Bluesky has long resisted creating a checkmark verification system to combat impersonation and fraud. But that all changed Monday when the social media company officially announced it was rolling out verification for high-profile organizations and celebrities.
“Trust is everything. Social media has connected us in powerful ways, but it hasn’t always given us the tools to know who we’re interacting with or why we should trust them,” the company said in a new blog post.
The company went on to explain how Bluesky launched a new feature in 2023 that allowed anyone with a website to make that URL their username on the social media platform, a form of verification that allowed for a decentralized approach to proving who you were. Only Elizabeth Warren has the access necessary to make her website, http://www.warren.senate.gov, appear as her username on Bluesky, @warren.senate.gov.
In theory, it’s a great idea. But in practice, there was still some confusion among average users who have been conditioned by sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to expect a blue checkmark when a user has been “verified” as authentic. And starting Monday, that’s the system Bluesky is introducing as well.
“Bluesky will proactively verify authentic and notable accounts and display a blue check next to their names. Additionally, through our Trusted Verifiers feature, select independent organizations can verify accounts directly. Bluesky will review these verifications as well to ensure authenticity,” the company wrote.
Bluesky will allow a given organization to get verified by the company, and then that entity can verify employees or others associated with it. And tapping on a user’s verification will show where that person obtained their verification.
But not everyone is happy with the new verification rollout. Journalist Timothy Burke prefers the domain method of verification, arguing on Bluesky that centralization of verification will incentivize companies not to use the domain method, writing, “as long as anything is centralized it is subject to one day experiencing exactly what Twitter experienced.” Placing the control over verification into the hands of the company is a bad idea because the domain method is “one thing the platform does *not* have a say over.”
this is exactly the problem, as long as anything is centralized it is subject to one day experiencing exactly what Twitter experienced and why using domains to verify anybody is who they say they are is so important bc it’s one thing the platform does *not* have a say over
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— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog.lol) April 21, 2025 at 9:16 AM
The flip side to that is the fact that many people don’t own their own web domains. And even if they do, it still requires the average user to investigate whether the domain itself is reputable and connected to the person. For example, anyone could theoretically buy up elizabethwarrensenator.com, which is currently available, create an account with Sen. Warren’s face and pretend to be her. It would likely get shut down on Bluesky for impersonation eventually, but those are the problems that present themselves in decentralized verification scenarios.
Bluesky, which has over 35 million users, sees a surge of new interest every time X owner Elon Musk does something to break his own site, which seems to be more and more frequent these days. And Musk arguably ruined verification when he stripped so-called legacy accounts of their checkmarks and started selling them for $8 per month.
Now, anyone can get verified on X, which also buys you a boost in the algorithm. That may help explain why the social media platform has become such a hotbed of holocaust denial, snuff videos, racism, and far-right extremism. It’s tough to open the app these days without seeing some of the most disgustingly vile content that used to be relegated to neo-Nazi forums and edgelord 4Chan boards. Musk’s support of fascism has seen the site dwindle in popularity with normal people, but it’s still a place where plenty of people post thanks to inertia alone.
It’s not clear yet whether any average user will be allowed to get verified on Bluesky, but Paul Frazee, a software engineer at the company, wrote Monday that the new system combines what they see as the best of both worlds.
“Trusted Verifiers are in keeping with our ethos—that Bluesky shouldn’t be the sole verifier, and that there should be systems that exist outside of us as part of a robust civic infrastructure,” Frazee wrote. “The world shouldn’t depend on massive social companies as the sole authorities.”
It’s also not clear how quickly the new verification system will be rolled out. As of this writing, Bluesky employees and large media organizations like the New York Times don’t appear to be verified. But that could change at any moment. Bluesky didn’t immediately respond to questions on Monday. Gizmodo will update this post if we hear back.
