Blue Check Coming to Bluesky
It’s the old days of Twitter again: Bluesky is launching a formal verification process for assigning a blue tick to “known” user accounts, adding to the platform’s existing self-verification capabilities using its own domain.
As of 2023, Bluesky allows individuals and organizations to “verify” their accounts by setting their domain as the username (for example, NPR is @npr.org, and NPR journalists are on the subdomain @name.npr.org)—as part of a decentralized approach to signaling authenticity and building trust.
Because to connect a domain, users had to own or have access to that domain, this was one way to verify identity. However, Bluesky continued to see many fake and impersonation accounts, as self-verification required users to know (or research) which domains were real and trustworthy. Bluesky will soon launch a more centralized verification process that requires accounts to be reviewed and approved by the platform’s moderators.
Verification exists in various forms on other social platforms, from pay-to-play on X (replacing the legacy verification process for known and genuine accounts) to Instagram apps for accounts representing a “well-known, highly followed person, brand or organization” that have been featured in several news sources.
How does Bluesky check work?
According to the blog post announcing the change , Bluesky’s moderation team will “actively review genuine and known accounts” and will then display a blue check mark next to their names.
Additionally, individual organizations will be able to provide blue checkmarks directly through the Trusted Reviewers feature—for example, The New York Times will be able to vet its individual journalists. Bluesky moderators will still review each confirmation, and other users will be able to see which organization provided it by clicking on the blue check mark.
Individuals and organizations cannot apply for verification at this time, although Bluesky expects to open verification requests and trusted verifier status at some point in the future “as this functionality stabilizes.” Users can still self-verify their information using domain names.
If you wish, you can hide review in the Bluesky app under Settings > Moderation > Review Settings .