Popular social media platform, Bluesky, is experiencing a surge in membership from celebrities and influencers, resulting in increased issues with identity verification and impersonation.

In light of recent events, Bluesky’s Safety team announced last Friday that they have amended their impersonation policy to take a “more aggressive” stance. The team stated that accounts involved in impersonation and handle-squatting will be deleted.

The social media company has quadrupled its moderation team size to efficiently address impersonation reports. Despite the increased manpower, there remains a significant backlog of moderation reports due to the rapid influx of new users.

Increasingly, Bluesky posts inquire, “Is this a real person or a parody account?” with no conclusive answers in the comments. In response to this, some users have started creating their own validation lists and badges.

Bluesky doesn’t have a verified user badge, unlike Twitter. Instead, it depends on other indicators, such as verified domains in user handles, to ascertain the credibility of an account. For instance, if a handle includes the “bsky.team” domain, it’s understood that the user is connected with Bluesky.

The company has announced that they are “working behind the scenes to assist many organizations and high-profile individuals in establishing their verified domain handles.”

While parodies and fan accounts are permitted, Bluesky insists they must clearly identify themselves in both their display name and bio to prevent confusion. The company prohibits “identity churning”, stating that accounts set up for impersonation to accumulate followers and then switch to a different identity will be removed.

Jay Graber, the CEO of Bluesky, suggested that the company might further enhance account verification, possibly allowing other apps or organizations to offer their own verification.

In conclusion, the Bluesky Safety team is attentive to user feedback and recognizes the need for more verification options beyond domain verification. They are actively exploring alternative methods to improve account verification and will provide updates in due course.