As extra celebrities and widespread influencers be part of Bluesky, the fast-growing social media service has been going through extra considerations round impersonation and verified identification.
The Bluesky Safety staff posted Friday that the corporate has up to date its impersonation coverage to be “more aggressive,” including that “impersonation and handle-squatting accounts will be removed.”
The firm mentioned it ought to be capable of act on impersonation experiences extra rapidly as a result of it has quadrupled the dimensions of its moderation staff, although there’s nonetheless “a large backlog of moderation reports due to an influx of new users.”
Anecdotally, over the previous few weeks I’ve observed a rising variety of Bluesky posts asking, “Is this a real person or a parody account?” with no definitive reply within the replies. Other customers have additionally begun placing collectively their very own verification lists and badges.
One cause for the confusion: Bluesky lacks a verified consumer badge just like the one popularized on Twitter (now recognized X, which itself changed the previous verification with a paid subscription). Instead, it depends on different indicators, like verified domains in consumer handles, to sign the trustworthiness of an account — for instance, you may inform somebody is definitely affiliated with Bluesky if their deal with contains the “bsky.team” area.
On that entrance, Bluesky additionally mentioned it’s “working behind the scenes to help many organizations and high-profile individuals set up their verified domain handles.”
As for parodies and fan accounts, the corporate mentioned they’re allowed, “but they must clearly label themselves in both the display name and bio to help others know the account isn’t official.” And Bluesky mentioned “identity churning” just isn’t allowed, so “if you set up an impersonation account just to gain followers and switch to a different identity that is no longer impersonation to keep that account, your account will be removed.”
Bluesky CEO Jay Graber mentioned earlier this week that the corporate may ultimately do extra work to confirm accounts whereas additionally enabling different apps or organizations to supply their very own verification: “They can choose to trust us — the Bluesky team’s verification — or they could do their own.”
Similarly, the Bluesky Safety staff concluded its updates by saying, “We also hear your feedback: users want more ways to verify their identity beyond domain verification. We’re exploring additional options to enhance account verification, and we hope to share more shortly.”
