Bluesky adds an ‘algorithmic opt-out’ feature for those who don’t want to go viral
- ID
- 18765
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 28 Aug 2026, 4:15 AM
- Fetched
- 28 Aug 2026, 5:02 AM
- Provider
- TechCrunch
- Category
- technology
- Original URL
- https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/27/bluesky-adds-an-algorithmic-opt-out-feature-for-those-who-dont-want-to-go-viral/
- Source URL
- https://techcrunch.com/feed/
Summary
- Score
- 3.0
- Created
- 28 Aug 2026, 5:06 AM
- Tags
- Audience
- developers
What happened
Bluesky introduced an algorithmic opt-out toggle in Privacy and Security settings that prevents a user's public posts from appearing in the Discover feed, taking up to an hour to take effect. The preference is recorded at the account level on AT Proto, so it travels across third-party apps built on the same protocol, though those apps must voluntarily choose to respect it. Posts remain public; Bluesky is still working on protocol-level private data support.
Why it matters
If you build on AT Proto, you now have a new account-level preference field to read and optionally honor—decide whether your app will respect algorithmic opt-out signals. For everyone else, this is a consumer social feature with no direct build or infrastructure impact.
Discussion angle
The protocol-level preference model is the interesting part: should open social protocols carry user intent signals that apps are expected but not required to honor, and how does that compare to how email or RSS handled similar opt-outs?