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Bluesky Issues Warning to Any Users Celebrating Charlie Kirk Assassination
- SilverElfin 1y agoWhile I am not in favor of censorship, I do wonder if this is a responsible statement to issue at a time where things can spiral to something worse. At the same time, the exact words they used may not cover the problematic comments I saw, which were more coded: > "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," the social media platform wrote in a post.
- toomuchtodo 1y agoI am of two minds of this. I respect Bluesky's right to police their part of the ATProto, while also acknowledging this violates the free speech of its users and is a censorship choke point which should be refactored to defend against. A recent example are the most recent events in Nepal. Nepal Prime Minister Resigns. Parliament / Ministires set on Fire. - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45179679 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45179679 - September 2025
- SilverElfin 1y agoHow would you defend against it? Making an alternative social network? Isn’t that only going to lead to more and more echo chambers of limited reach? Or am I not understanding the approach? I am not sure what ATProto is exactly or how it plays a role in this defense.
- toomuchtodo 1y agoAre we decentralized yet? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45077291 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45077291 - August 2025 Blacksky grew to millions of users without spending a dollar - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45018773 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45018773 - August 2025 Introduction to AT Protocol - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44965233 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44965233 - August 2025 > In the early days of Bluesky, Black users felt they were being pushed off. Blacksky became a platform for Black users to feel heard and seen. To create Blacksky, we wrote our own implementation of AT Protocol (called “rsky” and pronounced “risky”). An underlying premise of Blacksky’s rsky is to not only “seize the means of production,” as well as the distribution, but to also act as a “dual power” structure. > Blacksky’s rsky guarantees our community a seat at the table, and ensures that we can leave and easily make our own table if we need to. That’s the true promise of decentralized social media. [My note: Most relevant part, the rest included for context] > Clearly I think that decentralization is great, not only for the problems it prevents, but also the new possibilities it creates. But if everyone’s running their own servers, apps, and moderation teams, how do we do global social media? That’s where our vibrant open source developer community comes in. > Blacksky runs our own global relay at https://atproto.africa https://atproto.africa, which we built from scratch. Every day, our relay stores its own copy of the hundreds of gigabytes of data of all known AT Protocol accounts — 36 million and counting. We also developed what we call our “moderation relay,” which lets us know about all of the moderation decisions ever made by all mod teams globally. Think of Bluesky not as a Twitter equivalent platform, but a funded experiment and incubator for bootstrapping a protocol where multiple platforms can operate independently of each other. You can scale a community to tens of millions of users for under a few hundred dollars per month in tech spend (storage, compute, transfer). This is very accessible imho. Broadly speaking, I understand that there might be speech out there that I find exceptionally distasteful, but that is the speech in many cases (but not all) I am willing to protect, because you don't know when the capability to censor will be weaponized. This remains in constant tension so long as humans are humans. There is no solution, only constant evolution.
- tim333 1y agoI think there are existing 4chan like social networks where you can post away although no one much may notice. Open protocols like the internet provide a way to say what you want but not a way to force people to listen to it.
- mbfg 1y agoI missed the news where the US Gov bought out blue sky??? How else could BlueSky violate someone's free speech?
