Bluesky says it is working to comply with EU rules and is consulting with its lawyers, after the bloc accused the social network of flouting its regulations
Bluesky said it's working to comply with European Union rules after the bloc accused the fast-growing social media platform of flouting its digital regulations.
BloombergGian Volpicelli
Context & Ripple Effects
The EU’s concern follows Bluesky’s earlier effort to define limits on its growth and governance, including its position that it could not accommodate heads of state during its beta. As the service broadened, it had also begun outlining trust-and-safety measures for abuse, spam, and bad actors.
Bluesky must assess its EU disclosure obligations with counsel and prepare the information or process changes needed to answer the bloc’s concerns.
The company’s EU-facing operations become a direct compliance priority alongside its existing trust-and-safety work.
Second-order effects
Legal, policy, and moderation requirements can divert resources from product development, making regulatory readiness more consequential for a smaller social network’s expansion.
Other emerging platforms seeking European users face a clearer signal that even services outside the largest-platform tier may need identifiable operators and formal compliance processes.
Third-order effects
If enforcement continues to reach newer networks, platform governance will increasingly be treated as a market-entry capability rather than a function added only after scale.
The trend: Social platforms are moving from growth-first experimentation to jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction accountability as regulators demand identifiable operators, disclosures, and enforceable safety systems.
This story that Bluesky is consulting with “its lawyer” about “flouting EU regulations” on — checks notes — having a Web page displaying its user numbers is so awkwardly endearing. [embedded post]
Social media is in desperate need of innovation. Meta is only letting you have a slice of control over what you see because Bluesky is here building for you. [embedded post]
🇪🇺 says Twitter alternative Bluesky violates the Digital Services Act rules around info disclosure. Since Bluesky isn't yet big enough to be considered a “very large online platform” under DSA, the regulator says it can't regulate Bluesky the way it does X/Threads. …
@fsmontenegro.bsky.social mentions BlueSky's unique moderation model perhaps being useful, which might be true, although unfortunately 3rd party labelers (rightfully) don't have access to the account metadata that is most useful in finding and clustering professional fake account…
I do hope that the culture of not engaging and blocking early does help reduce the ability of state actors to build large audiences. Since their accounts are necessarily pseudo-anonymous they often rely upon sweeping, click-baity behaviour to build followings that hopefully the …
Promoted posts and artificial reach via purchased badges are really harmful affordances on X that BkueSky lacks, but there is nothing stopping any of the now veteran PRC groups from creating large organic networks from infiltrating. The BlueSky team needs to start front running …
From what I have seen, and the excellent Platformer from @caseynewton.bsky.social today, BlueSky is going to need some serious T&S investment and innovation to keep ahead of both prosaic safety problems and the organized state actors looking to build a foothold. — www.platforme…
1) Many underestimate the investment the PRC has put into influencing the US social media sphere. — 2) The destruction of Trust and Safety at X has made it a playground for PRC actors. — 3) It's nice to see them whine about BlueSky. — 4) But there is nothing magical about B…
Here's a conversation between @caseynewton.bsky.social, @jstarr.bsky.social, and myself on Bluesky's surge in users, the challenges of scaling up moderation as we grow, and our collaboration with Thorn on enhancing child safety. — www.platformer.news/bluesky- grow...
The challenges of growth: — “In all of 2023, Bluesky had two confirmed cases of CSAM posted on the network. It had eight confirmed cases on Monday alone. ”
lol China's state media is sad about Bluesky because it's not an easy propaganda distribution channel like X (and Facebook) — www.semafor.com/article/11/2... [image]
'Rodericks hopes the expanded team brings Bluesky's trust& safety team back into equilibrium. — “For a 20-person company with no marketing and no revenue to get this many users, we must be doing something right. Or somebody else must be doing something very wrong.” — www.pla…
“For a 20-person company with no marketing and no revenue to get this many users, we must be doing something right or somebody else must be doing something very wrong.” — Understatement of the year.
Bluesky says it will quadruple the size of its moderation team from 25 to 100 people — The move comes in response to Bluesky's rapid growth since this month's US presidential election, which triggered a fresh exodus of users away from Elon Musk's X and took the platform past 22…
“For a 20-person company with no marketing and no revenue to get this many users, we must be doing something right,” Rodericks said. “Or somebody else must be doing something very wrong.” — Both. It's both. — www.platformer.news/bluesky- grow...
Good. But, also: This stuff costs money and people who give you money want even more money in return and, well, forget it Jake. I hope to like this site as much as I do now in two years. But I doubt I will. bsky.app/profile/case... [embedded post]
Some news: amid rapid growth and some over-enforcement of its community guidelines, Bluesky trust and safety chief @aaron.bsky.team tells me the company will quadruple the size of its content moderation team www.platformer.news/bluesky- grow... [image]