Social media site eyes politicians after ‘quite the influx’ of UK accounts

Chiefs at social media site Bluesky have suggested they are eyeing politicians for their platform after X owner Elon Musk’s commentary on UK current affairs.

A spokesperson for the fledgling company said they had seen “quite the influx of UK accounts over the last two weeks, including many members of parliament”.

Safeguarding minister Jess Phillips, Liberal Democrat technology spokeswoman Layla Moran and Mother of the House Diane Abbott are among its users.

In an exchange with Labour backbencher Antonia Bance (Tipton and Wednesbury) about verification, ‪Bluesky’s head of trust and safety Aaron Rodericks wrote on the website: “We are checking through higher profile MPs and journalists to ensure that there aren’t any impersonators due to the influx of UK accounts.”

He suggested website developers could reserve a phrase, such as “parliament.uk”, which only MPs could use in their usernames or handles.

“Will try to engage with the parliamentary team to support,” Mr Rodericks wrote.

Bluesky spun out of Twitter, now known as X, after its chief executive Jack Dorsey announced in 2019 the giant would fund developers to create an “open and decentralised standard for social media”.

Tesla chief Mr Musk bought Twitter in 2022 and got rid of the blue check verification mark, replacing it with paid-for blue and gold tick icons for individuals and businesses, and grey tick icons for government-linked accounts.

Sir Keir Starmer has refused to be drawn into a spat with the world’s richest man, who used the hashtag #TwoTierKeir, a reference to allegations the authorities have treated some protesters in the UK more harshly than others, promoted false claims that the Prime Minister had considered setting up detainment camps in the Falkland Islands to imprison rioters, and suggested “civil war is inevitable”.

A Number 10 spokeswoman said last week: “I’m not proposing to get into back-and-forth on individual comments.”

Mr Musk also described Scotland’s former first minister Humza Yousaf as “super, super racist” on X, after Mr Yousaf, speaking on CNN, branded him “one of the most dangerous men”.

Mr Yousaf’s lawyer Aamer Anwar told the Sunday Mail at the time that Mr Musk had “effectively painted a target on Humza Yousaf’s back with his completely unacceptable, untrue and inflammatory comments”.

Asked about verification on the platform, a Bluesky spokesperson told the PA news agency: “Verification is two-fold currently.

“The way for organisations and individuals to self-verify is by setting their username to their website.

“For example, The New York Times uses @nytimes.com on Bluesky, and US Senator Ron Wyden uses @wyden.senate.gov.

“The ‘senate.gov’ domain in his username indicates that his account is legitimate.

“Additionally, for accounts that haven’t set their website as their username, Bluesky’s trust and safety team reviews those accounts for legitimacy.”

The spokesperson said 37,000 UK users had signed up to the platform in the fortnight to Wednesday August 21.

They added that UK users had made 766 posts, 2.97 million “likes” and 1.8 million “follows”.

“So many people use social media to keep up with the news, so we definitely want to encourage politicians, journalists, and more to join Bluesky,” they added.

Ms Phillips’ first post to the platform last Sunday read: “Let’s try not to mess this up.”

The Labour minister said she “would choose (her) words more carefully” after she was accused of defending hooded and masked men who were filmed approaching reporters in her Birmingham Yardley constituency.

“These people came to this location because it has been spread that racists were coming to attack them,” she wrote on X.

Conservative shadow security minister Tom Tugendhat responded: “When Jess Phillips sought to justify the militia, vigilantism and violence, to excuse a militia on our streets, Keir Starmer should have sacked her, because ministers must always defend the principle of equality before the law.”

In her second Bluesky post, Ms Phillips wrote: “So far my feed feels like early Twitter. Hooray. My mentions feel like Twitter 2016/17.”

Ms Moran has written only “hello world” followed by a smiley, while Cameron Thomas, the Liberal Democrat MP for Tewkesbury, posted his own name on October 20 last year, before he was elected.

Labour MP for Buckingham and Bletchley Callum Anderson wrote on Thursday: “Hello Bluesky. Looking forward to exploring (yet) another social media community.”

South Belfast and Mid Down MP Claire Hanna, of the Social Democratic and Labour Party, made her second post to the website on Wednesday, more than 10 months after her first post which read: “You’re probably wondering why I’ve gathered you all here this afternoon.”