Two years after the launch, the Bluesky social network revises its community guidelines and other policies, and requests comments from its users on certain changes. The startup, a competitor of X, threads and open networks like Mastodon, says that its new policies are supposed to offer better clarity and more details around its user safety procedures and the call process.
Many changes are motivated by new global regulations, including the UK online security law (OSA), the EU digital service law (DSA) and the US law on taking.
Certain changes represent an effort of Bluesky to deliberately shape his community and the behavior of its users, pushing them to be nicer and more respectful of others. This comes after a series of media complaints and articles suggesting that the community tends to be self-leicity, the sharing of bad new ones and a lack of humor and diversity of thought.
For regulatory compliance, the conditions of use of Bluesky have been updated to comply with online safety laws and regulations and to require age insurance if necessary. For example, in July, the UK online security law began to demand that the platforms with the content of adults implement age verification, which means that Bluesky users must either scan their faces, download their identifier or enter a payment card to use the site.
The complaint and call process is also more detailed.
A notable update refers to an “informal dispute settlement process”, where Bluesky agrees to speak on the phone with a user of his dispute before any formal litigation process takes place. “We believe most of the disputes can be resolved informally,” notes Bluesky.
It is quite different from what is going on in larger social networks, such as Facebook and Instagram, where users are prohibited without understanding what they have done with no way and no way to contact the company to complain.
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Bluesky also says that it will allow users to resolve certain claims for court, rather than arbitration. This is also somewhat unusual for technological companies which often prefer to mediate disputes outside the courts.
However, Bluesky users can be more interested in the changes offered to community guidelines, on which they are invited to offer comments. (Changes come into force on October 15, 2025, once the feedback was completed.)
These revised guidelines are organized around four principles: security first, respect others, be authentic and follow the rules. These general principles aim to guide Bluesky moderation decisions to find out if the content should be labeled or deleted, whether the company may suspend or prohibit your account, or, in some cases, report to the police.
Bluesky rules include many common sense policies concerning non-promotion of violence or damage (including autumutilation and abuse of animals); do not publish illegal or sexualizes minors (including role playing); do not authorize harmful actions such as doxxing and other non -consensual personal data sharing; And do not publish spam or malicious content, among others.
He develops arrangements for journalism, parody and satire. For example, journalists engaged in “factual reports” can publish criminal acts and violence, mental health, online security and other subjects, such as warnings in online viral challenges that can be harmful.
Where Bluesky can be in trouble, it is with the nuances of what is considered a “threat”, “damage” or “abuse”.
Policy stipulates that users must “respect others” by not publishing, promoting or encouraging “hate, harassment or intimidation”. For example, the policy prohibits the depths and exploited content which “encourages discrimination or hatred”, which means publications which attack individuals or groups according to “race, ethnicity, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, handicap or other protected traits”.
This is an area where Bluesky has previously faltered, when, in the previous days, his moderation decisions set out the relationship with the black community and, in another case, when his failure to moderate the anger of the Trans community.
More recently, the company was faced with left -wing reactions, where users quickly criticized, published hateful responses and where the community generally lacked humor.
The original idea behind Bluesky was to provide users with tools to create the community they want, in particular not only blocking and report tools, but also things like lists of subscribed blocks or OPT-in moderation services that align with your values. However, Bluesky users have always shown a preference so that the application itself manages a large part of moderation, from the balustrade against its trust and security service when it made decisions with which they disagreed.
In addition, Bluesky’s privacy policy and copyright policy have also been rewritten to comply with global laws concerning user rights, data transfer, retention and deletion, withdrawal procedures, transparency reports, etc. These came into force on September 15, 2025, and there is no feedback period for either.
