Inside the Trump administration’s blizzard invasion

The coordinated launch sparked a backlash from Bluesky’s user base, which created and shared lists that made it easier for others to block all government accounts at once. As of Tuesday, twelve of the 20 accounts blocked by the Trump administration last week had been created.

The White House account has only attracted about 12,000 followers. According to Bluesky tracking site Clearsky, more than 100,000 users have blocked the account, making the White House the second most blocked user by Bluesky. Vice President JD Vance, who signed up in June, still holds the title of the most blocked account, with more than 166,000 users blocking him.

The White House did not respond to WIRED’s request for comment, but a White House official dismissed the criticism. “It’s great. No one can ever say we’re not trying to be transparent or trying to reach as many people as possible. That’s the name of the game.”

The decision to launch all the accounts at once was deliberate, according to a government official who spoke on condition of anonymity. “It’s not like we chose a particular date for a singular reason,” the official told WIRED. “Doing it all at once makes it feel more like a statement as opposed to doing it piecemeal.”

“This is an opportunity for us to reach a large segment of the American population that we traditionally don’t even reach on traditional social media platforms,” ​​the administration official said.

There’s also confusion about Bluesky’s approval process for those agencies, sources told WIRED, as Trump administration officials spoke about the process on Thursday. The government decided to set up accounts before responding to Bluesky. According to the White House official, the process was “very simple.”

“We welcome the White House and other government agencies to Bluesky,” a Bluesky spokesperson told WIRED. “We contacted them as soon as they joined and verified their accounts.”

Billy McLaughlin, the former White House director of digital content, defended the administration’s decision to join Bluesky. “The rollout was seamless, the intro video was spot on, and the digital strategy remains one of the most sophisticated strategies in modern politics,” says McLaughlin.