Particle.news

Bluesky Adds Account-Level Opt-Out to Limit Algorithmic Discovery

The new toggle lets users ask apps not to surface their public posts in the Discover feed as a way to reduce unwanted virality.

Overview

  • Bluesky, which announced the change on Thursday, August 27, added a toggle in Privacy & Security that asks apps not to include a user’s public posts in the platform’s Discover recommendation feed.
  • The opt-out does not make an account private or hide posts from followers; posts remain public and can still be seen directly on profiles or reshared outside the algorithmic feed.
  • Bluesky records the preference at the AT Proto account level so the choice travels with the user across apps that use the same protocol, but third-party clients must decide whether to honor that signal.
  • The company says the setting can take up to an hour to propagate, and its real-world effect will vary because posts can spread by screenshots or other sharing and because some apps may ignore the request.
  • The change follows recent Bluesky product moves such as longer video support and fits wider industry experiments with feed controls, giving users a simple way to avoid unintentional amplification while testing protocol-level portability.