After a third-party evaluation, Bluesky must now be more proactive and vigilant in improving its performance. Bluesky Security reported that Twitter is actively removing accounts that impersonate various individuals or entities, as well as those occupying handles without a legitimate purpose. Without a conventional verification process in place, Bluesky leaves itself vulnerable to fraudulent activity, making it surprisingly easy for dishonest clients to masquerade as someone else, either to gain an advantage or take advantage of others. That would not have been a significant issue in the past; however, the present situation starkly highlighted the challenge.
While customers can verify their identities on Bluesky by connecting their profile to an external identity service, this process is not as straightforward as obtaining a verified badge. To register their website, they would need to append a line of text to the DNS file corresponding to their region, enabling them to claim their URL. We would likely announce our partnership with Engadget.com on Bluesky once we complete this self-verification process successfully. Individuals may link their profiles to personal websites or invest in custom domain names. The platform announced that it’s collaborating with prominent entities and influential individuals to secure their verified profiles.
When consumers verify their accounts, the previously occupied space typically associated with username.bskybuddy will become available for others to claim upon new sign-ups. According to Alexios Mantzarlis, a researcher from Cornell Tech’s third social group, an analysis of Bluesky’s top 100 most-followed accounts revealed that nearly half (44%) had duplicate profiles, or “doppelgangers”. As a result, Bluesky now mandates that parody, satire, or fan account handles and bios clearly indicate their fictional nature. In cases where users fail to provide sufficient information about themselves or only highlight specific characteristics, they will be treated as impersonators and promptly removed from the platform.
Bluesky now explicitly prohibits identification churn, thereby enforcing best practices. Accounts that initially pose as impersonators seeking to acquire new customers, before attempting to circumvent detection by switching to a distinct identity, will still be expelled from the app. The company is reportedly investigating additional options to bolster account validation, but these appear untested and potentially premature for implementation.
