Although Threads (Instagram’s Twitter) has more users, it seems like Bluesky is emerging as a great alternative to X. Recent events in the United States and on Elon Musk’s platform have caused many users to abandon X. It has turned into a very significant growth for the platform. There is also a tremendous challenge regarding an important aspect of any social network: moderation.

Bluesky’s growth. In the last few days, the platform reached 19 million users; This corresponds to approximately one million per day. This is a figure that indicates genuine interest in finding a viable alternative to X. What’s going on? More users means more problems.

Reports. On Bluesky, anyone can report content they think is dangerous, illegal, or violates community standards. According to the information received from the platform, 42,000 notices were received in just 24 hours, that is, 3,000 complaints per hour. This is a historical record and a figure that may seem low compared to 19 million registered users, but it is better understood with another piece of information: Bluesky received a total of 360,000 reports in 2023 alone.

In other words, Bluesky received 11.6% of the reports it received last year in a single day. A technical difficulty if there ever was one.

This must be stopped. “With this significant influx of users, we have also observed an increase in spam, scams and trolls,” said the platform, which has 20 full-time employees. They also claim to have “classified this huge tail” [de reportes] This ensures that the most harmful content, such as child sexual abuse, is quickly removed.”

first measure. Force newly registered user to verify their email before publishing, it’s that simple. In this way, the platform aims to prevent malicious users from registering with disposable e-mails. Requiring verification can reduce risks. It won’t eliminate them, but it will increase the workload for anyone looking to create large numbers of accounts in bulk using temporary emails.

How to avoid X2. Social media is not bad per se, but it can have a detrimental effect when certain behaviors are allowed and/or deregulated or reduced. Elon Musk laid off 80% of Twitter’s workforce in 2022, and since October 2023, X has reduced content moderation resources by 20%. The latest available data, corresponding to April 2024, shows that X has 1,849 people managing the platform. We are talking about one moderator for every 60,200 users. To put it in context, Meta has 15,000 moderators, one moderator for every 17,600 users.

Add to this a CEO who defends the concept of “free speech” above all else (rendering blocks useless, for example), engages in behavior that violates the terms of his own platform, and takes a number of antibot measures. It was not effective. Bluesky doesn’t want to be what X has become, and it offers some interesting tools to do so.

Bluesky against the trolls. One of the best tools is to untag quotes. If someone quotes one of our posts and uses it to, for example, mock us or hurt us, we may retract that quote and our post will not appear below their post. Nothing prevents taking screenshots for the same purposes, but at least the tool is available, which is no small thing.

The other is the user list for mass blocking. These lists, which anyone can create, include people who speak on certain topics, act this way or that, etc. It serves to collect all users in the same list. Let’s say chemtrail, pseudoscience, flat earthism, etc. We do not want to read, see, listen to, or have any interaction with accounts that spread hoaxes about them. Well, we can put all the profiles talking about these topics in a list and silence them or block them all together. What’s more, we may share this list publicly for everyone to see.

This allows us to keep our feed clean and free of profiles that may contain harmful behavior. Meanwhile, quarantines restrict all forms of interaction. The blocked user will not be able to like, mention, reply or follow us and their profile and/or posts will not appear in our feeds.

Pictures | Xataka

in Xataka | I’ve been on Threads since the day it was released, and despite everything, it seems like a much friendlier platform than Twitter.