- toomuchtodo 1y agoWhile there is nuance between the government and a private benefit corp like Bluesky restricting speech, I'm rolling it all together for these purposes. I agree there is legal nuance (de facto vs de jure). As I mentioned, Bluesky is entitled to do so, as it is their platform. So, you take your speech to another platform operated on a distributed protocol. This is no different then creators posting their content to Rumble instead of traditional social platforms, for example (as Charlie Kirk did). https://corp.rumble.com/our-story/ https://corp.rumble.com/our-story/ https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/sep/20/what-is-rumble-the-video-sharing-platform-immune-to-cancel-culture https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/sep/20/what-is-r... > Founded in 2013 by a Canadian entrepreneur, Chris Pavlovksi, Rumble was designed to be an alternative to YouTube for small content creators. But it quickly began to pride itself on being the opposite of other tech firms. > According to Rumble’s website, it is “immune to cancel culture” and aims to “restore the internet to its roots by making it free and open once again”. Pavlovksi has described it as “neutral”. > Rumble is backed by the billionaire and prominent conservative venture capitalist Peter Thiel, who invested in 2021, and the conservative former Fox News presenter Dan Bongino, who has 2.9 million subscribers himself. The platform is valued at more than $2bn (£1.6bn). ("what's good for the goose is good for the gander")
- HankStallone 1y agoSome users may be too young to remember this, but up until the 2010s, liberals were generally opposed to all censorship by anyone, and wanted the First Amendment to be interpreted liberally to apply beyond just government actions. It wasn't until about 2017 that you started to hear liberals say, "They're a private corporation; they can do what they want," which you would have heard only from conservatives before that. Now that some corporations appear to be shifting again and can't be trusted to censor only conservatives anymore (most notably Twitter after the Musk purchase) we're seeing the 20th-century expansive interpretation of free speech making a comeback on the left. Feels comfy, like an old pair of slippers.
- lm28469 1y agoThere is no free speech here, bluesky isn't the government, it can refuse your speech like a restaurant can refuse your order
- harimau777 1y agoThat doesn't work in practice when platforms like BlueSky serve as the defacto public square.
- lm28469 1y agoPublic square or insane asylum? Everytime I look into these services I have the same aversion as when I open LinkedIn, it reads like bots exchanging with bots sprinkled with a few real people caught in between unaware they're talking to no one and radicalizinf themselves in the process.
- root_axis 1y agoBlueSky is in no way a public square. It's private property.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- nix-zarathustra 1y agoBlueSky is more a shopping mall than a public square: anyone can enter, but security can escort you out if you start causing an uproar.
- mothballed 1y agoMarsh v Alabama found that private owners might not have the ability to refuse protected speech on their publicly accessible property, so it's not so simple as just being able to declare they're a private entity and that is that. "In Marsh v. Alabama (1946), the Supreme Court ruled that a privately owned company town could not prohibit individuals from exercising their First Amendment rights to free speech and religion" I'm not saying bluesky is the exact same, but it seems pretty damn similar to the private sidewalk that the Gulf Shipbuilding Corporation privately owned.
- amanaplanacanal 1y agoI wonder about this policy: does it only apply to private violence, or does government violence also fall under this guideline? I'm thinking of any discussion of the Ukraine war, ICE raids, etc.
- ronsor 1y agoGovernments have a monopoly on violence
- amanaplanacanal 1y agoThat would imply that celebrating violence from those in power is fine, but celebrating violence from those not in power is a bad thing. Which is support for the powerful against the powerless. They probably wouldn't want this explicitly stated though.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- LocalH 1y agoThat doesn't mean all government use of violence is to be applauded
- tim333 1y agoThese proclamations pretty much always apply to limited categories of violence. You're fine celebrating good violence like the US victories in WW2.
- oldpersonintx2 1y ago[flagged]
- SilverElfin 1y ago> bsky staff only issued this warning begrudgingly, they were likely high-fiving each other for hours That is certainly possible. Many tech companies have very powerful and organized internal activists that influenced their actions and culture for years, especially following the 2016 election. I do wonder if the management of these “events” is now done more by a small executive team and a PR or crisis team, rather than everyday employees. As in - there may be two distinct groups, one that acts maturely like with these statements, and the other doing the “high-fiving”.
- stayhydratedboy 1y agoRebellion against the status quo is what moves things forward - in tech, in politics, in life. It matters little how or against what you rebel, only that you do rebel. It's little wonder why HN and big tech in general are supportive.
- krapp 1y agoI don't know if you've been living under a rock over the last few months but HN and big tech have shifted to the right/anti-woke/pro Trump side of the spectrum. Don't confuse the "move fast and break things" rebellion of startup culture or the pandering of corporations to progressive ideals (until the winds change) with actual sincere anti-establishment rebellion. HN and big tech absolutely support the staus quo when it aligns with their financial interests.
