Now With 40 Million Users, BlueSky Introduces A 'Dislike' Button To Create A 'Healthier Social Media'

The underdog is shining, and it's trying to remain relevant in the unforgiving space of social media.

Bluesky began life inside Twitter back in 2019, when then-CEO Jack Dorsey announced a research initiative to explore a decentralized standard for social media. The project’s vision was ambitious: instead of one company controlling every post, rule, and algorithm, users and developers could share a common, open protocol that let anyone build their own version of a social network while still remaining connected.

This foundation later became known as the AT Protocol, a technical framework that allows interoperability, customizable feeds, and modular moderation.

By 2021, the initiative spun out of Twitter and formed Bluesky Public Benefit Corporation, signaling a move from experiment to independent platform. When the Bluesky app launched in early 2023 as an invite-only beta, it quickly caught attention from those looking for a more open alternative to the increasingly centralized and chaotic social networks of the time.

Then came Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter in late 2022, a seismic moment that reshaped the social-media landscape. His rapid overhaul of policies, verification systems, and moderation rules drove waves of users to seek calmer waters. For many of them, Bluesky became that refuge: an environment that promised freedom from the volatility of Musk’s rebranded X, and a return to smaller-scale, community-driven interaction.

While Bluesky was new and unique, the traction it received wasn't significant.

Regardless, the platform is growing, and now, it has more than 40 million users.

As the user-base grows, the platform is rolling out a suite of updates aimed at giving each person more control over what they see,(and what they don’t).

The most notable addition is a 'Dislike' feature. Or also the 'don’t show me this' option, the feature is meant to be a private signal users can give to Bluesky to rank posts.

Rather than making the dislike button visible to users, which could create a public backlash or visible negative count, the Dislike button can influence Bluesky’s algorithm, taking into consideration about the type of content users would rather not see, and uses that input to refine their Discover feed and reply-ranking.

The goal: less clutter, less content you didn’t ask for, and more of what they do want.

Under the surface, the platform is also changing how it thinks about conversations.

Bluesky is introducing a 'social-neighbourhood' mapping system, which identifies the people users interact with most frequently, and boosts replies and posts from those people, making users' feed feel more familiar, and less random.

At the same time, it is stepping up detection of replies that are toxic, off-topic or bad-faith.

Instead of always removing them outright, these replies will be down-ranked in threads, search results and notifications, so they show up less often.

Bluesky also tweaked the reply button.

Rather than launching directly into composing a reply, the interface now takes users first to the full thread. The idea is to encourage reading the context before responding. This should help reduce duplicated replies or commentary added without awareness of the whole conversation.

And lastly, Bluesky is also making it clearer to how they can control who replies to their posts. In turn, this should give users more visibility over moderation and filtering of replies.

Of course, these changes don’t come out of thin air. Bluesky has faced criticism from some users around moderation decisions and the nature of large-scale algorithmic feeds. This update seems positioned as part of a shift: while the network remains decentralized, with a strong emphasis on giving users the tools to block, mute, subscribe to moderation lists, and filter content.

With the changes, Bluesky is now layering more automation and personalization on top of that.

Further reading: How 'Bluesky' Finally Became The Old-School Twitter That X Could Never Be