Bluesky Reaches 40 Million Users and Rolls Out ‘Dislikes’ Beta To Improve Feed Personalisation

Social network Bluesky has achieved a major milestone, announcing on Friday that it now boasts 40 million users. Alongside this achievement, the platform revealed plans to introduce a ‘dislikes’ beta feature, aimed at improving personalisation across its main Discover feed and other areas.

The company says the new tool will help its system understand what content users prefer to see less of, enhancing the overall experience.

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The update comes as part of a broader rollout of conversation control enhancements, including better toxic comment detection, improved reply functionality, and smarter content ranking to deliver more relevant posts to individual users.

According to Bluesky, these updates are part of its mission to make the platform “a place for more fun, genuine, and respectful exchanges.” The move follows a period of unrest within its community, where some users criticised the platform’s moderation approach.

Although Bluesky operates as a decentralised network where users manage their own moderation, others have urged the platform to take a firmer stance against bad actors.

‘Dislikes’ Feature Aims to Refine Feed Quality and Conversation Flow

The upcoming ‘dislikes’ beta will serve as a key signal for Bluesky’s algorithm, helping it learn user preferences. Beyond shaping feed content, this feedback will also influence reply rankings, ensuring that conversations feel more relevant and less cluttered.

In addition, the platform is experimenting with ranking updates, design tweaks, and new feedback tools to elevate engagement quality.

Among these, a unique system will map out “social neighbourhoods” — visualising clusters of users who frequently interact. By prioritising replies from people “closer to your neighbourhood,” Bluesky hopes to foster more natural and contextually rich interactions.

This approach could help solve challenges that have affected competitors like Meta’s Threads, where users have often found themselves dropped into confusing, unrelated discussions.

Bluesky Strengthens Moderation Tools and User Control

Bluesky continues to focus on empowering users with moderation options rather than enforcing centralised bans. Current features include moderation lists, content filters, muted words, and the ability to subscribe to external moderation services.

Users can also detach quote posts, limiting the kind of “dunking” behaviour that has plagued rival platforms such as X (formerly Twitter).

The platform’s new model is also said to better detect toxic, spammy, or bad-faith replies, which will now be downranked in threads, searches, and notifications.

Meanwhile, a small but meaningful change to the Reply button will take users to the full thread before posting, encouraging them to read context before responding — a simple yet effective step to curb redundant or collapsed discussions.

Bluesky believes these updates will help the network grow while preserving its culture of openness and respectful dialogue.

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