UPDATE November 6th 2024
Due to the recent results from 2024 US presidential elections, there is many vulnerable people (LGBTQ+, migrants, black people, and so on) going through hard times, keep in mind that YOU ARE NOT ALONE IN THIS. So, only for this occasion, I created a new section talking about everything you need to do in Bluesky if you live in the US and you are suffering this madness.
Marina's Guide to Self-Moderation on Bluesky
We all hate Twitter (I'm NOT going to name it like X, never...) for a particular reason.
Besides their predatory monetization model that blocks you basic features like edit or send private messages in a paywall or its confusing User Interface, moderation is a key issue.
If someone did give me one dollar for every time I see one of the following posts:
- Threads of someone harassing just because a simple user likes drawing thicc girls
- Stupid conspiracy theories
- Crappy posts promoting any kind of scams (AI, Cryptocurrencies, and all of that get-rich-quick schemes)
- And, in a nutshell, any kind of posts that promotes hate speech in general (racism, transphobia, homophobia, and so on)
I would literally have rejected to my job since I could be literally right now in a mansion somewhere in a private beach in Europe along with a gigantic boat, having a complete pool of cash.
Honestly, in my personal opinion, I'm not very fanatical engaging in any kind of discussion or being exposed to this kind of content due to the fact that, it is bad for your mental health in many reasons I won't cover here, so do your own research.
When I discovered Bluesky and get used to it, I realized something important…
"HOLY CRAP! ARE YOU ABLE TO SEE WHATEVER THE F*#K YOU WANT IN YOUR FEED?!"
Thanks to the magic of this decentralized social network that is behind Bluesky (also known as the AT Protocol), there is no someone exactly moderating the network.
Obviously, there are mods that will do its best to remove really concerning content like malware or no-no content involving children. But, Bluesky is a really new application and a brand-new company, and there are more than 10 million people inside of it, and the moderation team can make mistakes and something must have been bypassed.
So... the Bluesky team decided to open up a really huge and customizable list of features that allows us to have the most customized experience according to what we can tolerate and what we can't, which I will cover here as most as I can in order to help those are new to this Social Media, or even people that have already sometime in this social media and didn't realize that certain feature did exist... so let's get going!
⚠ DISCLAIMER ⚠
There are certain things I want to keep really clear in mind before starting this guide in order to avoid misunderstandings
- I'm not an English Native: I took some English classes and courses, but I don't think I'm confident enough to give you a really understandable guide. So… if anyone finds something in this guide that is confusing or not properly written please send me a private message to my Bluesky account
@marinasart.bsky.social - I won't teach you a very technical guide: Obviously, I will cover topics that don't require very deep knowledge in IT or coding like creating your own moderation label from scratch. This is mainly because those topics involves renting a server, knowing how to code and understanding JSON and other stuffs that, honestly, not many of you really need unless you are an enthusiast in these topics.
- You need to also collaborate: With this, I mean that having a perfect self-moderation is not worth it if you also don't moderate what you post, which I will later cover up in another section.
- I'm not perfect: There will be stuff that I could leave without giving a really in-depth explanation or some misunderstanding, so... if you see something is incorrect, again, send me a private message to
@marinasart.bsky.social
Besides that, let's get started!
Getting started
COLLABORATE
This is something that you should really take seriously as if it were like the 10 amendments that your religious parents possibly teached you about in order to be a perfect son of god.
Fortunately, I'm not a Christian Sheperd, but I'm a Sheperd of peace, so, I decided to create my own 10 amendments for being a perfect profile of Bluesky that everyone wants to engage with.
- DO NOT post content just for the sake of posting
- DO NOT say "hot-takes" that can possibly lead to "heated" arguments
- DO NOT spam
- DO NOT force people to watch content they DON'T like or want to watch
- DO NOT engage with people you don't want to know IRL inside of Bluesky (trolls, alt-right weirdos, and so on)
- DO NOT talk about that same people inside Bluesky (do not talk about them in your profile)
- TAG your content properly
- ALT-TEXT is your best friend
- LABEL your content properly
- And above all... POST REALLY GOOD STUFF
I believe that following properly these 10 amendments you are even capable of being really successful in this social media. I'm someone with liberal thoughts, so, if you don't want to follow them, that's really good.
I'm not forcing anyone to follow these rules, but, it would be really appreciated if you keep in mind at least one of them (specifically between the 7th and the 10th amendment). And if you don't care about moderation, some of these amendments help you to gain more engagement:
- Tagging your content will not only allow you to help people to avoid content they don't want to see, but it will only help you to include yourself in feeds!
