Bluesky, the Twitter rival backed by Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter, is facing severe criticism for a recent controversial update that removed numerous racist, ableist, and transphobic slurs from its list of flagged words. Last week's update sparked outrage among users, who were dismayed that such offensive language was allowed to bypass Bluesky's moderation tools, despite violating the platform's community guidelines.
The controversy came to light when users discovered an account using a racial slur as its username. Despite multiple reports flagging the account for its offensive content, Bluesky took action only after 16 days, deactivating the account the following day. Many users questioned why Bluesky hadn't apologized for this failure to uphold its own community guidelines promptly.
Attempting to address the issue, Bluesky's CEO, Jay Graber, posted a statement acknowledging the platform's commitment to fostering a healthy community. He asserted that they are continuously striving to improve their moderation practices. In response to the criticism, Bluesky claimed that they have implemented changes preventing the creation of user handles containing slur words. However, the update did not address existing accounts with offensive usernames, leading to a situation where one user was able to change their handle to a racial slur shortly after the update.
As a rival to Twitter, Bluesky has updated its list of banned words to include slurs, expletives, and celebrity names that cannot be used as usernames when creating new accounts. Nevertheless, the oversight of not applying this update to existing accounts has raised serious concerns among the platform's users.
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In the midst of these controversies, Bluesky has managed to secure $8 million in funding to support its growth and mission. Notably, they have also announced plans to offer a paid service that allows users to have custom domains as their handles, providing a unique and personalized experience on the platform.
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Meanwhile, Meta, the parent company of Instagram, has launched its own Twitter competitor called Threads on the popular social media platform. As competition in the social media space heats up, Bluesky faces increasing pressure to address its moderation issues and maintain user trust.
Inputs from IANS
