Bluesky Just Bowed to Censorship Demands in Turkey, but There’s a Loophole

Bluesky, the sensible microblogging alternative to X, has been enjoying immense growth lately, as web users have sought a social media website that isn’t run by an egomaniacal billionaire. Unfortunately, this week it was revealed that the site had bowed to censorship demands from the Turkish government—a bad sign for a site that’s staked its claim on a free and open experience for users.

A new report claims Bluesky restricted access to 72 accounts in Turkey after the government pressured it to do so. Turkish officials claimed the accounts needed to be censored due to reasons relating to “national security and public order,” TechCrunch writes.

There aren’t a whole lot of details about who the operators of the accounts were or why the government was threatened by them. The account deactivations were originally reported by the Freedom of Expression Association, a Turkish NGO that focuses on civil liberties. Gizmodo reached out to Bluesky for comment.

TechCrunch notes that, due to Bluesky’s being a part of the Fediverse and relying on the open standard AT Protocol, there is technically a “loophole” for those Turkish users who were banned from the site. Because Bluesky isn’t just a dedicated microblogging platform but, also, a constituent of a semi-decentralized ecosystem of sites that are all powered by the same protocol, the censored users may still be able to use that constellation of other sites. These sites are collectively called “the Atmosphere,” as they all run on that AT Protocol, which was developed by Bluesky Social PBC, the corporation behind Bluesky. They can be accessed online and via apps like Skywalker, Skeets, and Roomy.

Bluesky was originally created by former Twitter guru Jack Dorsey, with money from Twitter (to the tune of $13 million), and was initially conceptualized when Jack was still running Twitter full-time. Dorsey has long since left the project, and the site is now helmed by CEO Jay Graber.

Since Elon Musk bought Twitter and transformed it into his own propaganda weapon, thousands of people have flocked to Bluesky, which has held itself out as a sensible alternative to the cess pool that is X. For quite some time, Bluesky has held onto that reputation by respecting its users and fostering an open system that privileges self-expression and autonomy. Unfortunately, the move to appease foreign censorship isn’t a great look for the company, even if it offers a censorship-workaround that other sites lack.