Bluesky, the emerging social media platform, announced that it was adding blue check marks to verified accounts in an effort to confirm users' identities and ensure authenticity.
In a blog post, the company revealed that it would "proactively verify authentic and notable accounts and display a blue check next to their names."
“Trust is everything,” the team stated in the post.
This move mirrors a feature once deployed by Twitter to help users identify authentic accounts and combat impersonation.
Bluesky was founded by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey in 2019 as a side project. Dorsey, along with five engineers, sought to build a decentralized alternative to Twitter, believing that centralized attempts to police abuse and misinformation would not work. His vision was to give users more control over personal data and content moderation.
Bluesky did not launch until 2023, the year following Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter, now known as X.
Musk, a key ally of former US President Donald Trump, had dismantled the platform’s account verification system after purchasing Twitter in 2022.
He instead offered blue check marks to users subscribing to the X Premium tier.
In its post, Bluesky highlighted the need for verified accounts, with the team stating, “Social media has connected us in powerful ways, but it hasn’t always given us the tools to know who we’re interacting with or why we should trust them.”
Bluesky confirmed that it had grown to over 30 million users, with more than 270,000 accounts using website addresses as their usernames to verify their identities.
The platform introduced blue checks for “trusted verifiers” and announced plans to eventually launch a request form for accounts seeking verification.
Bluesky’s chief operating officer, Rose Wang, expressed optimism about the network's future. "We really see this as our coming-out year," Wang said in a recent interview with the foreign news agency.
“People want to know what’s happening in the world and need a safe, moderated space to discuss it, have fun, and make friends. Right now, they’re not finding that anywhere else,” she added.
