Bluesky Introduces Automated Moderation Tools to Enhance Platform Safety

The startup Bluesky is on a mission to create a decentralized social platform that rivals Twitter. It has recently started implementing sophisticated automated systems to monitor content more efficiently. Despite being in its private beta phase, the company has faced scrutiny regarding content moderation, especially after episodes involving unaddressed death threats and the emergence of usernames containing racial slurs.

Bluesky declared via its Safety account that it's rolling out refined automated programs aimed at identifying posts that infringe upon their Community Guidelines. This preliminary filter allows the Bluesky moderation team to subsequently evaluate the material and make a conclusive decision.

The intention, as explained, is for this process to evolve so moderators can examine potentially harmful content, such as spam, without any user encountering it beforehand.

Furthermore, Bluesky plans to reintegrate a feature that enables users to flag their own posts for incorrectly marked content, assisting the moderation team in rectifying such errors. Presently, users have the option to label their content as adult material during the post-composition phase within the Bluesky app. Until this feature returns, others will have the capacity to report mistaken labels on behalf of the user.

Apart from these improvements, Bluesky is proud to announce the inclusion of new functionalities such as user and moderation lists—the latter allowing individuals to collectively mute or block multiple users with ease. Additionally, the option to synchronize moderation settings across devices has been introduced, along with the removal of adult content tags from non-visual posts.

Bluesky is not stopping there; it’s working on introducing a feature Twitter users are familiar with—the power to dictate who can engage with their posts. This forthcoming feature will let users restrict interactions to their followers or designated lists, mirroring Twitter’s functionality that grants users control over who can reply to their tweets.

While strides are being made, a segment of the Bluesky user base continues to call for more privacy controls, such as setting accounts to private. This feature became highly requested after announcements were made about launching a public web interface that would let non-invitees view posts. Users voiced their preference for a private approach to their online space, akin to Twitter's private accounts. There’s also a push for Bluesky to permit follower removals and to enforce a complete prohibition on accounts that don't align with the company's guidelines.