Skywatch Blue

30 Mar 2025

This post will be pinned and will link earlier threads explaining various labels and decision-making around labels as needed. To start: why is follow farming a problem?

Skywatch Blue@skywatch.blue

Hi folks, we wanted to comment a little bit on the follow-farming label. We automatically label anyone with specific hashtags or keywords in their bio as follow-farmers as these hashtags or keywords have been observed to be widely used in follow-farming campaigns.

20 Sept

Hi folks, for about an hour and a half this morning, a couple of new rules had a mistake in their logic, resulting in a few thousand labels being emitted that should not have been. We are in the process of reversing these labels. Thank you for your patience.

20 Sept

We've unlabeled all of the accounts that were erroneously labeled. Unlabeling posts is still a work in progress. Thank you again.

10 Sept

And we're back up. Thank you for bearing with us while we migrated our backend off of Digital Ocean.

Skywatch Blue@skywatch.blue

Hi folks, we're going to be offline for a bit this evening while we migrate our hosting. You may have trouble reporting during that period, but we will be back online before long.

github.comGitHub - julietshen/troposphere: A self-hostable alternative to Ozone designed to work with CoopA self-hostable alternative to Ozone designed to work with Coop - julietshen/troposphere

10 Sept

Hi folks, we're going to be offline for a bit this evening while we migrate our hosting. You may have trouble reporting during that period, but we will be back online before long.

Skywatch Blue reposted

🎃 Boo-liet Shen 👻

@julietshen.online

22 Aug

introducing my @atproto.nyc hack project: troposphere (the layer at which birds fly) it's a viable alternative to Ozone that's designed to work with Coop, so you can use Coop's UI for review queues, case management, automatic actions, auditing, metrics, and child safety! github.com/julietshen/t...

Skywatch Blue reposted

Ariel M. (she/her)

@byarielm.fyi

12 Aug

Replying to @bencollins.bsky.social

step 1: @moderation.blacksky.app (hide rude, seriously, complaints about it are wrong) @moderation.blacksky.app @skywatch.blue @moderation.northsky.social @stechlab-labels.bsky.social @aimod.social soon: @neatopause.tngl.sh (will target bots first) you can report accounts to any of them.

3 Aug

Just a note that if you use the TERF label, you should also use the intolerance label, as that catches far more folks for transphobia.

userinput.appuserinput.appCollect feedback: post ideas, vote on what matters, and watch them go from planned to shipped.

16 June

Alright, we should be back up and running. Thank you for your patience!

Skywatch Blue@skywatch.blue

Hi all! Skywatch automation is currently down as we deal with some scaling issues. We hope to have it back up in short order, but in the meantime, you may see content that is typically labeled on your timeline. Our apologies for the inconvenience.

We would like to raise two proposals to our users. The first, is the depreciation of the "Disinformation Network Label". This label is confusing in combination with fringe media and we are proposing depreciation:

userinput.appuserinput.appCollect feedback: post ideas, vote on what matters, and watch them go from planned to shipped.

10 June

Second, and related, would be the creation of a "State Sponsored Media" label. Details on implementation are available here:

10 June

Please note that we will only take feedback on these through userinput.app, and not via Bluesky mentions or DMs.

11 May

We appreciate that there are apparently quite a few german speaking accounts which follow us, but regretfully, we don't have the language or cultural competency to label accounts and posts that are in German, or pertain to German politics at this time.

github.comHow Skywatch uses Osprey · roostorg osprey · Discussion #244@julietshen had requested that I draft something on how Skywatch uses Osprey, so I've put together a quick summary and shared it here. In addition, I've linked the various sidecar modules that we u...

11 May

We will try our best to label egregious examples of intolerance, but are unaware of German dog whistles and are not familiar enough with the German political landscape to know what to do with political figures that are reported or specific media outlets.

Skywatch Blue reposted

🎃 Boo-liet Shen 👻

@julietshen.online

4 May

This is so cool - @skywatch.blue wrote up how Skywatch uses Osprey and why Osprey is helpful. Huge thanks for open sourcing some Osprey tools! Osprey sidebars for batch analysis: github.com/skywatch-bsk... Claude skills to use with Osprey: github.com/skywatch-bsk... github.com/roostorg/osp...

7 Apr

Fixed a broken rule and we should catch the accounts reposting 100s of users in a go now.

30 Mar

Folks: Please stop reporting @attie.ai. This is out of scope for us.

Skywatch Blue reposted

bryan newbold

@bnewbold.net

25 Mar

PDS hosters: folks should not have PDS_INVITE_REQUIRED=false in their config unless they know what they are doing. at a minimum you need CAPTCHAs on all signup routes, to block/disable the createAccount API flow, etc. we know this should be smoother.

Skywatch Blue reposted

Bailey Townsend 🦀

@pds.dad

20 Mar

I've realized I've been telling PDS admins how they can tackle these spam accounts from being created on their PDS, but just realized I never explained that as the end user, YOU can also hide them from your views with @skywatch.blue. Wrote how below.

Bailey Townsend 🦀@pds.dad

If you subscribe to this labeler and select the label "Platform Abuse & Manipulation" and set it to "hide" it should get most of them hopefully and shouldn't show them. This labeler does a really good job of catching them quickly. It's what labeled it in my picture bsky.app/profile/skyw...

18 Mar

Been inundated by spam / scammer accounts lately? We've recently added some labels to help clarify why accounts get labeled: Bulk Following, Engagement Abuse / Hacking and Spam. We also encourage you to use our Platform Manipulation label!

Scoiattolo@scarnecchia.net

Okay, so caveating this by saying I'm not @conspirator0.bsky.social and nowhere near as expert. The operation has two main arms: the Abdelfattah cell (~877 accounts) and the Mahmouds Family cell (~124 accounts). Similar templates, but different infrastructure and different coordination methods.

