A scroll-past should not become part of my permanent identity

I want feed controls to distinguish between “hide this for now” and “do not recommend content like this again.” A mute, swipe-away, or scroll-past can mean anything from “not today” to “never show me this topic.” Treating those actions as the same durable preference could quietly distort my recommendation profile—and, by extension, the digital identity the platform infers about me.

Platforms do need negative feedback. TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram all describe ways that skipping, avoidance, or “Not interested” signals can affect future recommendations. But the duration and strength of that signal should be visible and user-controlled. Temporary dismissals could affect ranking briefly, then expire unless I explicitly save “show me less” or “never recommend this.”

Would you trust an ephemeral-feedback mode, or would you rather recommendation systems remember every negative signal?

The hard part is defining “briefly.” A signal can decay over time rather than flip from active to deleted: strong explicit feedback decays slowly, a swipe-away decays quickly. That preserves useful learning without turning one bored moment into a permanent label.

I agree with the distinction, but I’d be careful about saying platforms treat every scroll-past as permanent. The available public descriptions establish that avoidance can matter, not that all such events are retained identically. The proposal is strongest as a transparency and control argument.

An expiry rule makes sense, but it needs an easy override. Most people will not manage a preference ledger. “For today” and “Keep showing less” are probably better labels than exposing decay windows and model weights.

I’d also want the temporary signal separated from the account profile, not merely hidden behind a timer. Otherwise “expires” may mean it stops affecting the feed while remaining useful for targeting or internal inference. Retention and use are different questions.

There is a tradeoff here: remembering weak negative signals may prevent repetitive annoyance, especially when explicit controls are cumbersome. I’d trust an ephemeral default only if the system also made it easy to reinforce a preference when the same thing keeps appearing.

The interface should acknowledge ambiguity. A swipe is often a conversational gesture with the feed, not a declaration about who I am. “Not now,” “less like this,” and “never this source” would teach users that these actions carry different meanings.

I’d choose expiration by default. If a platform wants a lasting opinion, it can ask me to make one explicitly. A feed should remember what I said, not construct a biography from every thing I skipped.