- Some feeds uses Alt-text in order for grabbing some keywords, and also helps people with visual issues. Making an inclusive environment for everyone is beneficial for everyone!
- Labelling your content won't affect your recognition, but instead, it will help many more people! Seriously, please...
LABEL YOUR F#@@1CKING CONTENT!
Seriously, this is not joke. Please... if you make NSFW or suggestive content, LABEL IT, PLEASEEEEEEEE.
I don't have anything against NSFW or suggestive creators, I love them, keep drawing about what you better do to draw.
But it is not comfortable to be someone that wants to check out Bluesky in a public place or along with someone else, and have to make a whole explanation about why do you have an application that shows naked thicc girls in your timeline just because someone didn't want to label it and, foremost, Bluesky can't blur or hide it automatically…
Remember that Bluesky doesn't have a dependant algorithm, so you won't get punished just because you label your content as horny, so, please, do it...
When you click on the shield button you will find that it does have three sections when it comes to content warning.
- Suggestive: Content made for adults due to the nature that involves dirty topics without going to the line of NSFW.
- Nudity: Content that, even though is not made for adults, it depicts naked people without going to NSFW levels: (Example: Artistic nudity, anatomical drawings)
- Porn: It's self-explanatory and I think it is not necessary to say what it is.
Tags and why are they so useful
Bluesky, as well as Twitter, it does have what is called "tags", these tags are meant to label your content in other ways when you are posting something.
To keep it simple, if we have tags like #furry #furryart, someone would automatically think that this content is related to furry stuff.
Why are tags so useful? Due to the fact that these can make things easier for feeds in order to separate their content from every topic.
- A feed for just showing memes, it will search first for tags like
#memein a post - If you are horny and want to use a feed for NSFW, the feeds means for that will search for posts like
#nsfw - This goes as well for other stuffs:
#comic,#teamfortress2,#stardewvalley,#OnePiece,#cats,#Politics, and so on...
Their importance is so big that, even putting some tags, then you are receiving more attention from feeds and you can gain more followers and engagement! So keep that in mind!
How to ban tags and words in your feed
Sometimes, you will find certain content or texts sensitive due to their offensive nature (like slurs) or potentially disturbing for certain people (like heavy kinks) or simply stuff you don't like.
So... what can I do in order to not see content like this? Well, we can mute the tags and words
We will go to Settings >> Moderation >> Muted Words and Tags
You will find out that you have a whole lot of buttons and stuff to choose. Don't worry, I will guide you through it...
We have the following stuff:
- The field to enter the word or tag: you can type the word that you may want to mute. Remember that these words and tags are CASE-INSENSITIVE, this means that it doesn't matter if it's lowercase, uppercase or some combination of both.
- The Duration: How long will you have your words and tags muted? In my opinion, I see this option useless unless it does have a function to have it customized (for example, I guess a good scenario could be muting tags like
#MAGAduring the entire year when there is an election in the US) - Mute in text, tags or both: Be careful here since this one it can be a double sharp weapon. Because sometimes there will be scenarios where tagging a post is very different from a text. For example, is not the same someone tagging the post as
#nsfwbecause you instantly know that post will involve horny stuff, and someone just making an opinion aboutnsfwartists. - Exclude users you follow: This is something very occasional and this may be under your consideration. If you have enough trust in the accounts you follow, considering that they will responsibly when it comes the topics that are sensitive for you, example:
@myfriend.bsky.social: I think NSFW artists should be more responsible and more strict in the way they make commissionsthen you may want to choose it.
And when you are ready, you just need to click on the "Add" button and that's it!
And, if for some reason you want to see again that content, you can freely undo your muted words and tags by just pressing X!
Limitations
Not everything is perfect, and this feature it does have certain flaws and disadvantages that I need to point out because I want to be realistic with you
- It just apply for posts: This means that these muted words and tags don't apply for bios and feeds
- It specifically needs to have the word in order to be muted: Only the posts with the word or tag you put will be muted, if it doesn't have it, then there is nothing your list can do and you will see that content without any issues.
- Beware of common words!: There are certain words that are the same but have different meanings, and you should be wary of that. For example: muting the word war would involve muting more than you should expect! Like Call of Duty: World at War
Besides that, it can be a really good way to get rid of slurs and those things you don't want to see...
How to use Bluesky Moderation Labels
Bluesky also has it's official labeling moderation which is very useful since it saves you a whole lot of work removing generalized stuff (like for example, NSFW content)
If we go to Settings >> Moderation and if we go to Content Filters you will see we have something for enable adult content and see that you have four labels. And you can do the following:
- Show: You don't give a damn about it and you just want to no have censorship at all
- Warn: It gives you a warning before showing you anything. And if you are willing to see that content, you can click it.