18 Mar

In addition, we very much recommend subscribing to @labeler.hailey.at for overlapping coverage.

18 Mar

Oh, and I forgot Inauthentic Fundraising!

17 Mar

FYI: the automod is currently lagging behind substantially. It’s slowingly catching up, but will probably be another few hours

Reminder, if you run a PDS, you can tail @skywatch.blue with @baileytownsend.dev's label-watcher, and you can can get alerted when we apply an inauthentic-fundraising, spam, bulk-following, engagement-abuse, or platform-manipulation label to an account on your PDS.

You can also use it to auto-takedown, but you don't have to trust our word, and alerts let you audit the stream first. You can also of course, tail another labeler!

tangled.orgbaileytownsend.dev/label-watcherPDS Admin tool make it easier to moderate your PDS with labels

Oops, here's the link! tangled.org/baileytownse...

Skywatch Blue reposted

Bailey Townsend 🦀

@pds.dad

tangled.orgbaileytownsend.dev/label-watcherPDS Admin tool make it easier to moderate your PDS with labels

Replying to @skywatch.blue

Thank you for running a great labeler! tangled.org/baileytownse...

5 Mar

@nora.zone you haven't been labeled in almost a year, other than the bluesky-elder label.

16 Feb

🫡

Ken Jennings@kenjennings.bsky.social

A prominent Bluesky elder already hosts Jeopardy

15 Feb

Hi all, we're switching our backend auto moderation platform up. This will allow us to match on more complex patterns and combinations and hopefully increase our accuracy / reduce false positives. In the short term, bear with us as we dial in the new rulesets!

15 Feb

Apologies if you got labeled as using a slur if you posted "spice" or "spices". We'll try to fix that and if we miss something, let us know.

22 Jan

Stop reporting communists and claiming they're MAGA accounts with absolutely no proof (and no, disagreeing with you does not count as proof).

22 Jan

They're also not Russian trolls.

22 Jan

And please, when you make reports, add context. We will generally ignore reports without context if the problem is not obvious from the item you reported.

8 Jan

Be aware that there are accounts attempting to steal session keys. This particular method won’t work using the Bluesky app for a couple of reasons, but third party apps may be vulnerable to similar attempts. We will attempt to automatically label these as Platform Manipulation.

Scoiattolo@scarnecchia.net

Is this an attempt to do what I think it's attempting to do?

8 Jan

This particular account was purportedly a Gaza fundraising account and the attempt was clumsy, but they will likely get more sophisticated in their attempts. Please use caution.

7 Jan

We have updated the Sports Betting label to “Sports Betting and Prediction Markets”. Posts containing links to prediction markets such as Kalshi and Polymarket will now be labeled and can be muted by toggling your labeler preferences.

11 Dec 2025

And we're back, thank you for your patience!

Skywatch Blue@skywatch.blue

Hi all, our backend is down and we're not sure why, so if you're receiving errors with appears and reporting, that's why. More updates as we figure out what broke.

roost.toolsOpen by Design: ROOST's Approach to Safety Tool DevelopmentRobust Open Online Safety Tools or ROOST is a new non-profit entity designed to address the urgent need for accessible, high-quality safety tools in the rapidly evolving digital landscape.

11 Dec 2025

Hi all, our backend is down and we're not sure why, so if you're receiving errors with appears and reporting, that's why. More updates as we figure out what broke.

Skywatch Blue reposted

🎃 Boo-liet Shen 👻

@julietshen.online

26 Nov 2025

some might know how @roost.tools is approaching open safety tool development, but many more may not! @annebdh.bsky.social lays it all out here, including our governance structure, how people can get involved, and how working in the open doesn't mean more abuse! roost.tools/blog/open-by...

19 Nov 2025

We've introduced a new label and associated blocklist: Intolerance. We have also depreciated the Dehumanizing Rhetoric and Discriminatory Language labels in favor of this one, which will capture a broader swath of behavior that users want out of their timelines.

13 Nov 2025

A general reminder that the labels do what they say on the box. There are very few new false positives being added to the MAGA list and most folks are discovering accounts that were labeled months ago that have not yet been discovered.

13 Nov 2025

The Skywatch appeals queue is empty, and we can't fix what we don't know about. I will also note that we are no longer effectively labeling new true positives as they are created as a result of automation being constrained to avoid false positives.

4 Nov 2025

Just an update here: We're currently going through all the lists and labeled accounts to remove as many false positives as we can detect. This is a slow and tedious process which will likely continue for the next week or so.

Skywatch Blue@skywatch.blue

Hi all, a few updates. 1) We have refined the allowlisting of the MAGA label to catch fewer false positives, but the labeling criteria being what it is this will never be perfect. We are working through appeals but also dealing with a significant uptick in legitimate reports.

datasociety.netThe Oxygen of AmplificationNew Data & Society report recommends editorial “better practices” for reporting on online bigots and manipulators; interviews journalists on accidental amplification of extreme agendas

1 Nov 2025

A general reminder. We do this for a good reason. Please read: Whitney Philips' "The Oxygen of Amplification"

Skywatch Blue@skywatch.blue

Hi all: the relative merits of any given article in a source widely understood to be fringe media or a purveyor of disinformation is largely irrelevent, we are labeling based on the quality of the overall site and do not make exceptions.

Skywatch Blue reposted

ROOST

@roost.tools

28 Oct 2025

Looking forward to a great panel tomorrow at the @parispeaceforum.bsky.social Forum, hosted by ROOST President, @camillefrancois.bsky.social. Stay tuned for more! #onlinesafety #AI #AItransparency #opensource #trustandsafety #techforgood