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Bluesky's feed algorithm (the "Discover" tab) is the worst I've ever seen. Hands down. I can't imagine anyone enjoying it unless they're 1) super into the US po

Bluesky's feed algorithm (the "Discover" tab) is the worst I've ever seen. Hands down. I can't imagine anyone enjoying it unless they're 1) super into the US politics/domestic issues AND 2) politically aligned with the main user base of Bluesky. The funniest part is that there is a better algorithm. It's right here: https://bsky.app/profile/spacecowboy17.bsky.social/feed/for-you https://bsky.app/profile/spacecowboy17.bsky.social/feed/for-... But somehow the devs of Bluesky never thought of making it the default tab. They should be making a better Twitter but what they're actually building is just Truth Social for the left.

PaulHoule 2mo ago
If you are careful about who you follow and you click on “less like this” whenever you see hysterical stuff about politics the “discover” feed is pretty good, in fact back when I was concerned about this I found it has 30% as much hysterical stuff about politics as my “following” feed.
- ChiperSoft 2mo ago
  Until your thumb slips while trying to hit the dots, the post gets focused, and now you're spending the next three hours telling the algorithm to stop showing you diaper kink artwork because it thinks you must be into that since you looked closer at it. Almost as bad as tiktok repeatedly showing you promos for the same product because you didn't swipe away in less than five seconds.
echelon 2mo ago
I don't want to see politics, rage bait, sexism, hate, performative superiority, whining, or negativity. Who invented all of these algorithms? I want none of this. I want good news, awesome things, uplifting stories, cool hacks. That's it. That's literally it.
- singpolyma3 2mo ago
  Then follow people producing such content?
- nickthegreek 2mo ago
  my tiktok fyp is just that.
  - Karrot_Kream 2mo ago
    FWIW I find much more politically motivated posting outside of the big social media platforms than on it. I suspect it's a combination of algorithmic downranking and just the fact that more politically motivated users are going to be on alternative social media.
- slopinthebag 2mo ago
  My socials (FB(not much)/Insta/TikTok) have fantastic algorithms, I they uplift my mood, have been responsible for positive changes in my mindset and life, etc. When I used X or bluesky or Reddit they have a noticeable negative impact on my mental state. Hackernews is 50/50. So I think social media which is content/image based can be more positive than the discussion based media. However we're getting more and more AI slop and AI generated art and reels and while people for the most part destroy it in the comment section, it would be nice for them to never show up in my feeds.
- cpburns2009 2mo ago
  > I want good news, awesome things, uplifting stories, cool hacks. That's it. That's literally it. This is my actual experience on X. Find interesting people to follow. The "muted words" feature is great for filtering out political noise.
anon7000 2mo ago
The fact that Bluesky has first class support for me to choose my own feed algorithm is proof it’s NOTHING like truth social.
- CSSer 2mo ago
  Whenever I point out (in agreement with your statement) that the idea that the left and the right are somehow equally bad is a kind of fantasy on HN I usually get downvoted. People seem very committed to "shades of gray", moderate thinking to the point that it's viewed as always correct, which is well, just wrong. Yeah, often things are more complicated than they appear, but I find it almost hilarious how often you can't do that in American politics. And for the record I'm definitely not saying the left is somehow perfect. Obviously the left is a bit of a mess too. It's just that they're not the same kinds of messes across party lines.
  - antisthenes 2mo ago
    > People seem very committed to "shades of gray", moderate thinking to the point that it's viewed as always correct, which is well, just wrong. > And for the record I'm definitely not saying the left is somehow perfect. Obviously the left is a bit of a mess too. It's just that they're not the same kinds of messes across party lines. Seems like you've fallen to the same fallacy within the same paragraph, which is quite ironic.
    - CSSer 2mo ago
      “Not the same kind of mess” breaks the comparison, so… no.
  - brazukadev 2mo ago
    the thing is that the "left" in the US (and then on HN) have almost no political representation. The Democrats aren't left, just the leftest available. They aren't better than the Republicans at all.
    - 2mo ago
BeetleB 2mo ago
> Bluesky's feed algorithm (the "Discover" tab) is the worst I've ever seen. Even worse than Mastodon's?
- tptacek 2mo ago
  I don't think it makes sense to think of Mastodon as having a central "discover" tab. Mastodon is much closer to the blogosphere than to Twitter.
- ChiperSoft 2mo ago
  Mastodon's is at least just scoped to your own server, so it has a small chance of being relevant (assuming you picked any instance other than m.s)
AnonHP 2mo ago
I have a lurking account and follow some other accounts, but I’m not interested in “liking” or “reposting” any posts. I want to keep my usage and engagement as low as possible. The “For You” feed doesn’t work for this need because it relies on signals like liking content. I agree that the Discover feed sucks (why does it show posts from people I’m following when there’s a dedicated tab for that?). But I’d rather have a better Discover feed than me having to do more work on the “For You” feed.
- big_toast 2mo ago
  'show more/less like this' should work[0] with cowboy's for you feed. 'more/less' was proprietary for discover but they've rolled it out to other feeds now[1]. I think it's part of an interactions object passed to the feed operator. You can see what's potentially passed here[2]. [0]:https://bsky.app/profile/spacecowboy17.bsky.social/post/3lxxsrbvjas2n https://bsky.app/profile/spacecowboy17.bsky.social/post/3lxx... [1]:https://github.com/bluesky-social/social-app/pull/8672 https://github.com/bluesky-social/social-app/pull/8672 [2]:https://endpoints.bsky.app/#bluesky-app/tag/appbskyfeed/POST/xrpc/app.bsky.feed.sendInteractions.body.interactions https://endpoints.bsky.app/#bluesky-app/tag/appbskyfeed/POST...
drcongo 2mo ago
How is this post, which fundamentally misunderstands Bluesky, the top post in the thread? The default tab on Bluesky is a chronological feed from just the people you follow, with no algorithm, just how most people want it.
- inigyou 2mo ago
  No it isn't. Maybe you've set a non-default preference.
  - alexfortin 2mo ago
    It is for me, I'm pretty sure I didn't tweak anything.
elmo-shrugged 2mo ago
thankfully, the discover feed can be unpinned to hide it unless you go look for it. it was horrid for me too.
hilariously 2mo ago
The false equivalency is so funny, you mean a platform where the president sells private access to his massive lies ahead of time so that you can front run the market? The one where war crimes are directly equivocated and WW3 is regularly threatened? The one where anti-vax conspiracy is gospel, up is down, and black is white? Get the biggest pile of hippy dippy bullshit together and you'll never compare to the toxic waste dump of "Truth" Social.
- mr_mitm 2mo ago
  Plus, the fact that they call the posts "truths" (as in "the president truthed", "ads are sponsored truths") couldn't be more Orwellian.
  - inigyou 2mo ago
    Literally Pravda.

