Bluesky's algorithm criticized for pushing furry and anime pictures on Discover page

Update 06/11/24 12:37 pm (IST): A Bluesky developer took to Reddit to confirm that they’re aware of reports of furry and anime pictures forcing themselves on the Discover feed. In a thread on Bluesky, Dan announced the setup of debugging tools to track unwanted content in the Discover feed, requesting users to report issues. While acknowledging there’s no immediate fix, he explained that showing content from followed accounts in Discover is intentional, likening it to a “For You” feed rather than pure discovery. He justified this design choice by explaining that Following feeds alone can be problematic across time zones and risk users missing important posts. He also noted that they’re improving discovery features, including recently fixed suggested follows and Starter Packs.

Original article published on October 22, 2024, follows:

While Bluesky has steadily been attracting more users who are looking to escape Elon Musk’s X, the platform isn’t really free from its own troubles. Many users are now raising concerns about their discovery feed being flooded with anime and furry content, regardless of their interests or viewing preferences.

The platform’s “Discover” feed, aka the For You page, has recently come under fire for repeatedly showing suggestive anime artwork and furry-related content, even to users who exclusively follow news outlets, journalists, and nature photography accounts. Many users report that the platform’s “show less like this” feature appears to have little to no effect on the content they’re served.

The surge in anime and digital art content appears to be linked to a recent exodus of artists (amongst others) from X, following the platform’s new policies regarding AI training and block visibility. Bluesky says it saw over half a million people join the platform in a day, which even resulted in the servers going down for a bit. While X’s algorithm has been criticized for pushing political content, Bluesky seems to have swung in the opposite direction – perhaps a bit too far in the eyes of many users.

I tried testing Bluesky’s default recommendations without signing up and noticed the same problem. Most of the recommended content in the Discover feed is anime-related or pictures of cats. Here’s a clip I recorded for reference (it loads via Imgur):

“There’s been an exodus in the anime artist community, and VTubers by proxy, from X in the past few days,” explained one VTuber fan on Reddit. “They’re all probably trying to rebuild their post history and test the waters, so activity from them would be pretty high.”

Some users have found workarounds, such as avoiding the Discover feed entirely and curating their own custom feeds. Others suggest more drastic measures like subscribing to blocklists and muting specific keywords. Though as one user noted, “That’s insanely complex – no one will ever do all of this.”

Here’s how to stop seeing unwanted content like furries or anime, and how to find people to follow
byu/Excellent_Potential inBlueskySocial

BlueSky’s approach to content discovery differs from traditional social media platforms, offering an open marketplace of feeds rather than a single algorithm. However, for new users trying to build their following list, the Discover feed remains the primary gateway to finding accounts – making its current state a bit of a turn-off.