How to Tell If a Bluesky Account Is a Bot

Some Bluesky bots are obvious - the crypto bio, the AI-generated headshot, the account that's four days old and follows 5,000 people. The ones worth worrying about are subtler: engagement farms that look busy, repost amplifiers that look active, and follow-for-follow accounts that look popular. Here's how to read the signals, and how to check any account in a few seconds.

The signals that actually mean something

• The mass-follow shape. Follows thousands, followed by a fraction, few posts. The account exists to farm follow-backs, not to say anything.
• The mature farm shape. Trickier: follows and followers both high and nearly 1:1 (say 2,400 and 2,300), but the post count is tiny relative to the graph. That ratio wasn't earned with content - it was traded, follow for follow.
• Repost amplifiers. Scan the recent feed and some accounts turn out to be 95%+ reposts. One is a fan; a network of them is an amplification bot ring.
• The bio tells you. "f4f", "follow back", "follow train", "DM to collab", crypto signal groups, "check my private page." Spam bios are shockingly consistent.
• The pinned post tells you more. A pinned "I'm available for hookups" or a pinned giveaway-for-follows is a red flag doing you the courtesy of waving itself.
• Account age vs. behavior. A week-old account doing any of the above is a much stronger signal than a five-year-old account doing it once.

What a fair scoring system has to do

Any one signal alone convicts innocent people - sparse profiles are usually just quiet humans, and anime avatars are completely normal here. Kaleidorabble scores every follower through three separate lenses and shows its work:

1. Bluesky's own moderation labels - if the platform's moderation service has labeled an account for spam or inauthentic behavior, that's treated as the authoritative call, attributed to its source.
2. A transparent point-based algorithm - every signal above has a published point value, and clicking any score shows the receipt: exactly which signals fired and for how much. Established and verified accounts are protected by dampeners and caps so popular humans don't get flagged. The whole formula is public on the methodology page.
3. An optional AI second opinion - bring your own free Gemini key and suspicious accounts get a second, independent read (bio, stats, pinned post, and whether the avatar looks like a real photo, art, or an AI-generated face). It blends into the score with its reasoning shown, never silently.

Check any account right now

You don't need to log in, and you don't need to be checking your own account. Open Kaleidorabble, sync any handle, and open the Strong signals filter. Click a score, read the receipt, decide for yourself. If the cleanup urge strikes, the safe-cleanup guide covers the rest.