Last night, I got suspended from Bluesky for writing “rest in piss” while resharing my piece about liberal media’s frothy race to eulogize Charlie Kirk. I quickly learned that I was not alone.
As it turns out, Bluesky’s moderation team has zapped (at least) dozens of people for using that phrase while sharing posts about Kirk or longer descriptions of his legacy both before and after me, but not everyone who uses that phrase in isolation, as evidenced by posts that were still live on the site at the time of my suspension and had been for a day or more.
Over the course of the last night, Bluesky took aim at many but not all posts wishing Kirk a restorative piss bath, and its approach seemed to change as I and others appealed our suspensions. Some were just standard users, but I’m not the only reporter who was hit by Bluesky’s anti-piss defense system, with investigative journalist and hacktivist Maia Arson Crimew copping a suspension for posting the same phrase.
The reason provided to me and others by an automated Bluesky email was that typing the phrase “rest in piss” is tantamount to "glorifying violence, including the promotion of harmful acts that cause widespread harm and suffering, as well as showing admiration or glorification of the offenders responsible for such acts."
I appealed my suspension, arguing a simple counterpoint: No it isn’t.
I guess it worked, because a couple hours later, Bluesky’s moderation team un-suspended me. They offered little in the way of an explanation, saying in another automated email that “after a review of our decision, we've decided to restore your account.” But they did not reinstate my original post, confusingly implying that it remains in violation of the rules. Did I break the rules or didn’t I? What’s going on?
There are other factors to consider: Aftermath is one of the biggest video game publications on Bluesky in terms of sheer follower count, and Luke’s post about my suspension garnered over 2.5k likes. Additionally, I – via Riley – made it publicly known that I was working on this story. Some who are not reporters with decently sizable followings remain suspended as of this publishing despite sending appeals, while others who were suspended the day before yesterday told Aftermath that they were forced to serve their full 24-hour sentences, also despite appealing. Others still, like a 3D animator who goes by the handle Raptor, told Aftermath that they did not have to spend their full 24 hours in timeout because their suspensions, for whatever reason, lifted early.
A few users told Aftermath that their anti-Kirk posts were deleted sans a suspension or any sort of notification. One such post read: "Charlie Kirk has been pronounced dead from complications resulting from his dick and balls being the wrong way around. His dick was on the bottom and his balls were on top. A bullet was also found in his body."
It is unclear whether the crackdown on “rest in piss,” specifically, is the result of automated moderation software, a bad-faith mass report campaign, some combination of the two, or something else. The sheer inconsistency of which posts received deletions or user suspensions, and when and for how long, as well as Bluesky’s own words about its approach to moderation, suggests at least some level of direct human intervention, but the scale and frequency of that effort is unclear. In the past, Bluesky has boasted of a more open approach to moderation that lets users build their own layers atop the services Bluesky offers, allowing them to annotate or hide certain types of posts if they so choose. However, as seen in this instance, the buck still ultimately stops with the company.
“I've been making bait posts all night just to see what's going down,” Mira, a journalist who received a warning email about her post being removed but not a suspension, told Aftermath. “My bet is they have an outsourced team of content mods who are all told different things. I used to work as a content mod for TikTok, and shit like this happened there a lot. But also who knows.”
Today, Mira told Aftermath that Bluesky did not go after any of her intentionally provocative posts.
“They also didn't respond to my appeal [of the post removal] or any message of mine in general," Mira said. "Completely ghosted, and my account's still up."
Crimew, another reporter with a decently sized following, also got un-suspended last night after appealing, though again, Bluesky did not immediately reinstate her post or a threaded reply in which she told Bluesky to rest in piss. But it did reinstate the threaded replies to my original post – which are unkind to a different dead person, Henry Kissinger – despite not reinstating the original post. And now, today, Bluesky suddenly reinstated Crimew's original post, but not the threaded reply, all with no explanation.
Many of the suspension and ban posts I’ve seen have absolutely no logical explanation and genuinely make no sense.
One user, Olive, reached out shortly after I got unsuspended to let me know that Bluesky had just removed her piss post and issued a warning with the same language about glorification of violence, but had not suspended her. Others quickly got in touch to report similar experiences. I began to feel like I was watching Bluesky rewrite its own internal moderation policies or attempt to triangulate a new approach in real time while, crucially, not publicly sharing the underlying rationale.
