IT didn't take long for controversy to hit the former Twitter boss Jack Dorsey's new social network. Recently, Bluesky users have been reporting moderation issues concerning the creation of usernames containing racial slurs.
Despite his experience as Twitter boss, Jack Dorsey is still having to contend with moderation issues on his new platform, Bluesky.
The social network had been touted as an alternative to Twitter following the return of banned accounts, reinstated by Elon Musk, and the removal of several moderation rules. And yet, many users complained about certain accounts being created with racial slurs as usernames, sometimes even using the "n-word."
That account was removed by Bluesky 40 minutes after being flagged by users.
But how was the creation of a username featuring a racist slur even allowed in the first place? It seems that a moderation loophole simply allowed such words to be used when creating an account. Following these incidents, the moderation team reported that they had fixed the problem directly in the application's source code.
"Over the past few months, we've made significant investments in Trust and Safety and will continue to do so [...]. Our moderation team responds to most reports within 24 hours. On Wednesday, users reported an account that had a slur as its handle.
"This handle was in violation of our community guidelines, and it was our mistake that allowed it to be created. 40 minutes after it was reported, the account was taken down, and the code that allowed this to occur was patched," Bluesky said in a post on the platform.
Despite this, Black users deplored the moderation issue and some said they felt "betrayed" by the Bluesky social network, which promised to be different from Elon Musk's Twitter, according to investigations by Mashable. Some users have also called out the lack of response from the moderation team on issues concerning racism, especially against the Black community. – ETX Daily Up, July 19, 2023
