Bluesky just crossed 40 million users and is betting big on a controversial new feature - downvotes. The Twitter alternative announced Friday it's rolling out a 'dislikes' beta to personalize feeds, alongside sweeping changes to how conversations work on the platform. It's a direct shot at fixing the chaos that's plagued competitors like Meta's Threads.
Bluesky just threw down the gauntlet in the social media wars. The decentralized Twitter alternative announced Friday it's hit 40 million users while simultaneously rolling out its most ambitious feature yet - a dislike button that could reshape how we experience social feeds.
The timing isn't coincidental. Bluesky's been under fire for weeks over moderation decisions, with users demanding the platform take a harder stance against controversial figures rather than leaving it to individual blocking. Now the company's betting that better algorithmic tools, not heavy-handed bans, can solve the toxicity problem.
"We're focused on building tools that let users control their own experience," Bluesky explained in their announcement. The dislike feature will feed into both main feed rankings and reply prioritization, learning what content users want to see less of.
But the real innovation lies in Bluesky's "social neighborhoods" concept. The platform is mapping connections between users who frequently interact, then prioritizing replies from people "closer to your neighborhood." It's a direct response to the biggest complaint about Meta's Threads - users getting dumped into random conversations mid-thread with zero context.
Max Read captured Threads' problem perfectly in his newsletter last year: "It's often impossible to figure out who is replying to whom and where and why you're seeing certain posts. They appear from nowhere and lead to nowhere." Bluesky's neighborhood mapping could solve this as it scales toward Threads' 200+ million user base.
The platform's also upgrading its toxicity detection, using new models to identify and downrank replies that are "toxic, spammy, off-topic, or posted in bad faith." Even the Reply button got a makeover - it now takes you to the full thread before composing, encouraging users to actually read before responding.
This reflects Bluesky's broader philosophy of user empowerment over platform control. While critics want outright bans, Bluesky's doubling down on sophisticated filtering. Users can already subscribe to moderation lists, detach quote posts to avoid pile-ons, and filter content through multiple providers.