Bluesky has also sent out at least two different moderation emails in response to piss posts: the one I received and another sent to me by a few users that includes a bullet-pointed list of potential violations like “threats of violence or physical harm,” “incitement of self-harm or suicide,” and “wishes of harm,” while still not explaining how the specific post in question violates those rules. How it decides which email of two different emails to send for the same violation is not evident. One user, Redd Carpenter, received the second email in relation to their entire account, rather than a specific post, and it seems that their suspension is indefinite.
"It goes without saying that I did not post any threats of violence, incitement of self-harm, wishes of harm, or any kind of illegal content that would cross the Bluesky TOS," Carpenter told Aftermath. "In fact I had even made posts reminding people to avoid 'fedposting,' or making posts that would land them under federal scrutiny, ironically. … The most pointed comment I made about Charlie in response to some troll account was 'He became a victim of the world he sought to create for others.' The fact that the email didn't highlight a specific post I made that led to my suspension is what's most odd to me, as I haven't seen anyone else get this kind of message, but I have no idea what this could mean."
Typically, an extremely specific moderation quirk would not be notable enough to warrant an article on the same esteemed website that recently played host to “Long Handheld,” but it appears there’s been an uptick in moderation across Bluesky – a burgeoning social media platform with a liberal bent – in relation to the death of Charlie Kirk, a prominent conservative.
“Bluesky moderation is absolutely out of fucking control right now, just absolutely arbitrary politically motivated suspensions and bans,” reads a recent post from freelance science journalist Erin Biba with over 2k likes. “Many of the suspension and ban posts I’ve seen have absolutely no logical explanation and genuinely make no sense.”
"Bluesky moderation is suspending people for posting Kirk's own words, which tells you everything you need to know," reads a post from Prisonculture, a popular account run by activist Mariame Kaba, with over 7k likes.
On September 10, shortly after the shooting, Bluesky’s safety account posted the following: “Glorifying violence or harm violates Bluesky’s Community Guidelines. We review reports and take action on content that celebrates harm against anyone. Violence has no place in healthy public discourse, and we’re committed to fostering healthy, open conversations.”
But “rest in piss” does not celebrate harm; as I said in my appeal, it suggests that a person is not good simply because they’re dead. Also, on a basic verbal level, it implores them to rest. Resting is good for you, the opposite of harm.
Aftermath reached out to Bluesky but did not receive a response as of this publishing.
They'll go after yet more 'undesirable' groups, to the hypothetical satisfaction of people who do not and will never use the site.
Bluesky has weathered multiple storms of people declaring the platform – which grew explosively last year following the many targeted ballistic missiles Elon Musk fired at his own website, but has since slowed down – dead, as well as bizarre rants about the horrors of “Blueskyism” from pundits, like Nate Silver, who cannot stand the idea of someone being slightly mean to them. “Rest in piss”-gate, though, has some faithful users reconsidering Bluesky’s long-term prospects.
“A journalist getting banned from the site for saying rest in piss about Charlie Kirk is the first time I've legit wondered if this place is going to last or not,” wrote one user.
"Yeah, wouldn't be surprised if a year from now [Bluesky] is just a husk of Ezra Klein-style liberals posting resist memes at each other as the numbers dwindle,” replied another.
For a site that recently rose to prominence despite the calcified nature of the platform ecosystem and bills itself as a decentralized alternative – especially as conservatives threaten to crack down on those espousing leftist ideals, and as age-verification-related censorship laws gain traction across the world – this is a crucial moment. Bluesky, some users feel, is failing to meet it.
"Appeasing the far right is a death spiral many institutions are caught in, and Bluesky is one of them," wrote games person and good poster Winter K. "They've been purging Palestinians for ages, and they'll go after yet more 'undesirable' groups, to the hypothetical satisfaction of people who do not and will never use the site."
“Bluesky continues to have no fucking idea what they’re doing when it comes to moderation,” wrote Biba. “Just flailing around in the dark and then being mad when we ask them to do better. Same as it ever was.”
