Samuel
@samuel.fm
lotta strong feelings about the checkies, as expected—broadly positive once people get how it works! imo the Bluesky app is an opinionated lens of an open network, and this additional editorial trust layer is a strong compliment to the more objective domains layer. I love that we’re building…
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Samuel
primitives that other participants in the network can use and build on top of. This is an MVP of sorts, and it excited to see where it goes from here
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Leonardo Wille
Really like the trusted verifier’s implementation, it will be great for reputable news sources and journos. Hope to see it expand soon!
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bsky-social-v36k5-t3oze
just a small thing to be aware of if you guys are not, the checks don't show in embeds on other forums 1 embedded forum post 2 how it looks on bluesky 3 how a twitter embed looks on forum also tagging @emilyliu.me
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Fruity Koala 🎄
What decided BlueSky to go with trusted verifiers as opposed to allowing users to create verified ‘lists’ similar to the moderation system? If BlueSky still checks the verification from trusted verifiers like the blog says, doesn’t that just put it back at the start of only BS verifying?
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Fruity Koala 🎄
But if you decide to keep the current system the only change I’d like to see is a little badge next to accounts verified by trusted verifiers, similar to Twitters affiliate badge. So it’s easier to immediately know who verified the account.
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Fruity Koala 🎄
And when tapping on the check for more details a little “this is verified because it’s a government department” so we know why it’s verified in the first place.
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Fruity Koala 🎄
This isn’t me completely hating it, sending hate towards you guys or anything. Just a bit of feedback/critique from a user. It’s hard to see features from a user/customer perspective at workplaces sometimes. You’re doing a great job!
Christian Kündig
Love it! Two Questions: - Is there a list of trusted verifiers somewhere? I didn't find it under "learn more" - Are you considering eventually having paid verification independent of profile significance? (not the X type, but the Instacart type, i.e. expensive enough for a proper verification)
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Mike 🍁
I hope you are looking at the negative feedback though as it's not "how it works" that is the problem. How it works under the hood is "fine", but by design it encourages a "trust without verifying" behavior for anyone with a check.
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Mike 🍁
If the check marks were only on the profile, it would reinforce checking everyone's profile (via a click or mouse hover), which longer term is safer for everyone. That said, I'm not against the idea of something suggesting a user should be more trusted at a glance, but "Twitter checks" were flawed.
henry
fwiw, i think i understand how it works and believe it’s a fundamentally wrong approach. i have a lot of respect for the team obviously but i don’t think this is a good direction.
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Samuel
that’s fair and I have read some reasonable critiques but I’m still confident in this approach
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henry
good! i hope i am wrong. but i also wanted to provide honest feedback about it. i might try to write something longer form about it
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henry
no, i think it’s an unhelpful / wrong understanding of the product problem to talk about verifying accounts, rather than, e.g., verifying content
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✿ damir
is there a more technical explanation of how verification works on the protocol layer? the blog post is pretty short and doesn't give any info on this
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Samuel
users can publish verification records, which point to an account and include a handle and displayName (so if you change your name it gets invalidated) bsky.app chooses which verification records it wants to display, which is currently the limited set of Trusted Verifiers
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✿ damir
got it, thanks! can we expect the ability to choose custom verifiers in the future? (like lablers)
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Fruity Koala 🎄
I imagine it would be centralised and not part of atproto. Would cause absolute chaos if another website on atproto could create verified users that sync to the protocol. Just means verified badges won’t show on other sites which is good imo
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Samuel
not true at all
Samuel@samuel.fm· 22 Apr 2025
users can publish verification records, which point to an account and include a handle and displayName (so if you change your name it gets invalidated) bsky.app chooses which verification records it wants to display, which is currently the limited set of Trusted Verifiers
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Fruity Koala 🎄
Ok. So going back to my previous point, does BlueSky not have total control of verification here then? If users can’t select which service to use for verification and BlueSky has to confirm ‘trusted verifiers’ then it’s not decentralised.
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Samuel
by confirm, this just means we’ll check for impersonation/obviously incorrect cases. The system doesn’t require bsky.app to sign off on every bluecheck It is under our control, yes, because it’s a editorial decision the app is making to display certain users as trustworthy
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Fruity Koala 🎄
Hi, Just wanted to apologise for me misunderstanding. I get it now :) Would love to see BlueSky allow users to choose their verification accounts like @Deer.Social supports
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Green The Protogen
It's almost like Twitters idea but run by people that actually know what theyre doing! I'm somewhat skeptical but considering bluesky has an unbiased algorithm I don't doubt it's a good idea
John ✦°
Repeating what I told Paul: "I know this is basic, but can you have the team add more of these examples of how it works to the main blog article announcing verification? Great for users to distro as a single source of truth when we see people asking "Why is Bsky doing this?" Just an idea."
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fego
Love the way you implemented verification. “Trusted Verifier” is best way to do this quickly and free of charge.