- Hide: You don't want to see it.
And the four labels are these ones:
- Adult Content: NSFW, Porn, you know, the horny stuff
- Sexually Suggestive: Content that is horny but not so much
- Graphic Media: This involves disturbing content like gore.
- Non-sexual Nudity: Content that involves naked people but not in a NSFW manner (anatomical drawings)
These are the labels it does have, not so much, but, if you really want to customize your experience, then I propose you something.
Below, there is a button for advanced, if you press it, you will find a whole bunch of labels where you can choose from. I will guide you through each one:
- Sexually Suggestive (Cartoon): This is very uncertain why this label does exists since you can simply put the sexy art inside of the Sexually Suggestive in general. It simply involves all that kind of suggestive art.
- Self-Harm: This label involves any kind of post that has something to do with self-harm. This is a really useful label to warn or hide specially when you are having complicated times with your mental health.
- Sensitive: Topics involving substance abuse or mental health issues. Recommended to warn as well as the previous one.
- Extremist: This label involves any kind of content that glorifies hate speech, violence, or hate against discriminated groups. This is an amazing label that helps you to really ditch out those people that a certain millionaire man child deeply wants you to see them.
- Intolerance: The same as Extremist but in a more subtle way.
- Threats: Any kind of threat that involves hurting someone or a group of people.
- Rude: This is a controversial label, since there has been users complaining that rude applies to just someone swearing to no one or swearing towards people you don't want to know IRL. Honestly, I can really make sure if this is true or not, but, in any case, I'd recommend putting in warn.
- Illicit: Any kind of selling involving illegal stuff (drugs, weapons, stolen accounts, and so on)
- Security Concern: Any kind of content that may put in risk your device and accounts. This can be maybe someone asking you to do certain stuff in your device that may leave it vulnerable.
- Unsafe Link: Any kind of phishing link, or a malware that can put in risk your account
- Impersonation: Pretending to be someone else (unsure if this applies to 'parody' users)
- Misinformation: Any kind of dumb political conspiracy theory, sensationalistic news, you name it. Everything gets in this label.
- Scams: Unsure how does this label works, but I'd guess that it has something to do with people that wants to scam you through DMs (like it happened with certain users asking for commissions outside of the official means)
- Engagement Farming: This involves those kind of bots you found on Twitter that follows a whole lot of accounts or generated AI content that don't have any real value.
- Spam: Spam. That's it. This involved repeatedly posting something
- Rumor: Something similar to misinformation but, this involves an information that hasn't been confirmed, so you must be careful if believe it or not.
- Misleading: Any kind of content that has been altered or quoted the someone didn't have say in their life.
- Inauthentic Accounts: Bots, that's it.
There are more Moderation labels around Bluesky, but I would prefer the official one. These are all the labels that it uses.
In my personal experience, your safe bet would be choosing to hide all of them. However, knowing how horny you are, then I'd recommend this:
- Sexually Suggestive (Cartoon and in General), Adult-Content, Non-Sexual Nudity: In warn or show
- Everything else: Hide or warn
Bluesky-Moderation-Advanced.png
This is an example on how do I have it, remember that you can customize this as much as you feel comfortable enough
Third Party Moderation Labels/Moderation Lists
Moderations Lists and Labels made by third parties are lists made by someone else that adds a group of accounts that these users considers "bad-faith". This can go somewhere between Spammers and Cryptobros, to more concerning users like Homophobes, Transphobes, Fatphobes, Racists, and so on.
This is, in my opinion, one of the most dangerous ways of moderating your content. Why? Well, due to the single fact that you need to rely on someone else's judging in order to see which users are of bad faith.
This means that I can't guarantee you if inside these moderation lists there are innocent people or users that simply did have an issue with the creator and then, this one, with remorse, added them.
I'm not telling you to harass these moderation label creators because the majority, at the end of the day, want to make Bluesky a safer place for people, just keep in mind this, and you will decide what's best for you or not.
Non-Moderation Labels List (Recommended)
First, I'd show you some good moderation labels that are not specifically moderation-related but rather more personalization or informational ones and I do recommend from the bottom of my heart:
- SonaSky: Not specifically a moderation list, but rather more something to add some personalization to my furry friends! This is the only list I do recommend because it is not a moderation one, and it's pretty fun to see labels indicating your sona's species!
- TTRPG Class Identifier: Role-playing enthusiasts will love this moderation label!
- Pronouns: This is for my LGBTQ+ friends, with this moderation label you can choose what pronouns do you want people to use, it also includes some xenopronouns!
- Content Creator Labeler: This label helps you to identify a kind of content creator.
