The decentralized social platform takes another page from X, and also allows ‘Trusted Verifiers’ to vouch for people to speed up the verification process.
The most popular decentralized X alternative is rolling out decentralized account verification.
Bluesky announced Monday that it now displays a blue-outlined checkmark badge next to the handles of “authentic and notable accounts” that it’s verified. Unlike the checkmarks available on X as part of its premium-service options, Bluesky verification isn’t for sale and, for now, isn’t something you can request either.
But Bluesky’s management isn’t the last word on that. The platform now also supports verification by “select independent organizations” that it’s authorized to operate as Trusted Verifiers and vouch for people in their own organizations and orbits, subject to review by Bluesky.
This move addresses one ongoing weakness with Bluesky: knowing who is real.
Until Monday, Bluesky’s one documented verification option was a self-serve system that let you replace your handle with a domain name that you control, confirmed by adding a line of code to the domain’s DNS settings. That’s how PCMag’s presence there went from @pcmagofficial.bsky.app to @pcmag.com.
But only a tiny minority of the more than 35 million users on Bluesky have taken that step: 270,000+, according to Monday’s post.
