In a roundabout way, this new Live Now feature reminds me of Twitters pricey 2016 gambit to turn itself into a live-event platform by streaming NFL games. Except all Bluesky is doing is facilitating users leaving the service to consume video elsewhere, which is both infinitely cheaper than buying sporting rights and more in line with its philosophy of knocking down social medias walled gardens. We are a pass-through so that, as a content creator, you can get users onto your site more easily, says Graber. If Bluesky is still in the process of becoming as conducive to community as Twitter once was, its also avoided some of the problems that have long dogged the older service. The Pew study showed that its news-influencer presence skews to the left, a finding that wont startle anyone whos spent time there. Any broadening of its political spectrum could result in its tenor growing more fraught. Already, it can have a snappish quality, as reflected in the congressional drubbing reported by Semafor and software kingpin Adobes hostile reception after it began posting in April. (Overly brand safe Bluesky is not.) What happens if Bluesky ever gets overrun with trolls, as Twitter was years before Musk took charge? I asked Graber about its approach to moderation, especially in a period when Meta seems quite proud of its Twitter-like decision to dramatically scale back attempts to keep the conversation on its platforms accurate and civil. We’ve always stayed lean, but we’ve always had human moderators, and we think that humans always need to be in the loop, she told me. Because ultimately, youre dealing with humans. On the other hand, there are automated systems that are constantly attacking social networks and you have to have automated systems to keep up with that. So we use a combination. The company also leverages the work of third parties who use open-source moderation tools to block spammers, she says. One other challenge that Bluesky has not yet fully confronted is monetizing itself. Onstage at Web Summit, Graber emphasized that its working on subscription services, a healthier revenue source than stuffing feeds with ads, though potentially a tougher one to scale up to sustainability. The company announced a $15 million Series A funding round last October. Graber isnt the type to declare her intention to crush the competition. In a previous conversation I had with her, she said nice things about Mastodon. Even her digs at Meta are a principled stance against social media being dominated by a few monolithic companies. But neither is she satisfied to operate a social network that may never grow to the size of a Twitter or Threads. In both her onstage interview and our subsequent chat, she was at her most passionate when discussing the companys aspiration to decentralize social networking via its open AT Protocol. It powers Blueskyand variants such as the Pinksky photo-sharing app, which she praised onstagebut could also provide the infrastructure for further-flung social experiences. Maybe even ones catering to folks who have zero interest in participating in the Bluesky community. The goal is to really get through that this is a choose your own adventure and Bluesky’s just the beginning, she says. The sky’s the limit. Whether shell fulfill her grandest ambitions, Im not sure. But I already like this era of social networking better than the one when a handful of winners really did take all. Youve been reading Plugged In, Fast Companys weekly tech newsletter from me, global technology editor Harry McCracken. If a friend or colleague forwarded this edition to youor if you’re reading it on FastCompany.comyou can check out previous issues and sign up to get it yourself every Friday morning. I love hearing from you: Ping me at hmccracken@fastcompany.com with your feedback and ideas for future newsletters. I’m also on Bluesky, Mastodon, and Threads, and you can follow Plugged In on Flipboard. More top tech stories from Fast Company As AI models start exhibiting bad behavior, it’s time to start thinking harder about AI safetyAIs that can scheme and persuade were once a theoretical concept. Not anymore. Read More Google’s second swing at smart glasses seems a lot more sensibleTo avoid another Google Glass flop, the company is focusing on design and functionality. Read More The future of online shopping is human creators and AI musicAmber Venz Box’s LTK platform helps some 350,000 creators sell to their followers. Here, she talks TikTok ban, AI-generated content, and what’s next for social commerce. Read More AI influencers are shaping Gen Z’s shopping habitsYounger social media users may care more about follower counts than authenticity, a new survey says. What does it mean for real-life creators? Read More Polaroid’s tumblr-core MoMA collab turns your photos into works of artThe exclusive collection includes a MoMA-branded Polaroid camera and custom colorful film frames. Read More This new browser could change everything you know about bookmarksNew browser Deta Surf lets you turn screenshots into bookmarks, search the text of your bookmarked pages, and even visually organize them. But is it ready for prime time? Read More
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Scientists say 4 billion people, about half the world’s population, experienced at least one extra month of extreme heat because of human-caused climate change from May 2024 to May 2025.The extreme heat caused illness, death, crop losses, and strained energy and health care systems, according to the analysis from World Weather Attribution, Climate Central and the Red Cross.“Although floods and cyclones often dominate headlines, heat is arguably the deadliest extreme event,” the report said. Many heat-related deaths are unreported or are mislabeled by other conditions like heart disease or kidney failure.The scientists used peer-reviewed methods to study how much climate change boosted temperatures in an extreme heat event and calculated how much more likely its occurrence was because of climate change. In almost all countries in the world, the number of extreme heat days has at least doubled compared with a world without climate change.Caribbean islands were among the hardest hit by additional extreme heat days. Puerto Rico, a territory of the United States, endured 161 days of extreme heat. Without climate change, only 48 would have occurred.“It makes it feel impossible to be outside,” said Charlotte Gossett Navarro, chief director for Puerto Rico at Hispanic Federation, a nonprofit focused on social and environmental issues in Latino communities, who lives in the San Juan area and was not involved in the report.