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Labeling Services Microgrants

· 4 min read

We’re launching microgrants for labeling services on Bluesky!

Moderation is the backbone of healthy social spaces online. Bluesky has our own moderation team dedicated to providing around-the-clock coverage to uphold our community guidelines, and additionally, we recognize that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to moderation. No single company can get online safety right for every country, culture, and community in the world. So we’ve also been building something bigger — an ecosystem of moderation and open-source safety tools that gives communities power to create their own spaces, with their own norms and preferences.

Labeling services on Bluesky allow users and communities to participate in a stackable ecosystem of services. Users can create and subscribe to filters from independent moderation services, which are layered on top of Bluesky’s own service. You can read more about how stackable moderation works on Bluesky here.

To support the first labelers in our ecosystem and encourage more, we are launching a microgrants program for labeling services. To apply for a grant, please fill out this form.​

Program Details​

For this program, we have an allocation of $10,000. We will be distributing $500 per labeling service that is approved for a grant. Please submit an application here.

The application has a rolling deadline, and we will announce both the recipients of the grants and when all of the grants have been distributed. We pay out grants via public GitHub Sponsorships.

In addition, we’ve also partnered with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to offer $5,000 in AWS Activate1 credits to labeling services as well. These credits are applied to your AWS bill to help cover costs from cloud services, including machine learning, compute, databases, storage, containers, dev tools, and more. Simply check a box in your grant application if you’re interested in receiving these credits as well.

If you’re an organization interested in running a labeler but do not currently have the technical capacity to implement one, please reach out to our team at partnerships@blueskyweb.xyz. We may be able to assist in matching you with a developer.

Initial Labeling Grant Recipients​

We're kicking off the program with grants to three initial recipients:

XBlock

@XBlock.aendra.dev is an attempt to help give users control over the types of content they see on Bluesky. Screenshots serve a variety of uses on social media, but quite often are intended to create discourse or drive dogpiles. By letting users toggle the visibility of screenshots from various platforms, XBlock aims to give users a "volume dial" for certain types of content.

Aegis

@aegis.blue is a volunteer-run labeling service providing community moderation predominantly to Bluesky's LGBTQIA+ and marginalized users. Featuring a diverse team of both industry and aspiring experts, Aegis lives by the motto, We Keep Us Safe. More info can be found on their website at https://aegis.blue/Home.

News Detective

News Detective fights misinformation by combining the experience of professional factcheckers with the wisdom of crowds. A crowd of volunteer factcheckers transparently investigates posts, and professional factcheckers make sure only the highest quality factchecks make it through the system. Users who use News Detective will be able to see factchecks (including explanations and sources) on posts they come across and request factchecks on posts they find questionable. They can also watch News Detectives discuss the posts and even participate in factchecking to create a more honest, democratic, and transparent internet. Incubated at MIT DesignX, MIT Sandbox, and HacksHackers.

Contact​

Please feel free to leave questions or comments on the GitHub discussion for this announcement here, or on the Bluesky post here.

Footnotes​

  1. AWS Activate Credits are subject to the program's terms and conditions. ↩