- lawlessone 1y ago>you've all been inculcated with the notion of "rebel chic" by your professors and you have internalized it Ok... i don't recall because it was some time ago but i guess we were very liberal with memory management when i studied... I'm not sure what you think college is but what's in your head doesn't match reality, it matches TV shows.
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- UrineSqueegee 1y agoyou know something is wrong when even Bluesky is too conservative for them
- homeonthemtn 1y agoThere is nothing wrong with policing speech on platforms. If you don't (or do) want specific kinds of speech on the platform you own, it is fully your right to discourage (encourage) users to behavior a certain way. The repercussions of that are your own. Quite honestly, the repercussions are likely small in the long run if it helps to better establish civil norms and self governance.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- dingosity 1y ago[flagged]
- defen 1y agoI doubt there were many (if any) legitimate (as in, not bots or sockpuppets) Bluesky accounts celebrating either of those things, so I don't see why a warning would be necessary.
- dingosity 1y agoIt sounds like your point is when left wing politicos are targeted and people celebrate it, those are obviously sock-puppets and bots. But when right wing celebrities (for lack of a better word) are targeted, it's the democratic base that comes out in force to celebrate. So only right wing commentators who advocate political violence deserve protection? [Also... Do you have any data supporting this hypothesis?]
- ImJamal 1y agoI'm not who you are replying to but the demographics of bluesky is heavily left wing. The users are significantly less likely to make fun of people on their side being attacked. Also, I've seen more comments in the last 24 hours saying Kirk deserved it than comments about Shapiro despite his attack happening months ago. Lastly, I don't know much about Kirk, but I haven't seen a single comment he made where he advocating for political violence. Would you mind sharing a few?
- nerdsniper 1y agoI'm just here to answer your direct question. As a general rule, I don't carry opinions on celebrities, Charlie Kirk included. So this is a relatively objective summary of what a critic of him who goes digging would be most likely to find. In my own personal opinion, you generally won't find "smoking guns" in terms of black-and-white obvious calls to violence from Charlie Kirk. Critics would likely point to: - Helping organize January 6th, claimed that "The team at Turning Point Action are honored to help make this happen, sending 80+ buses full of patriots to DC to fight for this president." - Glorifying Kyle Rittenhouse: “You’re a hero to millions, it’s an honor to be able to have you.” as well as supporting the man who attacked the Pelosi household. - At an event in Nampa, Idaho (Oct 25, 2021), an audience member posed an alarming question during Kirk’s Q&A session. Kirk did denounce the idea of shooting political opponents – but notably, he did so on strategic grounds rather than moral ones. The man in the audience asserted “this is tyranny” and asked: “When do we get to use the guns?... How many elections are they going to steal before we kill these people?” – referring to Democrats purportedly stealing elections. The crowd cheered and applauded this direct call for political violence. Kirk’s response has been controversial. Kirk immediately urged the audience not to resort to violence “because you’re playing into their plans, and they’re trying to make you do this”. He warned that any violent uprising would give the left a pretext to crack down: “justify a takeover of your freedoms… the likes of which we have never seen”. - During a special livestream of The Charlie Kirk Show on March 30, 2023, Kirk vented fury at Democrats and the “tyrannical” Biden administration. He claimed those pursuing Trump were “acting like Stalinists” and warned “we must make them pay a price and a penalty”. Referring to Trump’s indictment, Kirk declared, “They crossed the Rubicon… They have declared quote-unquote the Roman Civil War.” Media Matters characterized Kirk’s post-indictment monologues as “noticeably more incendiary and alarmist” than usual, reaching a “dangerous new level” of extremist rhetoric. Calling political opponents “Stalinists” and alluding to civil war was seen by critics as flirting with incitement, even if Kirk was ostensibly talking about legal retaliation. Commentators warned that such language – framing routine legal processes as a literal war – could egg on unhinged followers to view political conflicts in apocalyptic, violent terms. - On his March 31, 2023 broadcast, he told his audience: “We are living in an enemy-occupied country. They have taken over the government and we have to think as dissidents." Describing fellow Americans in power as an “enemy” occupier is the kind of dehumanizing language that often precedes or incites political violence. Critics noted that this phrasing encourages listeners to see themselves as insurgents in their own country. Charlie Kirk didn't really issue direct/unambiguous calls for people to commit specific acts of political violence. But critics would generally agree that his body of work created a comprehensive "permission structure" for such actions. This was achieved through a three-pronged rhetorical strategy: 1) He provided an ideological justification for lethal force as a necessary and rational political tool, primarily through an absolutist and insurrectionist interpretation of the Second Amendment. 