Bluesky Permits Utilization of N-Word in Usernames

Bluesky, the emerging decentralized Twitter alternative, previously lacked a mechanism to automatically block usernames containing the n-word. However, this week, the company faced criticism after multiple reports of a user with the offensive term in their handle. Although Bluesky eventually resolved the issue, many expressed dissatisfaction with the startup’s lack of apology. Instead, on Saturday morning, several days after the incident, Bluesky seemed to downplay the event as an isolated incident that was promptly resolved.

“On Wednesday, users reported an account with a dirty handle. This handle was in violation of our community rules, and our error allowed it to be created,” the company said. “Forty minutes after the notification, the account was deleted and the code that allowed this to happen was fixed.”

Bluesky claimed that in recent months it had “made significant investments” in its Trust and Safety team and would continue to invest in “monitoring, feedback and support systems” that would scale with the platform’s growing user base. Bluesky did not immediately respond to ReturnByte’s request for comment. Days before issuing a statement on the situation, the company quietly added the n-word and nearly four dozen other ethnic and racial slurs to the list of “reserved” words, according to Hacker News.

Bluesky’s statement, when it came out, appears to have been sparked by a viral LinkedIn post written by Scott Hirleman, host of the Data Mesh Radio podcast. Hirleman tagged the company’s executive team, including CEO Jay Graber, and accused Bluesky of failing to address an “incredibly bad anti-blackness problem” on its social network. “If you don’t want to maintain a social media platform, split the company in two and focus on the protocol and fund the platform with another team that cares,” Hirleman added. As of writing this article, the post has over 700 reactions and about 50 comments.

No social media is free of racists, but the fact that Bluesky didn’t already filter out something as basic as the n-word is surprising considering Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey is one of the company’s backers. Under Dorsey, Twitter was often ineffective in addressing white supremacy, and could often have done more to protect black and other marginalized users.