The Trump administration's coordinated Friday launch on Bluesky spectacularly backfired. Within days of joining the left-leaning platform, federal agencies including the White House dominated the site's most-blocked accounts list, with over 100,000 users blocking the official White House profile alone. What officials pitched as transparent outreach became an instant case study in platform culture clash.
The Trump administration just learned a hard lesson about platform culture. After months of internal discussions dating back to February, the White House and multiple federal agencies made their coordinated debut on Bluesky Friday - and the reception was brutal.
The timing wasn't accidental. As the government shutdown continued, the White House's digital team decided to flood the predominantly left-wing platform with what they called an effort to "reach all audiences." But their execution turned what could have been strategic outreach into digital trench warfare.
"Give us a follow so we can update you on how the Democrats' partisan shutdown is harming America's national security," the State Department posted in one of its first messages. "We also heard this is a great place to research visa revocations."
The Department of the Interior wasn't subtle either: "Anyone want to talk about how climate change isn't the biggest threat to our country and that it's actually losing the AI arms race to China?" The Department of Homeland Security jumped in with videos featuring Bluesky CEO Jay Graber talking about platform inclusivity, then started responding to critics with messages urging users to "Report criminal illegal aliens: 866-DHS-2-ICE."
It's the same trolling playbook the administration perfected on X, but Bluesky's user base wasn't having it. The platform's famously liberal community immediately mobilized, creating and sharing block lists that let users mass-block all administration accounts at once. The response was swift and devastating.
By Tuesday, a dozen of the 20 most-blocked accounts on the entire platform were Trump administration profiles created just days earlier. The White House account managed to attract only 12,000 followers while racking up over 100,000 blocks, making it the second most-blocked user on Bluesky. Only VP JD Vance, who joined in June, beats that record with 166,000 blocks.
"It should be the purpose of the government to communicate to the American public everywhere as often as possible," a White House official told WIRED, defending the multi-platform strategy that now spans Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram, Truth Social, TikTok, YouTube, and X.
