The social media platform Bluesky recently had an incident where a user created an account with a racial slur as the handle. The Bluesky team quickly removed the account but realized they should have had automated filters in place to prevent such issues. They are now implementing a two-step automated filtering and flagging system for user handles while still involving human moderators. The team acknowledges they were too slow to communicate with the community about the incident and are working to improve their Trust and Safety team and communication processes going forward. They are committed to learning from this mistake and building a safer and more resilient social media platform over time.
Previous post about this topic https://beehaw.org/post/2152596
Bluesky allowed people to include the n-word in their usernames | Engadget
Bluesky, a decentralized social network, allowed users to register usernames containing the n-word. When reports surfaced about a user with the racial slur in their name, Bluesky took 40 minutes to remove the account but did not publicly apologize. A LinkedIn post criticized Bluesky for failing to filter offensive terms from the start and for not addressing its anti-blackness problem. Bluesky later claimed it had invested in moderation systems but the oversight highlighted ongoing issues considering Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey backs the startup. The fact that Bluesky allowed such an obvious racial slur shows it was unprepared to moderate a social network effectively.
It’s the one-two punch of “why wasn’t it already in place” and “very bad, slow communication” wrapped up in “a team that really should’ve known better already”. If any one of those had been different maybe the reaction wouldn’t’ve been so strong. This just isn’t what you want to see from a new service that’s hoping to take on the entrenched Twitter (no matter how rapidly it may be declining, holdouts will be strong) and the evil Threads (which jumped itself so far ahead in userbase through … shady tactics).
At the end of the day, this is a product. We have a right to demand better service if they want us using it (how they make a profit isn’t our concern). This is the best time to strike too, and lay down the groundwork for what kind of community that we want to foster there. Sending a strong message that we want Twitter but without the bad stuff that made us leave is very important. Did some people take it even way too far? Probably maybe, but you should know by now being online that you can’t let the worst of everyone represent you.