2) He engaged in the systematic dehumanization of his political, racial, and religious opponents, casting them not as fellow citizens with differing views but as existential threats to the nation, Christianity, and "Western civilization" itself. He described the political landscape as a "spiritual battle" and a "war between diametrically opposed worldviews which cannot peacefully coexist". During an appearance with Donald Trump, he claimed that Democrats "stand for everything God hates". In another segment on his show, he asserted, "The American Democrat party hates this country. They wanna see it collapse". Also objectifying/dehumanizing along racial lines: "Happening all the time in urban America, prowling Blacks go around for fun to go target white people, that's a fact". He publicly referred to George Floyd, a man whose murder by police sparked a global movement for racial justice, as a "scumbag". In a tweet shortly before his death, he wrote, "Islam is the sword the left is using to slit the throat of America". "We need to have a Nuremberg-style trial for every gender-affirming clinic doctor. We need it immediately" 3) He offered explicit endorsements of specific violent acts and issued calls for extra-judicial retribution, which served to normalize violence as a legitimate response to political and cultural disagreement. Kirk advocated for "bailing out" David DePape, the man convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the brutal hammer attack on Paul Pelosi, husband of the former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Praising Kyle Rittenhouse as a “hero”. Critics argued that by hailing a shooter as a hero, Kirk was sending a message that “taking up arms” against perceived opponents is admirable. One of TPUSA's most notorious initiatives is the "Professor Watchlist," a website launched in 2016 that lists the names, photos, and alleged offenses of academics Kirk's organization deems to be promoting "leftist propaganda" or discriminating against conservative students. While TPUSA framed this as a tool for transparency, its practical effect was to create a digital blacklist. The criteria for inclusion were broad, often targeting professors for their scholarly publications, social media posts, or any discussion of race and politics. The predictable and documented result of being placed on this list was subjection to "campaigns of online harassment". To critics, the watchlist is an example of how Kirk built, deployed, and maintained over the long-term an infrastructure to enact his political will through mob dynamics and intimidation.
- anthem2025 1y ago[dead]
- CrzyLngPwd 1y agoThe freedom the US has to kill anyone anywhere without trial trickles down, and individual citizens believe it is their right to use violence in the same way. It was inevitable, especially since Israel can reach out and kill whoever it wishes, without consequences. Seeing the people on social media celebrating Kirk's murder is so saddening and maddening. I am shocked that social media has allowed such widespread celebration of the murder of a US citizen.
- tomohawk 1y ago[dead]
- dzhiurgis 1y agoGood for twitter/x, the freedom platform
- droptablemain 1y agoRight now seemingly all of Bluesky is in a frenzy trying to insinuate that this killer is somehow a Republican or "MAGA." Or a Groyper. The level of cognitive dissonance when people lock themselves in echo chambers is truly astonishing. You can literally scroll for hours, thousands of posts of people making the same sorts of outrageous and deflective claims. https://bsky.app/profile/trending.bsky.app/feed/412019139 https://bsky.app/profile/trending.bsky.app/feed/412019139
- zahlman 1y agoI have seen comments on HN posting this narrative as well. It defies comprehension. One of the pieces of evidence used to spin this story is the suspect wearing a Trump costume for Hallowe'en, as a 14-year-old, in 2017 (the year that this costume was popular; the entire point was to protest Trump by treating him as a literal boogeyman). (But of course, it is only seemingly all of Bluesky; and of course it's very easy on social media to start filtering for this content once you first encounter it.)