Bluesky Intensifies Content Moderation Policies
Bluesky is taking a more assertive stance on content moderation and enforcement aiming to create a safer and more positive user experience. They are actively refining their strategies to address harmful content and policy violations effectively.
Enhancing Moderation Techniques
Bluesky has rolled out more advanced automated tooling to flag content that likely violates community guidelines spam harassment etc. These flags are then reviewed by human moderators.
For high-certainty violations e.g. spam or fraudulent accounts the detection moderation process is being sped up in some cases to seconds for automated detection to reduce harm.
Ozone Open Source Moderation Custom Filters Labelers
Bluesky released Ozone an open-source moderation tool that lets users or third-party developers build and run their own moderation labeling services. Users can then subscribe to these services called labelers to apply extra filters labels or suppression of certain kinds of content.
Examples a labeler might block or hide images of spiders filter out certain types of posts or hide content that doesn’t meet certain user preferences.
Anti-Harassment Spam Bot Detection
Techniques to detect and restrict creation of multiple accounts used for harassment.
Automatically hiding malicious replies replies that violate guidelines to reduce their visibility in threads.
Efforts to detect fake or spam accounts rapidly so they can be removed or restricted before they do much harm.
Moderation Lists & Filters User Controls
Bluesky allows users to create moderation lists groups of users they want to block or mute all at once. Also lists letting users mute entire Starter Packs or other groups.
Users can set or sync their moderation preferences across devices. They can also report content or mislabels in posts for example if adult content labels are misapplied.
Policy Community Guideline Updates
Bluesky has made recent revisions to its policy guidelines especially after collecting public feedback over 14,000 community members. The new version effective Oct 15, 2025 is organized around principles like Safety First Respect Others Be Authenti Follow the Rules which help clarify what content is moderated removed or penalized.
Stronger enforcement is promised especially for harassment toxic content and other harmful behavior.
Verification & Identity Impersonation Prevention
The blue check verification mark for authentic and notable accounts plus Trusted Verifiers for organizations helps reduce impersonation attacks.
Preventing abuse through misuse of lists for example Bluesky scans lists e.g. user lists or public lists for abusive names or descriptions. If a list is used to harass via list membership that is addressed.
Strengthened Moderation Staff & Resources
Bluesky increased its moderation staff from 25 to 100 to better keep up with user growth and the resulting increase in reportsmalicious content.
Focused moderation in high-severity policy areas child safety sexual content involving minors harassment to ensure prompt detection and takedown. GIGAZINE
- Developing advanced algorithms for detecting harmful content.
- Training moderators to accurately and consistently enforce policies.
- Implementing user-friendly reporting mechanisms.
Policy Enforcement Strengthening
Bluesky’s commitment extends to strengthening the enforcement of its policies. This includes:
- Swiftly addressing reported violations.
- Applying appropriate penalties for policy breaches, such as account suspension.
- Providing clear communication to users about moderation decisions.
Recent Moves by Bluesky on Moderation & Enforcement
Bluesky has stated it will more quickly escalate enforcement actions towards account restrictions. Earlier they would give multiple warnings now fewer warnings may be given before deactivating or restricting accounts that violate rules.
They are also making product changes that clarify when content is likely to violate guidelines giving users better warning beforehand.
Updated Community Guidelines & Appeals Process
In August 2025 Bluesky rolled out a massive revamp of its community & safety policies. The changes are meant to improve clarity around rules user safety and how appeals are handled.
The guidelines are organized around four principles Safety First, Respect Others Be Authentic and Follow the Rules. These help structure decisions about what content must be labeled or removed when accounts may get banned etc.
Scaling Moderation Capacity
As of 2024 Bluesky saw a huge jump in moderation reports about 6.48 million reports vs 358,000 in 2023 a 17× increase.
To cope they’ve expanded the moderation team around 100 moderators and increased hiring.
Automation is being used more extensively for high-certainty reports spam bots etc. to reduce processing times human moderators still involved for review and dealing with false positives.
Partnerships & Tools for Safety
Bluesky partnered with the Internet Watch Foundation IWF to help tackle child sexual abuse material CSAM. This adds external trusted tools and frameworks.
They are also developing new anti-harassment features e.g. detecting users who make multiple accounts for harassment automatically hiding malicious replies improving spam fake account detection.
Verification & Trust Indicators
Bluesky introduced blue checks for notable and authentic accounts. Also added a Trusted Verifier status for certain organizations to authenticate others. This helps with impersonation problems.
Challenges & Criticisms
Verifying fundraising or cause-based accounts e.g. in Gaza has been especially hard repeated suspension or being flagged as spam under automated rules.
Users have raised concerns that automated moderation sometimes leads to false positives unfair deactivations or content being wrongly flagged.
Some content creators users worry that enforcement may have chilling effects on expression particularly for marginalized voices. Bluesky has said it heard these concerns during feedback on guideline drafts.
