Bluesky Faces Backlash for Allowing N-Word in Usernames

Before this week, Bluesky, the up-and-coming decentralized alternative to Twitter, had no system to automatically restrict anyone from registering usernames that included the n-word as part of their handle. This change was made this week. On Wednesday, the firm was made aware of many instances of individuals using the derogatory term as part of their username. And even though Bluesky subsequently found a solution to the problem, many people are dissatisfied that the startup did not appear to apologize for the lapse. Instead, Bluesky appeared to portray the event as a one-time occurrence promptly dealt with early on Saturday morning, several days after the occurrence.

Bluesky’s Lack of Filtering for Offensive Terms

“On Wednesday, users brought to our attention an account that used a derogatory term as its handle. According to the firm, “This handle violated our community guidelines, and it was our mistake that allowed it to be created.” “Forty minutes after the issue was brought to our attention, the account in question was closed, and the vulnerability in the software that had enabled this to take place was patched.”

Bluesky’s Response and Backlash

Bluesky asserted that it had “made significant investments” in its Trust and Safety team over the course of the past few months and that it would continue to make investments in “moderation, feedback, and support systems” that could keep up with the expanding number of users on its platform. The request for a remark made by Engadget was not immediately met with a response from Bluesky. The corporation, which was captured by Hacker News adding the n-word and nearly four dozen additional ethnic and racial insults to a list of “reserved” phrases, did so in secret days before publishing a statement regarding the problem.

When it eventually came, Bluesky’s response was spurred by a post that went popular on LinkedIn written by Scott Hirleman, the host of the Data Mesh Radio podcast. Hirleman accused Bluesky of failing to solve an “incredibly bad anti-blackness problem” on its social network. He labeled the company’s management staff, including CEO Jay Graber, in his post, and he did so by tagging Bluesky. “If you don’t want to run a social media platform, split the company in twain and focus on the protocol and fund the platform with another team that cares,” Hirleman said. As of the time this article was written, the post has approximately fifty comments and more than seven hundred reactions.

Failure to Address Past Issues

Remarkably, Bluesky did not already filter for something as fundamental as using the n-word, given that Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey is one of the company’s backers. Although there are racists on every social media platform, it is especially unexpected that Bluesky did not filter for their use. During Dorsey’s tenure as CEO of Twitter, the company regularly failed to combat white supremacy effectively and missed numerous opportunities to safeguard better the safety of people of color and other marginalized users.