Raluca Florescu

Why users should be able to permanently exclude entire categories from their feeds

Users should have greater control over what recommendation systems are allowed to place in their feeds.

Most platforms currently offer limited ways to respond to unwanted content. Users can select “Not interested,” block individual accounts, or simply scroll away. But rejecting individual posts is not the same as excluding an entire category.

If someone decides they never want dental procedures, cosmetic surgery, gambling, sexualized content, weight-loss material, graphic content, or another specific category appearing in their feed, platforms should provide a direct way to exclude it.

This should apply to both advertising and ordinary organic content.

Category-level exclusion

Users should not have to reject the same type of content repeatedly, one video and one account at a time.

Social media platforms already categorize content in order to recommend it. Those systems should also support explicit user exclusions through a dedicated content control panel.

A user could select a category and choose:

Exclude from recommendations.

That preference should remain active unless the user deliberately changes it.

The content could still exist on the platform and remain accessible through direct searches, profiles, links, or a later change in preferences. The exclusion would apply specifically to content being placed in front of the user through recommendation systems.

Exclusion should be part of personalization

Personalization should not work in only one direction.

Platforms spend enormous resources predicting what people might want to see. Explicit exclusions should carry at least as much weight as predicted interests.

If a user has clearly excluded a category, the recommendation system should not continue testing that preference by showing similar material from different accounts.

Real user control means having the ability not only to shape what is recommended, but to permanently exclude what should never be recommended at all.

Assisted with AI.