Bluesky announced a new milestone with 40 million registered users and a fresh experiment in feed controls. The company is starting a limited dislikes beta to help the app learn what each person prefers not to see. The move is framed as a way to improve personalization and to reduce toxic replies that spoil conversations.
The update comes with several changes to how replies are ranked and how users can shape what appears in their Discover feed. The dislikes signal will feed into ranking systems so that the more a user marks content they dislike, the less similar content they will see over time. The company also described steps to downrank replies that are spammy or posted in bad faith and to surface replies from people who are closer to a user in their social network.
New dislike signal
Bluesky is adding a simple negative signal that users can activate. Tapping dislike will teach the system what to show less of in a user feed. The company says the signal will affect more than the main feed. It will also influence which replies appear higher in threads and which replies are pushed down or hidden.
The dislikes beta is not a like button in reverse. It is a fine-tuned signal meant to improve personalization without becoming a tool for mass downvoting. Bluesky will limit how that signal moves through the network so that it affects an individual experience rather than attacking a post or a person at scale.
Conversation control tools
Along with the dislikes pilot, Bluesky is testing a set of tools that let people control conversations more closely. The platform will map out social neighborhoods to prioritise replies from voices that are closer to a user. The aim is to reduce stray replies that appear out of context and to make threads easier to follow.
Other improvements include clearer reply controls so that posters can limit who may reply to their posts. Improved detection of toxic content and downranking or hiding replies that are found to be off topic or posted in bad faith is also being enhanced by the service. The bigger picture is to make the app safer and to allow the users to decide the extent to which their conversations will be public or private.