Bluesky is cracking down on fake accounts
Impersonators are being banned from the app.
Bluesky has very quickly become the underdog many tech giants are afraid of. In just a space of months, particularly fueled by the ban of its competitor in Brazil, the social platform has very quickly risen and gathered 20 million subscribers.
To keep this up, Bluesky has brought in several features and additions and even dared to challenge the norm by announcing that paying subscribers on its platform would not be treated specially. They won't even get a verification badge.
But it looks like that decision may have come back to haunt the rapidly growing platform as there has reportedly been an increase in confusion over who's who on the platform.
Louis Eriakha
To address this, Bluesky has announced a more “aggressive” approach to dealing with impersonators, stating that all accounts caught impersonating others will be completely removed. This also applies to accounts that might have started out impersonating others to gain followers and views, only to later switch identities.
However, in keeping with the idea of freedom, Bluesky says parody accounts can still exist, as long as they clearly state in both the bio and the profile name that the account is a parody.
Bluesky has yet to comment on giving checkmarks or other visible indicators to confirm the identity of users. However, the platform has claimed it’s working on verified domain handles to help celebrities and public figures prove their identity on the platform.
With this in place, the company can better address impersonation issues and potentially even any future bot problems before they become major concerns. Bluesky is still relatively small compared to its bigger competitors like X, which has 611 million active users per Statista, and Threads, with 275 million monthly active users according to Social Media Today.
However, Bluesky has been cautious in how it introduces new features, allowing it to steer clear of issues like Threads' rage-bait problem and X's financial struggles with investors.
As more and more users flock from X to Bluesky, it may only be a matter of time before Bluesky rises through the ranks, potentially dethroning X (formerly known as Twitter) to become the biggest and most free mini-social blogging app.
