İFÖD: Bluesky restricted access to 72 accounts in Turkey at the government's request; the accounts are available on third-party apps using the AT Protocol
Government censorship has found its way to Bluesky, but there's currently a loophole thanks to how the social network is structured.
The continued availability of those accounts through AT Protocol-based third-party apps makes Bluesky’s architecture central to the outcome: a restriction in one access layer does not necessarily remove the underlying content from every client.
First-order effects
Bluesky’s Turkey-facing access to 72 accounts is restricted following the government request, while the same accounts remain reachable through third-party AT Protocol apps.
Affected account holders and audiences face a fragmented access experience: the restriction applies in Bluesky’s own service path, not uniformly across compatible apps.
Second-order effects
The gap between Bluesky’s restriction and third-party availability limits how completely an account-level order can control distribution, giving users and civil-society groups a concrete way to assess its practical reach.
Other platforms using interoperable or multi-client systems may face greater pressure to distinguish between compliance within a primary app and control over content across the wider protocol ecosystem.
Third-order effects
If account-specific orders become more common, social networks may increasingly treat jurisdictional compliance as a client- and interface-level policy rather than a universal removal decision.
The episode points to more contestable gatekeeping: governments can still obtain platform restrictions, but decentralized access paths may make enforcement less uniform unless rules expand beyond a single service.
The trend: This is one data point in the shift from blocking entire services toward more granular, but potentially less comprehensive, controls over online access.
Authoritarian governments (Turkey) now paying attention to Bluesky. — Solid discussion of the nuance of compliance with takedown demands, apps enabling workarounds, and distinctions vs federated networks like Mastodon. — techcrunch.com/2025/04/23/g...
They're totally going to try to duck around it with “Oh, but you can still use the AT protocol, so it's okay for us to comply with fascism, right? We're just smol beans 🥺” [embedded post]
Government censorship has found its way to Bluesky, but there's currently a loophole thanks to how the social network is structured. — techcrunch.com/2025/04/23/g...
TO ANY OF MY OOMFIES IN TURKEY OR RUSSIA OR ANY COUNTRIES THAT DO THAT: — this only applies to the default client (bsky.app) — fediversereport.com/bluesky- cens... you can bypass it even without needing a vpn by using a third party one — wiki.atprotocol.community/en/wiki/ …
What is actually happening with the moderation of accounts/posts that the Turkish government wants Bluesky to remove. — In short, they are labeled in a way that will hide they automatically on the main Bluesky app for users in Turkey. — fediversereport.com/bluesky- cens...
Yes these are hide labels & can be bypassed with alternate front end apps. — @tooltip.bsky.social No account takedowns and visible everywhere other than Turkey. — @laurenshof.online post is a good overview fediversereport.com/bluesky- cens...
“Abandon Twitter and go to Bluesky,” they said. “It's a better version of Twitter.” — News: Bluesky restricts access to 72 accounts in Turkey amid government pressure — Bluesky is just another VC-funded, profit-seeking social platform. The fediverse is inherently better. —…
For more background on this you can check out: — The Fediverse Report | Bluesky, censorship and country-based moderation — https://fediversereport.com/ ...