Tech Desk 
Dec 01, 2024
An undated image displaying the Bluesky app's login page. — Shutterstock
As X (formerly Twitter) rival Bluesky has garnered immense acclaim globally over the past few weeks and secured a wider user base, the Bluesky Safety team on Friday shared on its official handle on the social media app that its impersonation policy has been made “more aggressive.”
With significant expansion taking place in its prominence, the probability of impersonation and identity theft is also surging.
“Impersonation and handle-squatting accounts will be removed,” the post by the app's safety wing added.
The company expressed optimism for being able to swiftly address impersonation as its moderation team has been quadrupled, not to mention “a large backlog of moderation reports due to an influx of new users.”
A disconcerting account of a blurring line between public figures' and celebrities' official accounts and their parodies is that more and more people are commenting “Is this a real person or a parody account?” on posts shared by renowned people, with no clarification in the replies.
According to TechCrunch, some Bluesky users have also started placing their verification lists and badges.
“They can choose to trust us — the Bluesky team’s verification — or they could do their own,” noted Bluesky CEO Jay Graber earlier this week while highlighting that the company is capable of simplifying the verification of accounts and let other apps or organisations verify themselves.
Experts claimed that the most likely factor at play behind the confusion concerned is that Bluesky lacks a verified user badge similar to the one common on X (formerly Twitter), as the platform undertakes a different approach to confirm the authenticity of an account. This approach includes verified domains in user handles.
Regarding this, Bluesky said it’s “working behind the scenes to help many organisations and high-profile individuals set up their verified domain handles.”
