Bluesky prepares for Election Day as X goes pro-Trump

As Election Day in the US approaches, social media startup Bluesky, now with new funding, hopes to show that its platform can serve as a more reliable, fact-tested alternative to Elon Musk’s X. Trump’s campaign, Bluesky tends to lean left, due to its influx of disgruntled former Twitter users who don’t like the platform’s new approach. Now, as the US elections are upon us, Bluesky is preparing for its biggest test yet: its ability to manage misinformation that could mislead users during these important national events, including any posts aimed at disrupting the voting process or those using new technologies. , like AI, to confuse the voting public.

While one of X’s competitors, Meta’s Threads app, has distanced itself from politics – to the extent that it no longer recommends political content for users – Bluesky has capitalized on the need for a real-time social network that prioritizes such discussions. Coupled with recent X changes to the block function, which angered some users, Bluesky may be poised to reap the benefits of another X release as users make the switch.

To manage its election operations, Bluesky earlier this year hired a prominent former Twitter leader as head of Trust and Safety, Aaron Rodericks. Already knowledgeable about the policies, tools, and teams needed to manage election security at Twitter, where he worked with the Trust and Safety team, Rodericks once made headlines as a target for the right-wing campaign on X after announcing on LinkedIn how he did it. was looking to hire more staff for the 2024 election season. The executive later lost his job at X when Musk cut off part of the loyal election team after promising to grow it.

Now at Bluesky, the team led by Rodericks has announced how it is preparing to handle the US presidential election, including reviewing content to identify potential misinformation and other unconfirmed reports and claims.

In a series of posts on Bluesky, the Bluesky Safety team explained its election security plans, reminding users that they can report posts to the Bluesky rating service with misleading and illegal or urgent content by clicking the three-dot menu next to each post and. account. There will also be a priority line on its schedule for any election-related reporting.

To keep the process “safe and accurate,” Bluesky says it will also remove any content that “encourages or glorifies intimidation or interference in voting, tabulation, or certification.” It also plans to flag posts with misleading claims about voting, such as those that share incorrect requirements about voter ID or other deceptive media.

Meanwhile, “emerging” election-related reports that cannot be immediately verified will be labeled “unconfirmed.” For example, if someone reports long lines at their polling station or other incidents at the polling station, these may be labeled as unverified during the inspection. (The company did not share whether and how it would update the reports if national media later confirmed them.)

The company says its platform monitoring plans extend beyond election day, too, as it will work to identify and correct any disruptions in the “peaceful transition of power,” as well.

In addition, Bluesky says it reserves the right to roll out additional security measures in the coming days, if needed, to ensure the security of elections on the platform.

Unlike X and Threads, where moderation is handled only by the business itself, Bluesky’s decentralized promise is that anyone can use their Bluesky server and their moderation service. Users can also subscribe to multiple moderation services to personalize their feed,

“Our online experience doesn’t have to depend on millions of people making decisions about what we see,” the company explained in March. “On an open social network like Bluesky, you can create your own experience.” In other words, if you don’t like how Bluesky uses its app, you can create your own. And if you don’t like Bluesky’s moderation options, you can create your own independent service instead.

Bluesky’s moderation team has also been expanded with additional hires following two recent operations that have brought more users to the service. While the company hasn’t said how big its team of programmers is today, CEO Jay Graber commented on the size of the team in an interview with Niley Patel’s Decoder podcast in March, when he noted, “We’re about 18 across engineering and ops, too. then we have that value in support and measurement.”