---
title: "What BackTalk watches"
description: "The 10 platforms BackTalk monitors for mentions of your keywords: Hacker News, dev.to, GitHub, Reddit, Substack, Medium, LinkedIn, Stack Overflow, YouTube and Bluesky, plus which ones need a key."
source: https://backtalk.sh/docs/sources
---
# What BackTalk watches

BackTalk watches 10 platforms for mentions of your keywords. Some work the moment you add a keyword; the rest switch on once you add a free or metered key. Every platform is optional and can be turned on or off per workspace, so you only run the ones you care about.

## The platforms

| Platform | What it covers | To turn it on |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **Hacker News** | Stories and comments | Nothing, included |
| **dev.to** | Posts and comments | Nothing, included |
| **GitHub** | Issues and pull requests | Nothing, included |
| **Reddit** | Posts and comments | [Brave Search key](/docs/brave) |
| **Substack** | Newsletter posts | [Brave Search key](/docs/brave) |
| **Medium** | Articles | [Brave Search key](/docs/brave) |
| **LinkedIn** | Public posts | [Brave Search key](/docs/brave) |
| **Stack Overflow** | Questions and answers across the Stack Exchange network | [Stack Exchange key](/docs/stackexchange) (free) |
| **YouTube** | Videos | [YouTube Data API key](/docs/youtube) (free) |
| **Bluesky** | Posts | A deployment-wide account (set by the operator) |

## Included with no setup

**Hacker News**, **dev.to** and **GitHub** have usable public APIs, so they start working as soon as you add a keyword. There is nothing to configure.

## One search key unlocks four more

**Reddit**, **Substack**, **Medium** and **LinkedIn** have no usable public search API, so BackTalk reaches them through a single metered web-search key. Add one [Brave Search key](/docs/brave) in **Settings → Platform keys** and all four turn on at once. Brave gives a monthly free allowance before it charges, and you are billed by Brave with no markup.

## Free data-source keys

Two platforms need their own free official key before that source will sync:

- **[Stack Overflow](/docs/stackexchange)** needs a free Stack Apps key to turn the source on; the guide explains why keyless access does not work.
- **[YouTube](/docs/youtube)** needs a free YouTube Data API key. YouTube has no keyless search.

Both keys are free (no dollar cost, just a daily quota), and both are optional: skip either and the rest of the workspace is unaffected.

## Bluesky

Bluesky search runs on a shared monitoring account configured once for the whole deployment, not per workspace. If your operator has set it up, Bluesky mentions appear alongside the rest; if not, Bluesky simply returns nothing and every other source keeps working.

## AI answers

Alongside those platforms, your inbox also carries **AI answers**: events from the [AI visibility](/docs/ai-visibility) probes, such as a rank change or a new competitor showing up in what the models recommend. It is not a platform you sync; it is a filter in the inbox, and it appears once you run AI probes.

## Turning platforms on and off

Every platform has a per-workspace switch under **Settings → General → Platforms**, each with a live count of how many signals it has produced. Turning a platform **off** stops it syncing but keeps the mentions it already found; **Delete data** removes those stored signals and resets the source so re-enabling it starts a fresh 7-day backfill. A platform that needs a key you have not added yet shows a hint linking to where you add it.