Bluesky will soon allow users to customize how content in their feeds is moderated. The social platform announced that it is open-sourcing its moderation tool called Ozone, allowing developers to create additional moderation services that users can choose from.
Bluesky already has a team dedicated to content moderation, as well as its own set of rules that users must abide by. However, the new system will allow users to expand moderation to their liking, allowing them to subscribe to additional moderation services to flag, annotate or hide certain types of posts.
Bluesky said, for example, that someone could use Ozone to create an auditing service that specifically blocks spider images. Users can then subscribe to the service to remove photos of spiders from their feeds. They can also report any missed spider images so they can be reviewed by the creators of the moderation service.
“You can build a variety of different moderation services and customize your experience to create the type of community you want,” said Bluesky CEO Jay Graber. edge In an upcoming episode decoder. “Beyond that, you’ll be able to mix and match these in different ways, and we’ve launched open source tools for that.”
Custom filters will sit on top of Bluesky’s existing moderation, but third-party servers will be able to turn off Bluesky’s moderation entirely.
Bluesky said creating moderation tools is similar to how users create block lists. The main difference is that the audit service is not tied to a personal account. Instead, it will have multiple people manage the service, review report queues, and set custom labels. Developers can even create automated tagging services if they wish.
Ozone is open sourced today, and Bluesky will roll out the ability to enable auditing tools later this week.
“I think this is really going to move the industry forward,” Graeber said decoder. “As far as I know, no one has done exactly what we have done before, which is to allow any third party, any user or anyone who wants to participate in this moderation – even if they are non-technical people – to start Construct.”