Bluesky, the social network that recently hit 40 million users, announced Friday that it will soon begin trialing “dislikes” to refine personalization on its main Discover feed and other areas.
This announcement was made alongside several updates and modifications to conversation controls, including minor adjustments to replies, enhanced detection of harmful comments, and new strategies to prioritize conversations that are more relevant to each user.
As the “dislikes” beta launches, Bluesky will utilize this data to improve user personalization. When users “dislike” content, the system will learn what types of content they prefer to see less of. This will influence content ranking in feeds and reply rankings.
The company stated that these changes aim to create a space on Bluesky for “fun, genuine, and respectful exchanges,” following a month of platform unrest. Some users have criticized Bluesky’s moderation policies. While Bluesky is intended to be a decentralized network where users manage their own moderation, some users want the platform to ban problematic accounts instead of relying on individual user blocks.
However, Bluesky intends to emphasize the tools it provides to users for managing their own experience.
Currently, these tools include moderation lists for quickly blocking groups of users, content filter settings, muted words, and the option to subscribe to external moderation services. Bluesky also allows users to detach quote posts to curb unwanted attention, which has historically contributed to the toxic culture of “dunking” on X (formerly Twitter).
Alongside dislikes, the company is testing a range of ranking updates, design alterations, and feedback mechanisms to foster better conversations on its platform.
This involves a new system for mapping the “social neighborhoods” on Bluesky, representing connections between frequent interactors. Bluesky is prioritizing replies from individuals “closer to your neighborhood” to ensure more relevant and familiar conversations in your feed. Bluesky suggests that the new “dislikes” feature could also play a role in this.
This is one area where Meta’s competitor, Threads, has faced challenges.
As Max Read pointed out last year, Threads often presented users with a confusing feed of disconnected conversations, sometimes in the middle of a discussion. Read observed that “it’s often impossible to figure out who is replying to whom and where and why you’re seeing certain posts. They appear from nowhere and lead to nowhere,” at the time.
Bluesky’s strategy of mapping social neighborhoods may solve this problem as it grows.
The company added that its latest model is better at identifying replies that are “toxic, spammy, off-topic, or posted in bad faith,” and will lower their ranking in threads, search results, and notifications.
Another change to the Reply button will now direct users to the full thread instead of directly to the compose screen, potentially encouraging users to read the thread before replying.
Bluesky believes this is a straightforward method to “reduce content collapse and redundant replies” — another common critique of Twitter/X.
Furthermore, the company is adjusting the reply settings feature to increase the visibility of options for users to control who can reply to their posts.
