Bluesky, the open source social media service that began as an internal Twitter project, has gained a key feature as it looks to compete with X and Threads. The service has finally added direct messaging capabilities more than a year after it started onboarding new users.

Direct messages are now available on both Bluesky’s app and website, the company announced in a blog post. The default setting allows users to receive messages from people they follow, though settings can be adjusted to receive messages from “everyone” or “no one.” For now, it sounds like DMs on Bluesky are fairly basic and only support person-to-person text chats, but the company says it plans to add support for media and group messaging, as well as end-to-end encryption “down the line.”

Until then, the company notes that it will be able to access users’ messages in some situations when it’s “absolutely necessary,” such as an investigation into spam or harassment. “In rare cases, the Bluesky moderation team may need to open your DMs to investigate broader patterns of abuse, such as spam or coordinated harassment,” Bluesky says in a blog post. “This would only be done when absolutely necessary to keep Bluesky safe. Access is extremely limited and tracked internally.”

So, like most other social platforms, Bluesky DMs are probably not an ideal space for sharing sensitive information. But the addition of messaging will likely be welcome news from users hoping to make more connections on the service and have conversations out of public view.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/bluesky-finally-has-dms-with-encrypted-messaging-coming-down-the-line-193235051.html?src=rss