Bluesky wants to make its moderation and reporting systems more transparent than some alternatives as part of its efforts to create a healthier social media ecosystem. The platform’s user base has doubled to 40 million in the past year, and with more users comes more cases of toxicity and other types of harmful content. Bluesky is also subject to greater regulatory requirements in some jurisdictions. The team is working to address those factors, and changes to the moderation system should help.
The platform is improving the way it enforces and tracks violations of its policies. In the latest version of the Bluesky app, the post reporting system now includes more detailed options, with specific options to flag content related to things like misinformation about elections, human trafficking, and bullying. “This granularity helps our moderation systems and teams act faster and with more accuracy,” the Bluesky team wrote in a blog post. “It also allows more accurate tracking of trends and losses across the network.”
Instead of tracking Community Guidelines violations in individual policies, as was the case in the past, Bluesky will automatically track everything in a single system. As part of this, the platform will provide users with clear information about enforcement actions. In the coming weeks, users whose accounts are taken action will learn which policies they violated, the severity level of their violations, and the number of times they broke the rules. They will also be informed of the duration and expiration date of any suspension, as well as how close they are to more severe penalties being applied to their account for repeat violations. There are appeal processes for both account deletion and suspension.
Looking ahead, Bluesky plans to add a moderation inbox to the app instead of dealing with moderation decisions by email. The team says this will improve transparency and enable it to send greater amounts of information to users.
“These updates are part of our broader work on community health,” the team wrote. “Our goal is to ensure consistent, fair enforcement that holds repeat violators accountable while serving our growing community as we continue to grow.”
There are some other changes in the latest version of the app as well. The team says the new design makes it easier to use “Who can reply” settings, including the option to save your selection as the default for future posts. There is also a dark mode app icon available.