Substack has launched a new set of content preferences that let users adjust how much video, audio, long-form writing, or community content appears in their feed, mute specific keywords and phrases, and automatically label AI-generated material. The announced settings follow a wave of similar feed-customization tools rolled out this year by Meta and TikTok.

The controls, housed in the content preferences section of a user’s settings, allow readers to see more or less of a given format, fine-tune which topics they follow, and surface or suppress specific subjects, such as dialing up baseball coverage during the playoffs or pausing political content for a stretch. The update also adds automatic labeling for AI-generated posts, building on a detection feature Substack already offers.

Substack framed the launch as an extension of co-founder Hamish McKenzie’s statement a year ago that “Substack is social media. Yes, okay. It is,” arguing the platform is built around “meaningful connection” rather than maximizing scroll time. 

The company said it has evidence the approach is working: the Substack app has driven nearly 800,000 paid subscriptions and more than 80 million free subscriptions to writers and creators over the past six months, with more than half of paid subscriptions originating directly from the Notes feed.

A Broader Platform Pattern

Substack’s move lands alongside a string of comparable tools elsewhere in the industry. 

Meta rolled out “Your Algorithm” on Facebook this week, letting users describe their interests in natural language to reshape Feed and Reels recommendations, after introducing the feature on Instagram in December 2025 and a version on Threads earlier this year. Meta has said the tools are meant to make its algorithm “something you can actually talk to.” User feedback on Instagram’s version of these controls has been mixed, with a June post from Instagram head Adam Mosseri drawing pushback from users who said they wanted a feed built around the accounts they already follow rather than algorithmic personalization.

TikTok has offered a related function since 2024 through its “Manage Topics” tool, which uses sliders to control how much content from categories like sports or travel appears in a user’s For You feed. TikTok later added AI-powered keyword filters.

A separate survey of more than 2,900 respondents by creative agency OK COOL found 72.6% said “optimisationmaxxing” was negatively affecting their life, and only 20.7% said their algorithm “knows their love language.”

Where Meta and TikTok’s tools sit inside feeds built on engagement and watch time, Substack is positioning its dials as an extension of a platform it describes as oriented around subscriptions and long-term reader relationships rather than attention capture.

Image source: Substack

Subscribe to Our Newsletter

Check Out Our Podcast