“My take on this boils down to, ‘Yeah, I’d rather not see it’ or whether it’s easily accessible,” says a Bluesky user who questioned why the ban was backed up and asked for anonymity because she did had done. already encountered opposition from other Bluesky users for expressing their views. “Lots of people in my life have had problems with sex and porn addiction, and it doesn’t really help that it’s available behind a fast-moving on-off switch,” he says.
The anonymous user suggests that Bluesky could follow a Reddit approach that would allow users to block access to all properly labeled “not safe for work” (NSFW) subreddits. “Bluesky has their current ‘turn off explicit content’ system, but you fall into the issue of explicit labeling,” he says. In addition, he says the current system labels some content as nudity when it isn’t, while some content is missing.
For Sarah T. Roberts, faculty director of the UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry, Bluesky’s challenges in addressing the spate of nudes points to a naivete around user behavior. “Once again, a platform comes out that is surprised when users try to game and break things, and when they post nudity,” she says.
That lack of preparation for what Roberts thought would be inevitable could hinder Bluesky’s future growth. “Content moderation decisions as an afterthought, regardless of the level of permissiveness, are costly, both from a financial and PR standpoint,” she says. ‘It wouldn’t have taken a genius to predict this turn of events. So why is the weather a surprise and not an inevitability?”
Whether the platform expected such user behavior is not known. Jay Graber, CEO of Bluesky, forwarded an interview request to Bluesky’s unnamed press team, which declined to provide anyone for an interview, instead directing WIRED to their FAQ page. A member of the Bluesky team posted that the decision to have a “no boobs (or dicks or asses) on what [sic] hot’ policy was ‘a hard line to walk’. Bluesky users have a “show nudity” toggle enabled by default when they join, and “prefer to keep it that way”. That means if people proactively follow a user who decides to share nudity, they will see it. “But what [sic] hot is a little different because you didn’t choose it,” they said.
Carolina Are calls the decision to remove nudes and lewdness from the What’s Hot page a form of shadow banning – the subject of her research, but also something she has personal experience with. “They’ve basically already limited growth opportunities for anyone who shares nudity and sexuality,” she says. She worries that Bluesky is confusing penises, which are genitals, with breasts and asses, which are not necessarily sexual. “Here it becomes really difficult to govern,” she says.
Flea loved the sharing of nudes and lewdness because it showed that people — including trans people — felt confident, safe, and empowered on Bluesky. Still, she realizes why the approach had to change. “Not everyone wants to see lewd pictures,” she says. “It’s not just about ‘being lewd,’ I think it’s also about sharing your whole self with the world, and if that’s something people want, that option should be there.”
Are suggests that similarly, when users are asked if they want to encounter nudity from users they follow, Bluesky could ask if users want to encounter nudity on What’s Hot when they join. “It’s very interesting that they make that decision for everyone,” she says. “It’s fine that the people who don’t consent to seeing nudity don’t see it. But what about those who do want to see it?
