Bluesky, the social media platform that became a leftist echo chamber after the election of Donald Trump, is grappling with an influx of bots and impersonation accounts as Trump takes office.
Inc. reports that as Bluesky continues to gain traction among leftists seeking an alternative to platforms like X and Threads, the company is grappling with a growing bot problem. The influx of spam accounts and impersonators is a byproduct of the platform’s success, but it’s leaving many users frustrated and concerned about the future of their social media experience.
In recent weeks, Bluesky users have reported an uptick in bot activity, including dupe accounts impersonating real users and porn bots promoting explicit content. Patrick George, a journalist covering the electric vehicle industry, found himself the target of an impersonation bot despite his relatively modest following of 4,000. The bot contacted one of George’s sources, attempting to continue a conversation that never took place. While George was able to report the account and have it deactivated, the experience left him unsettled.
According to an analysis by Alexios Mantzarlis, director of the Security, Trust, and Safety Initiative at Cornell Tech, 44 percent of the 100 most popular Bluesky accounts have at least one doppelganger, but only 16 percent of those accounts are labeled as impersonators. V.S. Subrahmanian, a computer science professor at Northwestern University, suggests that smaller accounts like George’s can be appealing targets for bad actors, as they can more easily embed themselves in the platform and evade detection.
Bluesky’s bot problem is a testament to its growing prominence in the social media landscape. The platform has seen its user base nearly double from 15 million in mid-November to 27 million currently, largely driven by users fleeing X in the wake of Elon Musk’s controversial involvement with Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
However, the influx of bots poses a significant challenge for Bluesky, which lacks the financial resources of its competitors. The platform’s current verification method, which involves linking one’s profile handle to a custom web domain, is somewhat technical and may not be sustainable as the platform grows. Mantzarlis argues that this method is easily replicable by malicious actors, making it an inadequate solution for a platform hoping to compete with Threads and X.
As Bluesky navigates this new terrain, it will need to invest more in developing robust systems to identify and combat bot accounts. Subrahmanian suggests that the company must build training sets that look at both bot accounts and benign accounts to more easily distinguish between the two.
Read more at Inc. here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.
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