Bluesky promises greater verification and an “aggressive” approach to impersonation

As more celebrities and popular influencers join Bluesky, the fast-growing social media site is facing increasing concerns about impersonation and identity verification.

Bluesky Safety Team sent On Friday, the corporate updated its impersonation policy to be “more aggressive,” adding that “accounts used to impersonate and conceal contacts will be removed.”

The company said it should have the opportunity to respond more quickly to reports of impersonation because it has quadrupled the scale of its moderation team, although there stays a “large backlog of moderation reports due to the influx of new users.”

Anecdotally, over the previous couple of weeks I’ve noticed an increasing variety of Bluesky posts asking, “Is this a real person or a parody account?” no final answer in replies. Other users have also began submitting their very own verification letters and badges.

One reason for the confusion is that Bluesky lacks a verified user badge just like the one popularized by Twitter (now referred to as X, which itself replaced the old verification with a paid subscription). Instead, it relies on other signals, similar to verified domains in usernames, to signal the trustworthiness of an account – for instance, you possibly can tell that an individual is definitely affiliated with Bluesky if their name incorporates the domain “bsky.team.”

On this issue, Bluesky also said that it’s “working behind the scenes to help many organizations and celebrities set up verified domain names.”

As for parodies and fan accounts, the corporate said they’re allowed, “but must clearly label themselves with both a display name and bio so others know the account is not official.” Bluesky said that “identity switching” 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 in order to keep that account, your the account will be deleted.”

Bluesky CEO Jay Graber said earlier this week that the corporate could eventually put more work into verifying accounts while allowing other apps or organizations to perform their very own verification: “They can trust us – verification by the Bluesky team – or they can do it themselves own.”

Similarly, the Bluesky Safety team concluded their updates by saying: “We also hear from you: users want more ways to verify their identity beyond domain verification. We are exploring additional options to improve account verification and hope to have more available soon.”