Bogus accounts in the blue skies
As new users flock to Bluesky, inauthentic accounts inevitably come along for the ride here and there
Social media platform Bluesky has experienced significant growth in recent days, with millions of users creating accounts on the relatively new platform. While most of the newcomers appear to be genuine human beings seeking an alternative to X (formerly Twitter), inauthentic accounts are unsurprisingly popping up here and there among the massive surge of signups. This article examines the early development of a (presently small) network of Bluesky accounts that started their digital life with identical biographies.
A survey of recently created Bluesky accounts performed on the afternoon of November 15th, 2024 revealed a group of nine accounts with the same non-trivial biography:
“I come from the beautiful coastal city of Hong Kong. Living in the SF Bay Area, I have many interests and hobbies, and I love life and making friends!”
At the time the data was captured, almost all of the accounts in the network followed roughly 100 other accounts, but had few followers of their own. The profile and banner images used by the accounts are plagiarized, and sometimes duplicated between accounts. In three cases (@linzhiling.bsky.social, @shufei.bsky.social, and @suyifei.bsky.social), the accounts changed their profile image while being studied. Similarly, three of the accounts (@linzhiling.bsky.social, @suyifei.bsky.social, and @liyifei.bsky.social) changed their biographies.
What do the accounts in this network post? The earliest posts are all photographs, sometimes with duplicate text; for example, four accounts posted images of the same fitness center with the caption “Fitness gives you a different kind of confidence and beauty”. In addition to the fitness center photos, the accounts also posted several images of food and beverages, with a particular focus on coffee. Previous occurrences of some of the photos can be found on other social media platforms using reverse image search tools.
Three of the accounts (@lihaiyue.bsky.social, @huxinyu.bsky.social, and @xiaoyanzi.bsky.social) followed this initial wave of photo posts with identically worded posts about being a “newcomer to Bluesky”, also accompanied by photos. Mixed in with these posts are occasional reposts of content from popular users, mostly liberal accounts that migrated from X to Bluesky.
Several of the accounts have also begun posting news items, mostly related to the incoming Trump administration. As with most of the network’s other content, these “news” posts contain images. They are, however, devoid of any sort of link to any published source material for the news being shared. Thus far, all of the news items posted by the network appear to be accurate, but without any indication of source, there is no reason to believe that this will remain the case.
The accounts in this network appear to making an effort to blend in with the large wave of (mostly left-leaning) users who have been shifting their social media activity from X to Bluesky. With the exception of the official @bsky.app account, the majority of the accounts followed by the spam network are liberal users with large audiences. Some of the accounts in the network have replied to real users on occasion, and as mentioned earlier, some also repost content from popular accounts. While thus far this network has had minimal impact, this sort of activity will only pick up speed as Bluesky’s user base grows and the value of manipulating the platform increases.
Excellent work. I have uncovered network of grifters posing as people in need on Twitter if you're interested. Not sure what to do with it...
What is the point of this? What is gained by creating these fake accounts?