You can verify yourself on Mastodon by including a piece of HTML code in your site's header.
Literally everyone can do that, even government agencies. I have it on my blog. What do we do then?
this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2026
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If ICE where to join a fediverse instance they would most likely get insta-banned or their instanced would be defederated from large portions of the fediverse very quick.
So, trying to parse what's going on here.
Bluesky has verified that an account claiming to belong to the US government agency ICE really is controlled by that agency. Somehow that shows that Mastodon is better. Because Trump has his own Mastodon instance and doesn't need anyone to vouch for his goons?
Looking at the comments, maybe the issue is rather that the Bluesky company provides services to ICE. Tech companies should refuse service. Huh. I guess there is more diversity of opinion on Lemmy than I had thought, regarding the power of tech companies, democracy, and law.
It's just all emotion and no rational thought now. People just go into outrage mode when certain topics are mentioned.
Really it opens a channel to criticize ICE without needing to logon to X to do so. But that's bad because preventing communication is good?
Of course I doubt ICE will care about criticism directed towards their account on bluesky. But that means things said on the internet don't have much of an effect on things, which means it doesn't matter whether they're on bluesky (or any other forum).
Mostly it's about some weird belief by some about controlling what is being said on the internet gains power. You'd think the events that have happened would have proven this wrong, but still people continue to be upset about things being said on the internet and want some power over those things.
Really words on the internet don't matter as much as people think, and the idea of blocking unwanted information is annoying at best and can lead to ignorance. What matters is the horrible acts ICE is doing. We should want more light being shown on them, and welcome any potential channel of discussion.
Wanting to prevent discussion indicates you feel you're in the wrong. ICE is indicating they want discussion, while those that are outraged by ICE being on bluesky are indicating they don't want discussion on ICE. Why would anyone want to make is seem ICE is in the right while they're in the wrong? It's people not thinking and only reacting emotionally and handing ICE a W because they are raging instead of thinking.
Yep. Better to have these assholes than not.
Also verification isn’t complicated. Anyone can do it.
Yeah, the reactive group signaling stuff does more harm than good, just further perpetuating the conditions that allow propaganda to proliferate. This includes intentionally using the wrong words, for dramatic effect. Wholly agree that more, rational conversation and LESS insularity is the best path forward.
Bluesky is a centralized platform and their mods don't ban Nazis.
Trump being able to clone Mastodon is not the same as letting Trump on Mastodon.social
Every Mastodon instance can choose to defederate with truth social
BlueSky can choose to kick ICE off their platform
It's that simple
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Yeah, so? Verification just means they are who they say they are. It doesn't mean Bluesky endorses their posts.
The White House has a verified Bluesky account, too. They haven't posted anything in months, though, presumably because of all the ratio-ing.
I get why this would bug people.
It's a small act of legitimizing the domestic Gestapo.
Pretty sure American tax dollars are what legitimized ice, unfortunately.
Too many people thought that Twitters Blue Checkmark meant you were special. That attitude carries over to Bluesky and being verified.
Lol, yeah. If I saw an account labeled "American Nazi Party" with a blue check mark, I wouldn't think "wow, Bluesky endorses Nazis" - I'd think "wow, this isn't a satire account, these are actual Nazis, imma block them."
Lol, yeah. If I saw an account labeled “American Nazi Party” with a blue check mark, I wouldn’t think “wow, Bluesky endorses Nazis” - I’d think “wow, this isn’t a satire account, these are actual Nazis, imma block them.”
I'd think "wow they let Nazis on here. Like they know about them and are cool with that. This place is trash"
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Most of the White House accounts were boosted by freshly created accounts. They got flagged in multiple lists immediately after joining and their engagement went to hell. After that, they got bored and went back to the nazi platform. Good moderation tools for the community helps.
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I welcome another avenue to let them know how much I hate them.
I deleted my account on BlueSky since last Sept. BlueSky is pretty trash
BlueSky - Because maybe we can go back to the way things were?
(Not American here)
While i agree fediverse is then solution and i don't use bluesky, i don't see the issue is recognizing ICE as verified.
After all ice is a government agency of the USA whether you like it or not, and should be verified if there is a procedure to do so.
No i don't like ice and i do not condone what they do, but that doesn't change the above statement.
You know that the problem isn’t that they’re verifying the gestapo, it’s that they’re platforming and subsequently legitimising them.
Wake up. Ice, being government, it's already legitimized enough in real life.
What difference would it make in the social media. Better if they are out in the open in social media instead, at least they get responsible for what they post, officially.
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Eh. I don't use bsky, and think most current ICE staff should be imprisoned for terrorism for the rest of their lives, but I don't want any communications services to decide which entities should and shouldn't be verified. That's how you end up with power-tripping mods, propaganda bubbles, and censorship (exactly what fascists are doing with X, fb, tiktok, etc).
The goal should be an open protocol where users/orgs can sign messages cryptographically (like PGP) and every other user can decide which users, feeds, or algos they subscribe to without censorship. Like, if I subscribe to my friends and family, or friends of friends, I don't want any form of moderation between them and me, but the freedom to sub to moderated topics is also necessary for public feeds/comms.
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Everyone responding here and confused why this matters seem not get the point. This post is just a warning that the types of people most of us don't want to associate with are now on that platform. The problem is not that they are verified, it's that they exist there at all.
Edit: some reasonable arguments have been made here for allowing these Nazis on Blue sky, which I originally thought was a bad idea, but maybe disallowing them won't actually solve anything and may exacerbate things. I don't know. I'll think about it some more.
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It's a good thing they get verified. It means they can not take back anything they post and they have to take accountability for the account.
Do you think it would be better if they didn't verify it and let them spread misinformation and propaganda with plausible deniability?
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