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. And many former X users have not taken the next most-obvious way to verify themselves: announcing their Bluesky handles on their X accounts.
For example, Pete Buttigieg and Barack Obama both joined Bluesky without doing that. But as of Monday afternoon, both now have a checkmark badge, which a click or tap reveals as the work of Bluesky itself.
(Credit: Bluesky)
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As of Monday afternoon, an account automatically tracking verified accounts by pinging Bluesky’s API had listed more than 400 handles verified by Bluesky itself. Those include users with handles ending in the default .bsky.social (such as Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and independent journalist Marisa Kabas), but also numerous domain-verified accounts (for instance, the New York Mets and GitHub).
Trusted Verifier accounts get a scalloped version of the blue-check icon to distinguish them from those that are merely verified. Bluesky’s post names the New York Times as one such verifier, and Wired’s story on verification reports that it has been granted this power as well.
Trusted Verifier confirmations of accounts look no different from those of Bluesky itself; you have to click or tap on the blue-check icon of a user to see which organizations verified it. Yes, plural: More than one organization can vouch for a user under this system.
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(Credit: Bluesky)
(PCMag has not yet been invited to be a trusted verifier, but you can check our Starter Park of PCMag experts to confirm the Bluesky identities of staffers and contributors.)
Wired’s story quotes CEO Jay Graber (also now verified) as saying that Bluesky is prioritizing the accounts of “government officials, news organizations and journalists, and celebrities” for verification but plans to offer a public form for anybody to request verification.
This remains separate from Bluesky’s still-undefined ambitions to make money by selling premium services. On X, badges once meant Twitter had verified the user. But switching to a premium service, removing legacy checkmarks, and allowing anyone to purchase them led to users spoofing famous accounts almost immediately and made blue checks largely meaningless.
To see verifications, you’ll need to upgrade to Bluesky’s current iOS or Android app or refresh its web app. In any of those interfaces, you can also opt out of having these verification signals shown, via the Moderation category of the Settings menu, if you want to live on the edge or feel like you don’t have enough stress in your social-media life.
About Rob Pegoraro
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