Bluesky will test a « Dislike » option. It can help fix a huge problem

Bluesky is the social media platform that most resembles Twitter before it was taken over by Elon Musk, but it’s something special, and it has its problems. One of those issues is a terrible Discover tab, something that could be greatly improved by adding the dislike feature, which is currently heading into beta.

In the Friday blog post that included the takedown message, Bluesky wrote that it has always provided users with « tools that give people more control over how they interact with Bluesky. » That’s almost a comedic understatement. Bluesky’s culture is built around deliberately closing yourself off and only seeing things you like.

For example, when the White House joined the Democratic-leaning Bluesky, thousands of users immediately took advantage of the site’s unusually powerful blocking feature, resulting in a greatly reduced network effect and, as a result, very low engagement for the Trump administration. The number of reposts of a post on White House Bluesky rarely exceeds 70, and the majority of users of the site simply do not notice that the account still exists.

But early and frequent blocking is the norm for Bluesky users who, for whatever reason, come across something they don’t like. Even if you wish someone well, you might block them simply because their posting style slightly annoys you.

In other words, the Bluesky is a highly effective and shameless echo chamber. But it’s not clear if blocking someone has any effect on whether you’ll later be served more content similar to the one you just blocked.

Enter the dislike, which will be a « new feedback signal » that should « enhance personalization in Discover and other channels, » according to Bluesky’s blog post. Adding a “dislike” to each block has the potential to reinforce the attributes of the app and its culture – especially as it relates to the Discover feed.

Bluesky’s Discover feed feels like a cesspool because, while everyone is a little different, it’s mostly the top of Bluesky’s bell curve. If you use the app at all, there’s probably at least some degree in which you enjoy Elon Musk antics, AI outrage, cute pet posts, empowering selfies, transphobe antics, random pretty pictures, and what have you. But the returns are quickly diminishing in a feed that inundates you with these things, and that’s the Bluesky Discover tab experience. An avalanche of mech posts.

While some clearly like the Discover feed—a common complaint among large accounts is that the Discover tab exposes their posts to annoying replies—the idea that the Discover feed is crap and should never be used is common.

« Dislikes help the system understand what posts you’d prefer to see less of, » Bluesky’s blog post claims. If this turns out to be true, the Discover tab could finally fill a gap: to keep things fresh, there needs to be a decent place on Bluesky for new types of content other than answer threads. After all, the chronological « Following » section gets monotonous after a while (basically flooding you with posts from users you really like, but who post a lot).

If dislike is a robust and effective feature with the power to remove entire categories of things from existence for the user, it could herald a whole new Bluesky: one where the Discover tab is useful and perhaps even dangerously addictive. But if the dislike doesn’t go for the jugular, that’s fine. There’s always an old, reliable block.