Context Collapse & Trust and Safety

Oct 8, 2025

One of the hardest things about writing on a microblogging service is context collapse, especially when it comes to complex issues — you reply to one person, others take it out of context, and suddenly there are 30 different interpretations of what you meant.

To try something different, I’ll start using Leaflet (leaflet.pub) — a blogging tool that runs on the same open protocol as Bluesky — to go deeper on how and why content moderation works here (and how it sometimes fails).

With more room to explain, I hope to unpack how Trust and Safety decisions are made at scale — the tradeoffs, the systems, and the human judgement behind them.

Topics will range from the fundamentals of building T&S systems to the real challenges we face as the network grows — and occasionally, reflections on the conversations happening across Bluesky itself.

No promises on timing — we’re trying to ship a lot right now — but I’ll aim to post moving forward as part of a series on how moderation actually works in practice.

Cheers,

Aaron