Bluesky Social Public Benefit Corporation must immediately:

• Stop labelling Palestinian accounts as spam without clear guidelines about what constitute spam
• Stop suspending and deleting Palestinian accounts
• Stop IP-blocking Palestinian accounts
• Create a moderation filter for fundraising
• Create a focus group to work with Palestinians to:
  • Investigate malicious reporting
  • Create clear guidelines regarding spam labelling and account deletion
  • Understand the complexities of internet access,  fundraising, and survival in Gaza
     

Palestinians in Gaza are facing an unprecedented level of violence and censorship in addition to unstable access to the outside world via internet. Bluesky has been contributing to the censorship and human connection through it's moderation services.

Well-established accounts keep being suspended and deleted, requiring them to "have to start over from scratch without the connections you built destroying the connections and history". Without that history, Palestinian accounts are more susceptible to egregious and malicious labelling, suspensions and deletions. (See https://bsky.social/about/blog/4-13-2023-moderation).

We demand that Bluesky take immediate action to help Palestinians, not continue to hurt them when they need connection the most.

Furthermore, by creating a fundraising label, the amount of moderation lift will be reduced for all accounts engaging in legitimate fundraising efforts. Moderation can then focus on actual bad behavior.

See https://bsky.social/about/faq for additional information about Bluesky.

Update 24-May-2025. An Open Letter to Bluesky Team was shared by a trusted friend of many Palestinians. Please read.

Update 30-May-2025. Bluesky Safety responded indirectly to this petition and the open letter. It's wholly inadequate and has not addressed the issues we know actual people in Gaza experience. People who harrass Palestinians in Gaza (and others) get to keep their accounts, but Gazans get deleted. Sometimes within minutes of account creation Read for yourself. We're not done supporting our Palestinian friends and family in Gaza. We won't abandon them. 

Update 3-June-2025. Bluesky is "permanently disabling" Direct Message functionality on some Gaza accounts. That includes people I know haven't messages me, whcih I invite them to do if we're mutuals. And the account deletion and spam labels is getting even more aggressive.