Bluesky recently suspended the account of author and liberal influencer Sarah Kendzior, causing confusion on the left-leaning social media platform over what it did. According to Bluesky, Kendzior was suspended for “expressing a wish to fire the author of an article”, a very shocking accusation. Until you learn the context, it creates its own debate about where platforms should draw the line when it comes to moderation.
“The post, made on 11/10, said: ‘I want to shoot the author of this article just to see him die,'” a spokesperson for Bluesky told Gizmodo in an email Wednesday morning.
The spokesperson added, “The account owner was immediately notified of the reason for the content removal and engaged back-and-forth with our moderation team. Our community guidelines prohibit content that threatens or seeks to harm others.”
Bluesky’s security team also shared a similar statement online on Wednesday, shortly after Gizmodo obtained its statement via email. But Kendzior, who lives in St. Louis and has written political books like View from flyover country (2018) and hiding in plain sight (2020), told Gizmodo that there was more to the story.
“I posted that line as a quote tweet above a terrible article about Johnny Cash,” Kendzior said. “My post references the famous lyric from his song Folsom Prison Blues: ‘I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.'”
Kendzior was referencing an October 9 Wall Street Journal article about Johnny Cash, which was widely mocked as being out of touch. Headlined, “It’s finally time to give Johnny Cash his due,” social media users mocked the idea that Cash, one of the most respected musical artists of the 20th century, has not received proper recognition.
Kendzior pointed out that Bluesky made no mention of Johnny Cash’s lyrics: “Specifically, he did not send you a screenshot of my entire quote-tweet, but only the one line that was removed from the Johnny Cash reference.” The author says that when she received an email about the suspension, she wasn’t sure whether she was “dealing with a real employee or some kind of prank. But my entire account is gone, so it’s real.”
Kendzior told Gizmodo that he thinks his post was actually sent a month earlier, around October 9, but cannot verify the exact date because his posts on BlueSky have been deleted. Bluesky initially told Gizmodo that the tweet was sent on November 10, but later issued a correction in a post that Kendzior’s post was actually sent on October 10.
Kendzior, who regularly writes about politics at Substack, does not believe the Johnny Cash song was the real reason for his suspension on Monday, but he did not elaborate on what he believes the real reason might be.
Kendzior said, “I don’t think my suspension is about the reference to the Johnny Cash song – beyond the obvious fact that getting suspended for protecting Johnny Cash’s honor is ridiculous, and beyond the fact that the post is over a month old and caused no outrage – because they could have removed that one post instead of deleting my entire account.”
He added, “I strongly disagree that my posts deserve removal. But deleting the entire account is a blatant violation of my freedom of speech and it harms everyone who cites or engages with my work and who now deals with useless links.”
BlueSky users seemed divided on whether Kendzior’s post needed to be suspended, with many users pointing out that it did not seem appropriate, given the fact that she was responding to an article about Johnny Cash. But others thought it was a fair decision under the principle that a death threat is a death threat and arbitrators should not decide who is joking and who is not.
Paul Frazee, a software engineer at Bluesky, posted about the idea that people could abuse a system where moderators are forced to determine what is a joke versus a real threat.
“The company’s policy regarding death threats is absolutely no-nonsense and it doesn’t actually take jokes or references as sufficient grounds to condone them,” Frazee wrote to BlueSky Wednesday. “It’s one of those things that comes with being a big public space. Everyone will claim they’re ‘just kidding.'”
This is not the first time that Bluesky has faced criticism for its moderation decisions. The platform has received criticism for being too harsh on the platform in banning Palestinians who are trying to raise funds or simply raise awareness of their plight as Israel’s war on Gaza has led them to take desperate measures.
There was also recent uproar when a user named Link was permanently suspended after posting photos of Charlie Kirk, which was interpreted as a threat of violence. Link, who says he works for a non-profit in Washington DC, told Gizmodo he was confused about the suspension and said one of the two reasons given by Bluesky involved a factual error. Link’s suspension appears to be permanent, while Kendzior’s suspension may only last three days.
Gizmodo contacted Bluesky about the matter of the link, but did not receive any clarification by press time. At least we got acknowledgment of our email. This has not always been the case, and perhaps suggests that Bluesky is moving away from its old communication strategy, where emails were often met with silence.
Aaron Rodericks, head of trust and safety at Bluesky, suggested this was actually a conscious change in strategy, writing on Wednesday: “There’s a shift towards being more transparent here,” quoting a post about why Kendzior was suspended.
Again, that post did not include the context that Kendzior was referencing a classic Johnny Cash song. But the broader strategy may be changing for BlueSky as it navigates the difficulties of growing a larger user base. Bluesky currently has more than 40 million users, up from 30 million in January. And while social media moderation is extremely difficult, and often nuanced, no one is happy unless the rules and the enforcement of those rules are clear.