JD Vance's brief Bluesky suspension riles up MAGA

JD Vance joined Bluesky on Wednesday, but was just as quickly suspended by the platform, much to the annoyance of MAGA supporters who vocalised their criticisms on rival platform X, formerly Twitter.

The vice president created an account with the username @jd-vance-1.bsky.social, in a move that may have surprised Bluesky users, given that the social media site is made up of liberal leaning users who weren't happy with Elon Musk taking over X.

For context, this mass departure occurred around the 2024 presidential election and resulted in X losing 2.7 million active Apple and Android users, while in the same period, Bluesky gained 2.5 million users, The Guardian reported at the time.

Here is everything you need to know about Vance's brief suspension, what Bluesky had to say, along with reaction from MAGA supporters on the matter.

What was Vance's first post?

In his first post to the platform, Vance appeared to be poking fun at Bluesky's largely liberal audience by writing: "Hello Bluesky, I've been told this app has become the place to go for common sense political discussion and analysis. So I'm thrilled to be here to engage with all of you."

Alongside his introductory post, he shared an extract of a Supreme Court ruling upholding a Tennessee state law banning gender-affirming care for minors.

“To that end, I found Justice Thomas’s concurrence on medical care for transgender youth quite illuminating,” he continued, giving a shoutout to conservative Justice Clarence Thomas.

“He argues that many of our so-called ‘experts’ have used bad arguments and substandard science to push experimental therapies on our youth.”

Vance then informed X users that he had joined the rival platform and shared screenshots of his first posts.

"Just set up my page on @bluesky, hope to see you guys there!" he wrote.

But in just under half an hour, both his supporters and critics alike were quick to inform Vance that his account had already been suspended.

"He got banned in only 10 minutes LMAO" one person said.

A second person wrote, "And 11 minutes later...banned on Blue Sky. The left don't hate the police, they want to BE the police."

Bluesky's response to Vance's brief suspension

Vance's account has since been reinstated as Bluesky, and the platform explained how automated systems mistakenly classed it someone impersonating him.

“Vice President Vance’s account was briefly flagged by our automated systems that try to detect impersonation attempts, which have targeted public figures like him in the past," a spokesperson told Newsweek.

“The account was quickly restored and verified so people can easily confirm its authenticity,” the spokesperson added. “We welcome the Vice President to join the conversation on Bluesky.”

Indy100 has also reached out to Bluesky for comment.

How has MAGA reacted?

Vance may have his account back on Bluesky; nevertheless, the initial suspension still wound up the MAGA base.

"It took 17 minutes for BlueSky to ban the sitting Vice President for offending them," conservative activist Charlie Kirk wrote on X.

"And thanks to Elon Musk, we get to point and laugh at them instead of howling in anger about censorship. And thanks to us using our free speech on 𝕏, mocking and laughing at them, they’ve been forced to reinstate him! Be grateful every day for what Elon Musk did to liberate free speech online."

“Why’d it take BlueSky *17 whole minutes* to ban @JD Vance?” Republican Senator Mike Lee said. “What kind of self-respecting, leftist censorship takes that long to stamp out free speech?”

"Bluesky banned VP JD Vance 20 minutes after he joined the platform ... The libs at Bluesky are so triggered," posted controversial right-wing Twitter account Libs of TikTok.

Elsewhere, JD Vance labelled 'cringe' for bad joke amid LA protests, and JD Vance questions how capable Biden was in office amid cancer news.

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