Bluesky Launches New Anti-Toxicity Features Amid Criticisms of X

Social media brand Bluesky has unveiled a suite of anti-toxicity features, positioning itself as a safer alternative to Elon Musk’s X, amid growing concerns about the volume of hate speech and misinformation on his platform, formerly known as Twitter.

The move by decentralized network Bluesky also comes amid increased scrutiny of social media platforms and their roles in shaping public discourse, as the 2024 U.S. presidential election approaches.

“Many of our users join Bluesky because they’re seeking a positive experience online, where the platform itself does not promote hateful speech or misinformation,” Emily Liu, Developer Relations & Community for Bluesky, told Newsweek.

On August 28, Bluesky announced several updates aimed at combating harassment and improving the user experience. The new anti-toxicity features are designed to protect users from mass abuse attacks by including the ability to detach quote posts, hide replies, and filter notifications.

The ability to detach quote posts can prevent “dogpiling,” when, as a post gets reshared, a large number of users collectively attack, criticize, or harass another user. This can often quickly escalate, making it difficult for the target to respond or defend themselves.

Paul Frazee, product developer and protocol engineer at Bluesky, realizes that “quote posts are often used to correct misinformation” too, adding that the social media platform is working on a labeling service, hoping to soon add a feature that has the same effect as X’s Community Notes feature.

Because Bluesky is decentralized, it means that control and data are distributed across multiple independent servers or nodes, rather than being centralized under a single entity, like X, Instagram or TikTok. The aim of decentralization is to reduce the power of any single company over user data and content moderation.

A University of Southern California study found that, after Musk’s acquisition, the average daily hate speech from hateful users nearly doubled, and the daily average overall usage of hate keywords nearly doubled.

Newsweek reached out to X for comment via email.

As X faces criticism for its perceived negative changes under Musk’s ownership, Bluesky hopes its emphasis on user control and anti-toxicity measures could attract users seeking a more balanced and less contentious social media experience.

Liu added: “We’re investing in safety from two angles: first, we have our own moderation team that provides round-the-clock coverage to uphold our community guidelines. In addition, we’ve built a stackable moderation system so users can subscribe to moderation decisions from other organizations they trust.”

The timing of Bluesky’s updates is significant, as a recent Pew Research Center study highlighted concerns about the accuracy of information on social media, with 37 percent of X users reporting that they often encounter news that seems inaccurate.

This may be important in the run up to the 2024 election, as a not insignificant percentage (14 percent) of Americans use Twitter as a regular (weekly) source for finding, reading, watching, sharing or discussing news, according to the Reuters Institute at the University of Oxford, UK.

At Bluesky, Aaron Rodericks, Bluesky’s Head of Trust & Safety (who formerly led election integrity efforts at Twitter), told Newsweek that they “recognize the importance of election integrity as it relates to the U.S. Presidential election.”

“On Bluesky, users can report any content or accounts for election misinformation. In the case of severe violations such as a risk to polling places or election officials, we may remove content or accounts. In most cases, we review claims against credible sources and fact checkers, and may label posts as misinformation,” said Rodericks.

Bluesky’s plans to integrate a “Community Notes-style feature,” which crowdsources fact checks will also help to highlight any election misinformation.

However, it remains to be seen whether these new Bluesky features will be enough to significantly challenge X’s market dominance any time soon. As is, the relative newcomer has 6.1 million users, a modest amount in comparison to the former’s 335.7 million.