Social networking startup and decentralized X competitor Bluesky is introducing new features designed to make its platform less toxic and conversations less combative than on its predecessor. The company on Wednesday introduced a handful of anti-abuse features, including the ability to hide replies, as X offers today, as well as a way to detach your original post from someone’s quote post. The latter would limit people’s ability to dunk on others and send them hate.
Dunk tweets originated on Twitter as a form of abuse that involves someone using the quote-tweet feature to add their own commentary that mocks, disparages or refutes the original post in such a way that others respond with further insults, derision or abusive remarks. The dunk became a popular way for Twitter users to increase engagement with their posts as they would often receive a boost in likes and replies, especially if their dunk commentary was witty. However, for the person being dunked on, being highlighted in this way was not welcomed, as a flood of non-followers would spam their replies with hateful or abusive remarks.
Bluesky’s detach quote feature rolling out in the latest release (version 1.90) will allow users to view all the quote posts associated with a given post and remove their original post from someone’s quote post. This, the company explains in an announcement, will help users “maintain control over a thread you started, ideally limiting dog-piling and other forms of harassment.” (Of course, screenshotting to dunk on posts will still be possible, so this doesn’t necessarily prevent dunks entirely!)
Meta’s Threads, another X competitor, also offers tools that let users change who can reply to or quote their posts.
One drawback of this feature has to do with how quote posts can be used to correct or clarify misinformation. But Bluesky says it will rely instead on labeling services — that is, labels added to posts by moderation services. Unlike on X and Facebook, there is not just one centralized moderation team. The company also built tools that allow developers and other communities to build their own labeling and moderation services. It’s even helping to seed the ecosystem by offering a small monetary grant to those who want to build such tools.
In addition, Bluesky says it hopes to integrate a Community Notes-like feature in the future, too.
On X, Community Notes serve as a crowd-sourced form of fact-checking that relies on a bridging algorithm that works to find consensus among people who usually don’t share the same views. When they both agree on a Note, it’s more likely to be true. Bluesky didn’t say when such a feature would be added to its roadmap, however.
Other new features rolling out on Bluesky include the ability to hide replies on your own posts. The replies will remain public but will be placed behind a “Hidden replies” screen, making it less likely that users would click through to read them, as often hidden replies are spam or unhelpful remarks.
Another addition is an option to enable priority notifications, meaning notifications only from people you follow. This could help those with larger followings see the replies and updates they’re most interested in, but it could also help people whose post may be getting an unexpected amount of attention.
The company says it will continue to add more options for notifications over time.
Bluesky is also changing how replies will show up in users’ timelines.
Instead of showing every reply in the Following feed, it will now only show those replies that involve at least two people you follow. The advantage of this is that you can now reply to your older posts to have them bumped to the top of your followers’ feeds without having to repost your own reply to surface it. Plus, it will keep replies from being separated from the top-level post, the company says.
However, it could make it more difficult for people to find interesting conversations to participate in, which could have an impact on engagement metrics. Some users are already upset over this change, saying that their Following feeds have significantly less content. Bluesky says it will listen to user feedback on this, though, indicating that the team may consider rolling it back if there’s enough backlash over the changes.
