What’s happened? Bluesky has hit a major milestone of 40 million registered users and is rolling out tools aimed at improving conversations. Alongside a new ‘dislike’ feature (in beta), the platform is upgrading how replies and moderation work to keep feeds healthier and more relevant.
- Users will now be able to mark posts they’d rather see less of. This feedback influences what appears in the Discover feed and the custom feeds you build yourself.
- Bluesky is also testing ‘social-proximity’ metrics (prioritizing replies from people you engage with) as part of its moderation tools.
- Improved toxicity detection down-ranks toxic, spammy, or bad-faith replies across threads, search, and notifications.
- Reply button now opens the full thread first, nudging people to read before responding.
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Why this matters? With 40 million users, Bluesky is moving out of niche territory and into the spotlight, making stronger feed-control tools more important than ever.
- The dislike button signals a shift; instead of only liking or ignoring content, users can now actively tell the system what not to show, giving more feed control at their fingertips.
- If you are tired of chaotic or toxic feeds on bigger platforms, this could feel like a reset, making your feed less chaotic and more meaningful, especially if you’re migrating followers from X.
- But there is always a risk of backfire as dislike systems can be misused or misunderstood, so how Bluesky manages the rollout will be crucial.
What to do? Now that Bluesky’s giving you the power to hide more than just posts you disapprove, here are a few things you could check out:
- Try the new controls and see how the dislike feature changes your Discover feed and affects the conversations you see.
- Check how your reply-experience changes — are replies from friends or trusted folks becoming more prominent?
- Creators or active posters need to monitor their engagement and analyze if dislikes impact how their posts are ranked. With Bluesky’s new verification system implemented, visibility dynamics could shift further.
Whether this move helps Bluesky retain users will be a big test as competition in social apps heats up.
