The coordinated launch sparked backlash from Bluesky’s user base, which created and shared lists making it easier for others to block all of the administration’s accounts at once. As of Tuesday, a dozen of the 20 most blocked accounts were created by the Trump administration last week.
The White House account has drawn only around 12,000 followers. More than 100,000 users have the account blocked, according to Bluesky block-tracking site Clearsky, making the White House the second most blocked Bluesky user. Vice president JD Vance, who registered in June, still holds the title of the most blocked account, with more than 166,000 users blocking him.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment from WIRED, but the White House official brushed off the criticism. “That’s fine. Nobody can ever say we’re not attempting to be transparent or attempting to communicate to as many people as possible. That’s the name of the game.”
According to an administration official who was granted anonymity to speak freely, the decision to launch all of the accounts at once was deliberate. “It’s not like we chose a specific date for a singular reason,” the official tells WIRED. “Doing it all at once makes it more of like a statement versus doing it piecemeal.”
“This is an opportunity for us to reach a big segment of the American population that we traditionally are not reaching even on traditional social media platforms,” the administration official says.
There was some confusion about the Bluesky verification process for these agencies as well, as representatives from the Trump administration reached out about the process on Thursday, sources tell WIRED. The administration decided to launch the accounts before hearing back from Bluesky. According to the White House official, the process was “pretty simple.”
“We welcome The White House and other government agencies to Bluesky,” a Bluesky spokesperson told WIRED. “We reached out to them right as they joined and verified their accounts.”
Billy McLaughlin, former White House director of digital content, defended the administration’s decision to join Bluesky. “The rollout was seamless, the intro video landed perfectly, and the digital strategy remains one of the most sophisticated in modern politics,” McLaughlin says.