PaulHoule 2mo ago

If you are careful about who you follow and you click on “less like this” whenever you see hysterical stuff about politics the “discover” feed is pretty good, in fact back when I was concerned about this I found it has 30% as much hysterical stuff about politics as my “following” feed.

ChiperSoft 2mo ago
Until your thumb slips while trying to hit the dots, the post gets focused, and now you're spending the next three hours telling the algorithm to stop showing you diaper kink artwork because it thinks you must be into that since you looked closer at it. Almost as bad as tiktok repeatedly showing you promos for the same product because you didn't swipe away in less than five seconds.

echelon 2mo ago

I don't want to see politics, rage bait, sexism, hate, performative superiority, whining, or negativity. Who invented all of these algorithms? I want none of this. I want good news, awesome things, uplifting stories, cool hacks. That's it. That's literally it.

singpolyma3 2mo ago
Then follow people producing such content?
nickthegreek 2mo ago
my tiktok fyp is just that.
- Karrot_Kream 2mo ago
  FWIW I find much more politically motivated posting outside of the big social media platforms than on it. I suspect it's a combination of algorithmic downranking and just the fact that more politically motivated users are going to be on alternative social media.
slopinthebag 2mo ago
My socials (FB(not much)/Insta/TikTok) have fantastic algorithms, I they uplift my mood, have been responsible for positive changes in my mindset and life, etc. When I used X or bluesky or Reddit they have a noticeable negative impact on my mental state. Hackernews is 50/50. So I think social media which is content/image based can be more positive than the discussion based media. However we're getting more and more AI slop and AI generated art and reels and while people for the most part destroy it in the comment section, it would be nice for them to never show up in my feeds.
cpburns2009 2mo ago
> I want good news, awesome things, uplifting stories, cool hacks. That's it. That's literally it. This is my actual experience on X. Find interesting people to follow. The "muted words" feature is great for filtering out political noise.

anon7000 2mo ago

The fact that Bluesky has first class support for me to choose my own feed algorithm is proof it’s NOTHING like truth social.

