Bluesky, a rapidly growing social networking startup that is an alternative to Twitter/X built on open web principles, said in a livestream Monday that its approach to user account authentication is similar to Meta and X. We clarified how it differs from existing services. With a verification payment model, where users pay a fee for the privilege of a blue check to verify their identity, Bluesky envisions a system where there will be multiple verification providers to serve the needs of the broader community. .
Currently, the only way to authenticate your account with Bluesky is by adopting a custom domain name, but the company started offering the option last year. This tells us, for example, that the Bluesky account @nytimes.com belongs to the actual New York Times publication. Additionally, Bluesky directly addresses impersonation issues as they arise.
However, Bluesky believes that custom domains may be just part of the solution for future verification.
In the future, the company is considering a model where multiple authentication providers coexist.
Bluesky CEO Jay Graber explains: But it could be accessed through one app, and then there could be another app, and then there could be other services. ” she continued. “And they can choose to trust our validation, the Bluesky team, or validate it themselves. Or they can have someone else create it themselves.”
In other words, Bluesky is proposing a verification system in which no single entity, the company itself, has sole control over who gets the “verified” label and who doesn't.
This reconsiders validation relative to how such systems have traditionally worked and how they have evolved in recent years.
At Twitter, verification has been fraught with complexity and concern for years. Initially, Twitter created a kind of two-tier class system, authenticating some high-profile users while ignoring others who thought they deserved to be authenticated as well.
Under new owner Elon Musk, the company overhauled the system and attempted to make it more democratic by allowing anyone to pay for background checks. But as you can imagine, this dramatic switch didn't work out. Users purchased certified checks to impersonate others on the platform, causing chaos.
Even today, X continues to have issues with verified bots, devaluing the meaning of verified checks.
Meanwhile, Meta follows Twitter/X in introducing paid verification, primarily aimed at supporting creators and businesses on the platform.
Bluesky, on the other hand, aims to build an infrastructure that allows anyone to verify others according to their own rules and policies, just as anyone can currently build their own feeds, moderation systems, and algorithms.
Bluesky itself could choose to focus on verifying high-profile users, but other companies could also build verification systems that vet users with other criteria.
For example, Graeber suggested that universities could authenticate users as alumni, or fan groups like the Swifties could authenticate people as members of their communities. These verification providers can also choose who is verified, or offer more comprehensive services where verification across different affiliations is part of the service.
The challenge, according to the CEO, is how to present multiple verifications without confusing end users. The company needs to figure out how these verifications will be displayed — perhaps as badges? — and in the same way in other third-party Bluesky apps as in its official clients. Whether the app should be visible.
“…we are trying to design long-term for more applications. [and] We need to operate more services beyond ours,” Graeber said.
Timing is another issue.
The company's 20-person team said that as users began to move away from Mr. Musk's We've been working to keep up with Bluesky's rapid growth. work. Since the election, Bluesky has added 8.7 million new users, bringing the total number of users to over 22.7 million today. That's why Meta's X competitor, Threads, is scrambling to counter the threat with its own set of features similar to Bluesky, including updating the default feed and switching the default feed at the same time. algorithm.
In the livestream, Bluesky's team discussed things like how Bluesky profiles can be designed to connect users to a broader web presence, including personal websites and other social accounts similar to the likes of Linktree. , talked about other long-term plans.
The company said that given its rapid growth, it cannot yet commit to specific feature rollouts or timelines.