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Thumbs down recommended stories has the opposite effect than intended on desktop

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holodnsk replied
peter.martin3
peter.martin3

When I have stories (articles) recommended through Pocket on new tabs that I'm not interested in I will typically "thumbs down" or "dismiss" the story. What I have found recently is that causes them to be promoted to me more rather than less. I believe it's interpreting my interaction as engaging with the content rather than not wanting to see it again. For example, I was shown an article on American football three weeks ago and I gave it a thumbs down. Later that day it was three articles. I gave them the same thumbs down. After repeating this process for days, weeks later I'm still getting multiple articles recommended per day related to football. I've never read one out of interest, and I didn't have any recommendations related to sports until the first one I gave a thumbs down. Based on that, I'm convinced it's having the opposite than intended effect. Dismiss doesn't seem make a difference. Please give me a way to tune the algorithm to what I actually want to see, I like this feature and don't want to have to turn it off.

When I have stories (articles) recommended through Pocket on new tabs that I'm not interested in I will typically "thumbs down" or "dismiss" the story. What I have found recently is that causes them to be promoted to me ''more'' rather than less. I believe it's interpreting my interaction as engaging with the content rather than not wanting to see it again. For example, I was shown an article on American football three weeks ago and I gave it a thumbs down. Later that day it was three articles. I gave them the same thumbs down. After repeating this process for days, weeks later I'm still getting multiple articles recommended per day related to football. I've never read one out of interest, and I didn't have any recommendations related to sports until the first one I gave a thumbs down. Based on that, I'm convinced it's having the opposite than intended effect. Dismiss doesn't seem make a difference. Please give me a way to tune the algorithm to what I actually want to see, I like this feature and don't want to have to turn it off.
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All Replies (3)

Denys
Denys
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Asịsa Ahọpụtara

Hi,

Sorry for the delayed reply.

Currently, thumbs down have no effect on what stories are displayed to you. Moreover, they will be completely removed from the UI with the next major update.

To help you personalize stories, the team is rolling out topic sections, so that you can pick topics which interest you (and skip those which don't). If you provide your country/region, we could give you a rough timeline for when this feature will become available to you.

peter.martin3
peter.martin3 Jụọ onye nwe ya ajụjụ

Thanks very much for your response. Sounds good, looking forward to it.

holodnsk
holodnsk

Hi — Denys is right that thumbs-down no longer affects recommendations (and the UI is going away).

Separate note: Pocket as a *save-for-later service* shut down in 2025, so if you were using Pocket to keep articles (not just New Tab suggestions), you'll want a dedicated read-later app going forward.

To hide remaining Pocket-branded sections on New Tab: click the gear icon on the new-tab page and uncheck "Recommended by Pocket" / topic sections you don't want.

If you still have an old Pocket HTML export, you can import those saved links elsewhere — guide: https://pauseread.com/import-pocket?utm_source=operator&utm_medium=forum&utm_campaign=traffic-test-2026-06

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