CSSer 2mo ago
Whenever I point out (in agreement with your statement) that the idea that the left and the right are somehow equally bad is a kind of fantasy on HN I usually get downvoted. People seem very committed to "shades of gray", moderate thinking to the point that it's viewed as always correct, which is well, just wrong. Yeah, often things are more complicated than they appear, but I find it almost hilarious how often you can't do that in American politics. And for the record I'm definitely not saying the left is somehow perfect. Obviously the left is a bit of a mess too. It's just that they're not the same kinds of messes across party lines.
- antisthenes 2mo ago
  > People seem very committed to "shades of gray", moderate thinking to the point that it's viewed as always correct, which is well, just wrong. > And for the record I'm definitely not saying the left is somehow perfect. Obviously the left is a bit of a mess too. It's just that they're not the same kinds of messes across party lines. Seems like you've fallen to the same fallacy within the same paragraph, which is quite ironic.
  - CSSer 2mo ago
    “Not the same kind of mess” breaks the comparison, so… no.
- brazukadev 2mo ago
  the thing is that the "left" in the US (and then on HN) have almost no political representation. The Democrats aren't left, just the leftest available. They aren't better than the Republicans at all.
  - 2mo ago

BeetleB 2mo ago

> Bluesky's feed algorithm (the "Discover" tab) is the worst I've ever seen. Even worse than Mastodon's?

tptacek 2mo ago
I don't think it makes sense to think of Mastodon as having a central "discover" tab. Mastodon is much closer to the blogosphere than to Twitter.
ChiperSoft 2mo ago
Mastodon's is at least just scoped to your own server, so it has a small chance of being relevant (assuming you picked any instance other than m.s)

AnonHP 2mo ago

I have a lurking account and follow some other accounts, but I’m not interested in “liking” or “reposting” any posts. I want to keep my usage and engagement as low as possible. The “For You” feed doesn’t work for this need because it relies on signals like liking content. I agree that the Discover feed sucks (why does it show posts from people I’m following when there’s a dedicated tab for that?). But I’d rather have a better Discover feed than me having to do more work on the “For You” feed.

big_toast 2mo ago
'show more/less like this' should work[0] with cowboy's for you feed. 'more/less' was proprietary for discover but they've rolled it out to other feeds now[1]. I think it's part of an interactions object passed to the feed operator. You can see what's potentially passed here[2]. [0]:https://bsky.app/profile/spacecowboy17.bsky.social/post/3lxxsrbvjas2n https://bsky.app/profile/spacecowboy17.bsky.social/post/3lxx... [1]:https://github.com/bluesky-social/social-app/pull/8672 https://github.com/bluesky-social/social-app/pull/8672 [2]:https://endpoints.bsky.app/#bluesky-app/tag/appbskyfeed/POST/xrpc/app.bsky.feed.sendInteractions.body.interactions https://endpoints.bsky.app/#bluesky-app/tag/appbskyfeed/POST...

drcongo 2mo ago

How is this post, which fundamentally misunderstands Bluesky, the top post in the thread? The default tab on Bluesky is a chronological feed from just the people you follow, with no algorithm, just how most people want it.

inigyou 2mo ago
No it isn't. Maybe you've set a non-default preference.
- alexfortin 2mo ago
  It is for me, I'm pretty sure I didn't tweak anything.

elmo-shrugged 2mo ago

thankfully, the discover feed can be unpinned to hide it unless you go look for it. it was horrid for me too.

hilariously 2mo ago

The false equivalency is so funny, you mean a platform where the president sells private access to his massive lies ahead of time so that you can front run the market? The one where war crimes are directly equivocated and WW3 is regularly threatened? The one where anti-vax conspiracy is gospel, up is down, and black is white? Get the biggest pile of hippy dippy bullshit together and you'll never compare to the toxic waste dump of "Truth" Social.

mr_mitm 2mo ago
Plus, the fact that they call the posts "truths" (as in "the president truthed", "ads are sponsored truths") couldn't be more Orwellian.
- inigyou 2mo ago
  Literally Pravda.