In May, BlueSky power user Molly Shah posted an open letter to the BlueSky team. Concerned that BlueSky was taking down posts linked to Gaza fundraisers over bogus fraud concerns, Molly and her co-writers had put pen to paper.

“Bluesky community members have struggled to keep their accounts on the platform,” after sharing links to Gaza fundraisers, the authors claimed. “Most of them have lost multiple accounts and/or have had their accounts labeled as spam. Some cannot even make an account without it immediately being removed from the platform… treating a group of extremely vulnerable people [(Palestinians)] the same way that the platform treats t-shirt bots and phishers is not only incredibly cruel, it has also exacerbated the situation of desperate people just attempting to survive.”

Reaction on the platform to Molly’s open letter was swift and severe. While many urged Bluesky to make special exceptions for Gazan fundraisers, the discourse frequently veered into reflexive activist histrionics. “the demon jesse s•ngal is on here but they ban pal•stinians on sight,” one user wrote. “so glad we migrated from the nazi site to the zionist site 🙄 GO SIGN” said another. “The genocide effort is coordinated across platforms,” posted a third.