Hi all, we're aware that there is a specific PDS that has been set-up to aggressively spam replies and had managed to evade our labeler. We've resolved the issue and are replaying the last 24 hours of the firehose to label them accordingly.

Hi all: the relative merits of any given article in a source widely understood to be fringe media or a purveyor of disinformation is largely irrelevent, we are labeling based on the quality of the overall site and do not make exceptions.

Are YOU attending #TrustCon 2025? ROOST's Head of Product @julietshen.bsky.social will be participating in several sessions next week, including "Trust the Mods!" a workshop on best practices for content review systems on July 21st at 11:00 am PT. Learn more here: www.trustcon.net/event/0f932a...

We will be reducing the number of labels we offer to just those which do not require substantial moderator input to apply.

We have made the decision to delete the block list associated with the Suspected Inauthentic label. The nature of how lists work on bluesky and the scale of that list (80K+ accounts) was making it difficult to remove accounts from other block lists.

We are pleased to report that this list has been restored!

Hiding behind the labeler: Labeler subscribers who routinely pick fights with other users and then report the other user when they hit back will have their reports muted and may be labeled if their behavior is sufficiently troll like.

If you are looking for the block list associated with the TERF-GC label, please be aware that it has been temporarily been hidden by Bluesky as potentially “violat[ing] our Community Guidelines.” We have of course appealed and hope to restore this service to you in short order.

This person said a mean thing about my political affiliation—e.g., "this person is ranting about liberals" will not result in label action being taken absent behavior which fits one of our label categories.

Hi all, when you make reports to the labeler, please provide context and don't just submit a blank report. This is especially true if you're reporting an account and the reason is non-obvious. Thank you!

Heya Skywatch users! @laelaps.fyi is another great independent labeler, and they’re looking for someone they can pay who can help them clean up some of their documentation. If you’re interested, please check out the form below!

Hi all, we had a bit of an outage last night and through the day due to a rate limiting issue. If we’ve been slow to act on reports it is because we’ve been playing catch up.

We don’t generally cross endorse labelers, but since it is wholly automated, we can recommend @for.shame.wtf, if you’re interested in having folks who follow certain high profile accounts flagged for your consideration.

It's apparently time to remind people that I am not @skymoderationlists.bsky.social (or @skysentry.bsky.social or @skywatch.blue or @automated-lists.bsky.social or literally any other moderation service or moderation list on this website)

We don't know what's up with the #AltGov accounts either, but based on reports know many of you don't want them in your timeline, so we've got a new label for that! As always, it defaults to off, so you have to opt in to using it.

We don't know what's up with the #AltGov accounts either, but based on reports know many of you don't want them in your timeline, so we've got a new label for that! As always, it defaults to off, so you have to opt in to using it.

Hi! Since people are being referred here a lot today, we wanted to reintroduce the labeler! We’re an independent labeling service, which means that we’re separate from Bluesky!

We appreciate your support as we continue to work to make Bluesky safe and enjoyable for our users. 8/8

We can’t get every moderation decision right, which is why we maintain an appeals process. We encourage anyone using Bluesky for fundraising to focus their efforts through authentic accounts that follow our community guidelines. 7/8

Separately, some forms of solicitation for Bluesky users to share their bank account details with unknown third parties may expose users to serious financial and legal risks. While we understand the urgent desire to help, these posts are in violation of our Community Guidelines. 6/8

In other cases, when our moderation team detects bulk networks of accounts working to target Bluesky users and exploit goodwill towards crises, we take action to suspend these accounts. 5/8

When we identify these patterns, through a combination of signals that may not be publicly visible to users, we first provide warnings and opportunities for users to adjust their approach. We suspend accounts as a last resort. 4/8

In some cases, investigations revealed networks where single individuals operate hundreds of accounts engaging in bulk messaging, identical replies across unrelated conversations, and mass following — behaviors that disrupt the platform experience for all users regardless of the underlying cause.

