I hang out quite a lot in Bellingcat‘s Discord, mainly because there’s cool research being done in there, and being in there is also a good way to stay informed.

Of course, as with any Discord guild, it is inaccessible to anyone without an account, however that’s no the subject of this post.

If you remember a year or two ago, during the slow destruction of Twitter, people flocked en masse to Bluesky, which marketed itself as a better alternative. This is more than ever present in OSINT communities like Bellingcat’s where Bluesky has largely replaced Twitter links.

Fast track to today and Bluesky is owned by cryptobros, cuddles up to dictators to silence political opposition, and has login screens on half the posts (and yes, I know, those are the users selecting the option). Great strides in making content accessible to everybody, right? Nothing is more frustrating than hurting a login wall after seeing a working embed displaying the content of the post.

I’d go as far as to say the “logged in only” setting for a place as public as Bluesky makes no sense at all. If you don’t want people to see your post, then don’t post it or post it in private, not half public, as simple as that.