Government censorship has found its way to BlueSky, but now there are loopholes thanks to the structure of social networks.
Earlier this month, a recent report by the Freedom of Expression Association found that at the request of Turkish government authorities it restricted access to 72 Turkey accounts. As a result, Turkish people will no longer be able to view these accounts, and their reach is limited.
The report shows that 59 Blueski accounts have been blocked on the grounds of protecting “national security and public order.” Bruski also created 13 more accounts, with at least one post not visible from Türkiye.
Given that many Turkish users migrated from X to Blueski in the hopes of fleeing government censorship, what Bruski is succumbing to the Turkish government's demands is whether they are open and decentralized as social networks claim. (Or if it ends up being “like Twitter.”
However, Bluesky's technical foundations now decouple these blocks more easily than on networks like X.
Mastodon users can move their accounts to various servers to avoid censorship targeting the original Mastodon instance (servers).
Users of the official BlueSky app can configure moderation settings, but there is no way to opt out of the moderation services provided by BlueSky. This includes the use of geographical labelling, like the newly added Turkish moderation labelling that handles censorship of accounts mandated by the Turkish government. (Laurens Hof forgets a big breakdown of how this works with all technical details in his Fediverse report.)
Simply put, if you are using the official Bluesky app and you agree that Bluesky (the company) will censor something in your area, there is no way to opt out of this and see hidden posts or accounts.
It focuses on atmospheric censorship
Other third-party Bluesky apps that make up the larger open social web, known as The Atmosphere, do not need to follow these same rules. At least not so for now.
BlueSky is built on top of the AT protocol, allowing third-party clients to create views on their own interfaces and BlueSky content without applying the same moderation choices. Meanwhile, the censored account in question is not banned from the Bluesky infrastructure, such as relays and personal data servers (which can also be run by others outside of the company).
Instead, accounts are mitigated by client-level geographical labelling. Currently, BlueSky does not require third-party apps to use geographic moderation labels. This will force the app to geolocate users and apply appropriate regional restrictions. This means that apps that do not implement existing geographical labels do not censor these blocked Turkish accounts.
In other words, apps like Skeet, European, Deer, Skywalker can now be used to bypass Türkiye's censorship.
Unfortunately, this “solution” has some caveats.
App developers' choice not to use geographical labels is not necessarily intentional. Adding geographic labellers will be an additional task on their part, and most simply don't bother implementing them yet. Additionally, these third-party apps have a much smaller user base than the official BlueSky app. This allows you to fly under the radar of government censorship. It also doesn't make such decisions too much concern for app developers – at least for the time being.
If these third-party apps are popular enough, governments like Turkey can approach them and demand action. And if they don't follow, they could risk their app being blocked domestically (for example, some Bluesky app developers said they wouldn't be worried about adding a geographic labeler until Apple approached them about potential removal from the App Store).
Avoiding labeling doesn't seem like a permanent solution, so one developer, Aviva Ruben, is building an alternative Bluesky client called Deer.social. Here, users may choose to completely disable Bluesky's official moderation service and labels in favour of using other third-party labelers instead.
Additionally, the app allows users to manually configure the location in the settings. This is an option that allows users to avoid geolocation-based blocking and censorship.
Alternate Bluesky Client Deer.Social.ImageCredit: Deer.Social
“I like current policies, but I'm afraid it will bring more restrictive or change in the future. This is a big reason to keep pushing the Alternative Apps view,” says Reuben, referring to the need for alternative ways to access and view Bluesky's data.
While government censorship concerns today focus on Turkey, the Blueski community must prepare for a future where governments, including the US, can request that posts be hidden beyond just those blatantly illegal, like CSAM.
Reuben says that Deer.social adds a “no location” option to the app at this point, so users can choose to avoid all geographic labelers.
Despite these possible loopholes, censors have arrived at Blueski. And this is a notable evolution considering that official apps reach the largest number of people.