“Even something as simple as trying to have a day outdoors with family, we weren’t able to do it because the heat was too high,” she said, reporting feeling dizzy and sick last summer.When the power goes out, which happens frequently in Puerto Rico in part because of decades of neglected grid maintenance and damage from Hurricane Maria in 2017, Navarro said it is difficult to sleep. “If you are someone relatively healthy, that is uncomfortable, it’s hard to sleep . . . but if you are someone who has a health condition, now your life is at risk,” Gossett Navarro said.Heat waves are silent killers, said Friederike Otto, associate professor of climate science at Imperial College London, one of the report’s authors. “People don’t fall dead on the street in a heat wave . . . people either die in hospitals or in poorly insulated homes and therefore are just not seen,” he said.Low-income communities and vulnerable populations, such as older adults and people with medical conditions, suffer the most from extreme heat.The high temperatures recorded in the extreme heat events that occurred in Central Asia in March, South Sudan in February and in the Mediterranean last July would have not been possible without climate change, according to the report. At least 21 people died in Morocco after temperatures hit 118 degrees Fahrenheit (48 degrees Celsius) last July. People are noticing temperatures are getting hotter but don’t always know it is being driven by climate change, said Roop Singh, head of urban and attribution at the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, in a World Weather Attribution statement.“We need to quickly scale our responses to heat through better early warning systems, heat action plans, and long-term planning for heat in urban areas to meet the rising challenge,” Singh said.City-led initiatives to tackle extreme heat are becoming popular in parts of South Asia, North America, Europe and Australia to coordinate resources across governments and other agencies. One example is a tree-planting initiative launched in Marseille, France, to create more shaded areas.The report says strategies to prepare for heat waves include monitoring and reporting systems for extreme temperatures, providing emergency health services, cooling shelters, updated building codes, enforcing heat safety rules at work, and designing cities to be more heat-resilient.But without phasing out fossil fuels, heat waves will continue becoming more severe and frequent and protective measures against the heat will lose their effectiveness, the scientists said. The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org. Isabella O’Malley, Associated Press
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If youre an ice cream fan, theres some bad news: One of Americas most beloved ice cream brands may soon see hundreds of its in-store retail locations vanish just as summer is beginning. Thrifty Ice Cream counters, which are found in hundreds of Rite Aid locations in California and other states, are facing an uncertain future thanks to the pharmacy chains most recent bankruptcy proceedings. Heres what you need to know. What is Thrifty Ice Cream? Thrifty Ice Cream is an ice cream brand that is owned by the Rite Aid pharmacy chain. The brand was originally founded in 1940 in Los Angeles, where it was sold from soda fountain counters inside the Thrifty Drug Store chain. The brand is iconic in Los Angeles and throughout California, where its cylindrical ice cream scoops are a summer staple for people who want to cool down with a sweet treat. As the Los Angeles Times reported in 2018, until 1975, a scoop of Thriftys ice cream cost as little as five cents, and today scoops cost just a few dollars. In 1996, the Rite Aid pharmacy chain bought Thrifty PayLess, the then-owner of the Thrifty pharmacy store and Thrifty ice cream, for $2.3 billion. After the acquisition, Rite Aid operated over 500 Thrifty Ice Cream counters inside its pharmacies, mainly in California. But now it is likely these Thrifty Ice Cream counter stores-within-a-store are closing. What will happen to Thrifty Ice Cream? Over the past several days, reports have emerged indicating that up to 500 Thrifty Ice Cream stores may close. When these reports mention stores closing, they are referring to the Thrifty Ice Cream counters found in Rite Aid pharmacy locations. Rite Aid is currently undergoing its second bankruptcy in as many years, and the pharmacy chain has already announced plans to close hundreds of locations. It’s important to note that this bankruptcy will mark the end of Rite Aid. All of its stores will either close or be sold to other owners. Locations that that ultimately remain open will no longer be Rite Aid stores. (For example, pharmacy giant CVS has said it will take over 64 physical Rite Aid stores in Washington, Idaho, and Oregon.) In 2018, the Los Angeles Times reported that Rite Aid operated more than 500 Thrifty Ice Cream stations; however, the pharmacy chain has significantly reduced its footprint since then, having gone through its first bankruptcy in 2023. Meanwhile, Thrifty Ice Creams online store locator tool appears to be only partially functional as of the time of this writing, so the exact number of locations the brand has is unknown. Fast Company has reached out to Rite Aid for clarity on how many Thrifty Ice Cream counters are still in operation and what their fate will be amid the bankruptcy process. But just because Rite Aid is closing locations and filing for bankruptcy, that doesnt mean Thrifty Ice Cream is necessarily done for good. After selling off most of its pharmacy assets this month, Rite Aid is expected to hold an auction in June to sell its remaining assets, including the Thrifty brand and the Thrifty Ice Cream factory in El Monte, California. It’s possible that a buyer could swoop in to scoop up the Thrifty Ice Cream brand. If so, any buyer may continue to operate Thrifty Ice Cream stores. The counters in the closing Rite Aid stores would no longer be an option, but a new buyer would be free to open Thrifty Ice Cream individual stores, or form partnerships with other pharmacies or retailers to run Thrifty Ice Cream counters in their stores. Thrifty Ice Cream also currently sells its ice cream at retailers including Vons and Albertsons. A buyer may choose to keep the brand alive through retail outlet sales alone. But for now, all this is just conjecture. We likely wont know the future of Thrifty Ice Cream until Rite Aids bankruptcy is completed, or until next month’s auction.
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