- Profile Labeler: This is a bot that shows automatically label users under certain criteria if the user is new, has changed their handle, users that bridge their posts through other social media)
Moderation Label Lists
⚠ Warning ⚠: This is a list from moderation lists that as far as I know are good ones and looks like they really label people that they claim they are, but still, follow this at your own risk. If you see there is an issue with these lists, again, DM me at my profile: @marinasart.bsky.social
@numb.comfortab.lylists- Spambot and scammers (This moderation list removes people known to be as scammers)
- Arrogant Jerks (People that have an elevated ego)
- Transphobes and Homophobes (This one is obvious)
- AI Fanboys
- Crypto Dweebs (Cryptobros in a nutshell)
- Right-wing propaganda and their followers (You don't want politics in a social media, and much less coming from alt-right so this is really useful)
- AI Imagery Labeler (This will detect any kind of image that has been created by an AI)
- Laelaps' Anti Zoophiles Labeler (This moderation label will detect any kind of user that is known to be a zoophile and also people that supports zoophiles)
- Anti AI-Art List (This is the same as AI Imagery but it is not a bad idea to also use them together)
- Debate Perverts and Sealions (The main reason why Twitter sucks is that there is many people that likes to engage in heated debates that serves no purpose rather than generate toxicity, so, it's better to have these people blocked)
- Content Scrapers (Simply accounts that generates content with no valuable purpose)
- Commision Artists Bots
- VTubers that had made cuestionable commentary. (I'm not inside into the world of VTubers, but I heard this block list is really good)
- Anti NFT/AI/Crypto (
Wait, there are still NFTs fanboys alive??)
- If we want to subscribe to one of these moderation labels, we need to click in Subscribe to Labeler
How to report an user to a moderation label
Sometimes, there are people that don't follow rules, so... how can we report them? Easy
- Let's suppose this post is a really dirty NSFW drawing that hasn't been labeled properly
- So we are going to click in the three dots buttons and then choose Report Post
- Here, we will choose the moderator we want to report it. And yes, we can also report third parties. For the sake of this tutorial, we are going to just report to Bluesky Moderation Service
- We select the moderator and then, we can choose between all of these options, in our case, we can choose Unwanted Sexual Content
- And here, we can also select more than one moderator send the report and, optionally, provide text for the sake of context.
- With this ready, we can the send report. Obviously, since this post isn't NSFW at all (I guess...), then I'm not going to send it.
Limitations
This Moderation Label isn't perfect, and remember, mistakes do happen and there is some flaws that you may want to keep in mind.
- Bluesky can't instantly label any new posts: If you have a feed that shows the newest post, then there is a possibility that you may want to find something sensitive and had it hidden but it still shows. For example, NSFW Unlabeled Art, Please, LABEL YOUR CONTENT AAAAAAAAAAAAA
- Mistakes happens: There is a slightly possibility that someone may have been unfairly labeled for no reason. This is specially if you use third party moderation labels, since these ones are possibly made by one people.
- Confusing: What's the difference between Suggestive Cartoon and Suggestive in General? How something is considered misleading, misinformation or rumour?
Besides the limitations, it is a really amazing way of removing all kind of disgusting users.
Blocking and Muting Posts/Users
We are going to talk about how to mute and block users. In any social media, you will find people that you don't want to engage with and are not labeled by third parties or the same Bluesky team but still is harassing you or being a bad faith user. That's why it comes to play these two simple but powerful tools.
First, unlike Twitter, THE BLOCK BUTTON WORKS FOR SOMETHING, and that's a good plus.
Second, I need to make clear certain differences between block and mute, and then, I will show you how to block/mute
What is Blocking?
Blocking, for Bluesky, is simply, making a user disappear from your life in Bluesky. Yeah, that's it.
I don't want to explode your brain with overly technical explanations, but, if you want, here it is:
- A blocked user can't reply in your threads
- A blocked user can't mention you
- *You can't see the content of a blocked user
- And a blocked user will be prevented of showing your content to make sure they don't realize have been blocked
Basically, blocking works for something, and as I said, is practically like making a user disappear, like if they were banned from the platform. Is very powerful, right? Yeah, but there's a big flaw, but first, let's see about what does mute do
What is muting?
Muting, for Bluesky, is being able to not show this user in your feed, but, still, this user is able to interact with your posts.
- You won't see any content of that muted user
- And also it won't appear in your notification
Someone will say to me:
Marina, that's a crappy feature, it wouldn't be so much easier to just block that user and that's it?
And I'll agree with you, however, here is where it comes the flaw
The issue
The main issue with blocking is that, is public. What do I mean by that? That anyone can see which users you have blocked and sideways.
