Bluesky Introduces Setting to Opt Out of Network Recommendation Feeds

Decentralized social networking platform Bluesky has introduced a feature allowing users to exclude their public posts from appearing in the service's primary Discover feed, addressing concerns from individuals who want to limit viral exposure.

By default, content published on Bluesky is public and can be selected by the network's recommendation system to appear in the Discover feed for any user across the platform. The new control offers a way to reduce broad distribution while keeping standard account functions intact.

Bluesky emphasized that the feature does not convert public posts into private messages or restricted content, as first reported by TechCrunch. The company continues to work on native private data support at the protocol level, meaning posts remain viewable to anyone visiting an author's profile directly.

The decision to build the opt-out mechanism stems from user feedback indicating that not all platform members wish to achieve widespread reach. Instead, many creators prefer sharing updates exclusively with their existing follower network without their posts being broadcast to the wider community.

Users can activate the setting by navigating to the Privacy and Security menu within the application and toggling the algorithmic feed opt-out switch. Bluesky indicated that changes to this preference may take up to an hour to fully propagate across the platform.

Unlike conventional social media settings that apply only within a single proprietary app, this preference is written directly to the user's account records on AT Protocol, the open-source architecture underlying Bluesky.

As a result of this protocol-level integration, external client applications built on the AT Protocol infrastructure have technical access to the user's feed preference. However, independent developers building alternative clients must explicitly elect to honor the opt-out flag within their own custom recommendation engines.

The launch of the feed opt-out control follows a separate system enhancement introduced just one day prior, when the platform added support for longer video uploads across its network.