Our moderation team works to protect users by distinguishing genuine advocacy from spam, manipulation, or other patterns that suggest fraud or deception. 2/8

We deeply understand that people in Gaza and other crisis areas need platforms to share their experiences and seek support, and we’re committed to ensuring that they can be heard on Bluesky. 1/8

Skywatch has updated the logic in our tooling to fetch the URL behind url shorteners and evaluate the returned url based on existing labeling criteria. We are not labeling shortened URLs in general and have no intention of doing so at this time.

Please note that while this labeler is not a generalized transphobia labeler, we consider the rights of transgender individuals and right of bodily autonomy to be fundamental human rights and not up for debate.

“In contrast, if you follow more people than follow you, you will probably earn the Follow-Farming label.” This is absolutely not true. We explain a bit about the harms of follow farming here, but it has nothing to do with following / follower ratios. bsky.app/profile/skyw...

This is a gentle reminder that we do not label impersonation accounts. These reports should be directed to @moderation.bsky.app. Thanks!

We had a bit of an outage this past weekend. We think it has been resolved and that posts are being appropriately labeled again, but are monitoring the situation.

This is a good thread that helps users understand why follow farming is such an issue.

So many of these accounts and all the follow farmers who "carefully vet all their follows" are following dozens or even hundreds of them

While Skywatch is a purely volunteer run outfit, there are costs associated with hosting and infrastructure development. If you find Skywatch useful and have the means, please consider a donation in support of our mission. Thank you for using our service and your generous support.

If you don't subscribe to @skywatch.blue, just go ahead and take a look at these accounts and then block accordingly. Some are active, others are currently dormant:

You should also subscribe to @skywatch.blue

FYI: We don't support listifications.app (in a dev sense), so we are not currently able to prioritize the fixing of a bug that only affects users of that tool. Please take up your concerns with the maintainer of that app.

Hi folks, we wanted to comment a little bit on the follow-farming label. We automatically label anyone with specific hashtags or keywords in their bio as follow-farmers as these hashtags or keywords have been observed to be widely used in follow-farming campaigns.

One additional note: There is absolutely nothing wrong with accounts that have lots of followers but only follow a small number of accounts. These accounts have followers because they post content people find interesting.

This thread will contain a running list of things we don't label or are not in a position to label, for reference. Around 60% of whole-account reports and 90% of post reports are for things we don't label for.

This post will be pinned and will link earlier threads explaining various labels and decision-making around labels as needed. To start: why is follow farming a problem?

Hi folks, we wanted to comment a little bit on the follow-farming label. We automatically label anyone with specific hashtags or keywords in their bio as follow-farmers as these hashtags or keywords have been observed to be widely used in follow-farming campaigns.

If you don't want to see any account with that specific label, set the label to "Hide". You can change your label display settings at any time. If you fall into this last category, you may also want to consider using the associated blocklist as it populates.

If you want to see the specific label, but also see accounts that are labeled with it and anything they post, you can configure the display by going to @skywatch.blue and setting the specific label to "Warn" instead of "Off" or "Hide".

If you don't want to see the label for a particular profile-emoji-based list, you don't have to do anything. Our labels default to "Off".

They are not a value judgment about the authenticity of an account, the value of an account, or the worth of the person who operates the account.

These labels are offered solely for subscribers who want to reduce the content they see posted by people who have chosen to add that emoji to their profile.

Skywatch offers several labels that detect the presence of certain emoji in display name and bios. These labels are a factual description of what emoji are present in someone's display name or bio, and are presented without editorial comment.

We're rolling out a new label. This one labels accounts with the 💙 emoji in their username or description. We know that some of our users have this emoji in their profile and want to explain a bit about why.

An additional reminder: Other than the Bluesky Elder label, which is a badge only label, our labels are all set to off by default. This means that to use them, you need to explicitly set them to warn or hide. This also means that we will never start blocking something on you without your awareness.

FYI: We don't support listifications.app (in a dev sense), so we are not currently able to prioritize the fixing of a bug that only affects users of that tool. Please take up your concerns with the maintainer of that app.