This is an issue in Bluesky's design, this happens because, due to their nature of a decentralized social media. You can use third party apps, and these third party apps needs some way of syncing your moderation content, and that's include they need to know which users have been blocked
If you don't believe me, go to Clearsky and search your handle and you will see that I'm not joking.
Technically, this is not an issue, unless the person you are blocking is a complete creep and wants to check out which people have blocked them, but besides that, this is something that you should really keep in mind.
On the other side, muting is completely private, why? Because it is a client-side feature. So, technically, there is no way someone can know if they have been muted or not unless they suspect a certain kind of ghosting in your interactions.
A table for put things in a nutshell
| Feature | Block | Mute |
|---|---|---|
| The user won't interact with your posts? | ✔ | ❌ |
| The user won't mention you? | ✔ | ❌ |
| You won't see the content of this user in your timeline? | ✔ | ✔ |
| You won't receive notifications from that user? | ✔ | ✔ |
| Is it private? | ❌ | ✔ |
- It's up to you which one you will decide
How to mute/block someone

Let's grab this account as our example. Let's suppose I hate Cass so much that I don't want to engage with her anymore, here, I click in the three dots button and I click on Mute account if I'm not interested in seeing her content, or Block account if I don't want to engage with her, EVER AGAIN.
As common sense, I won't do it since, Cass is a good person, I just grabbed her as an example
⚠ Regarding USA 2024 Elections...⚠
It is not surprise that the recent elections from the US gave an unexpected result and things don't seem to be good for US people from now on. We are going through a critical situation, so it's very important to keep your mental health safe, so let's go.
- Besides what I told you about Third Party Moderation Lists and Labelers, USE THEM!: Looks like there has been an incremented numbers of bad faith users going inside of Bluesky and they are starting to promote their political views. Don't give them the taste and block them all, and this is why using third parties is coming now handy.
- CREATE YOUR OWN FEED: I will later work on this, but at the moment. I strongly advice you to create your own feed and THROW AWAY every kind of politics related posts by configuring it yourself. The user
@wootmaster.bsky,socialcreated a thread talking about how to use SkyFeed, which is a tool to create your own feeds without the pain of coding or renting a server. I'd recommend checking out: https://bsky.app/profile/wootmaster.bsky.social/post/3l7z4oeoxv42z - DON'T LISTEN TO HARASSERS, DON'T ARGUE WITH THEM, JUST BLOCK AND REPORT THEM: This is a fact that people that harasses to others because of their race, age, gender identity, sexuality, religion, political views and so on are people that are not happy with themselves and what they only care about is harming you. Just block them, don't argue with them, pick your own fights, and this one, is not one that is worth it.
- DELETE TWITTER!!!!: Why are you still using that crap of social media?!? It is not worth it losing time in a dumpster! You are making a good favor if you just delete it, that social media won't bring anything good to you. If you want to know how to delete your Twitter account, check out justdelete.me
- SUPPORT THE PEOPLE YOU CARE THE MOST: This is not so much, but liking, reposting, and commenting positive comments in your friend that has been affected by this elections will make a huge difference in improving their mental health. Listen to their feelings, understand them, and make them know that they are not alone with this and that there are people supporting them.
- Relax your mind: I guess if you are in gym, your trainers taught you that overworking too much your muscles is not good. Your mind is also a muscle and needs to relax! Go for a walk, listen music, play some online video games with your friends, anything but distract yourself and your most loved ones.
By the way, if you want to block all MAGA Supporters, there is a moderation list that @skywatch.blue did make: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:e4elbtctnfqocyfcml6h2lf7/lists/3l53cjwlt4o2s
Independent in your political views or in which country do you live in, this is the time that we need to be together. It's very sad that things happened this way, but hey, if you get down, just recover yourself and stand up again! Don't let some old crazy man convince you sideways, stay strong, keep your head up going forward, and never surrender! ♥♥♥.
Conclusion and final words
With this, we have finished this self-moderation guide. I did my best to make this guide as understandable as possible and I hope you learned something new here.
In my opinion, I really like the proposal that Bluesky is offering to have a social media where you choose what you want to see, without relying in the ideologies of a millionaire man child that instead of focusing on making rockets to Mars, he just wants to destroy a social media that has already been destroyed long time ago.
With this, I deeply believe that one day, we will be able to go towards a new concept of a new internet, where we can be free of selecting the content we just want to see and not rely on shady AI models to just select content we do not like just for making some unnecessary internet drama.
I hope you liked the guide, and if you liked this guide, support me by following my account as well as engaging with my content (if you like it, of course, if not, it's okay!) And, I'll see you the next time!









