JD Vance’s Bluesky launch is not going smoothly. The vice president had already been blocked by more than 55,000 users on the social media site, according to ClearSky, a third-party tool that tracks Bluesky user activity. At time of writing, he had just under 5,000 followers. Bluesky did not immediately return a request for comment. Multiple prominent personalities on the site called on users not to engage with Vance, including actor and activist George Takei, who wrote to his 1.2 million followers: “Treat JD Vance on Bluesky like we did Donald’s birthday parade. Ignore it, don’t show up to watch it, and he will soon become sad and dejected.” The Mueller, She Wrote, page, with nearly 690,000 followers, wrote, “Hide your kids! Hide your couch! JD Vance is on Bluesky!” adding, “Here he is if you wanna block him.” Vance joined the site on Wednesday with a post seemingly intended to rile up users of the platform; where many progressives flocked from X after it loosened rules around misinformation and hate speech when Elon Musk acquired it in 2022. But it was MAGA folks that ended up getting mad when Vance was temporarily suspended shortly after making his first post. A Bluesky spokesperson said it happened because Vance’s new account was “briefly flagged by our automated systems that try to detect impersonation attempts” but it was “quickly restored and verified.”
