When a new user joins your Mastodon server, by default they are shown a list of accounts to follow. This recommendation list is drawn from two different places in the admin settings.

The first place is a manual list of accounts you want to always be recommended, which is always shown at the top of the list.

The other place is an automatic pool of accounts that are randomly recommended to new users. The pool is based on which accounts your existing users are following, but you can edit this pool if you want to remove accounts from it.

Set accounts that your server always recommends to new users:

1. Log into your server’s website with your admin account
2. Go to Preferences > Administration > Server Settings, then click the Discovery tab
3. Scroll down to the section marked Always recommend these accounts to new users
4. Paste in the account addresses of the accounts you want to recommend, separated by commas. They can be accounts from your server or from other servers, as long as the account address is written in full.
5. Click the Save changes button

Edit the random pool of recommended accounts:

1. Log into your server’s website with your admin account
2. Go to Preferences > Recommendations & Trends > Follow Recommendations
3. To remove an account from the pool, tick the box next to it and click Suppress follow recommendation
4. To bring an account back into the pool, click the Suppressed link at the top of the list, then tick the account you want to bring back and click Restore follow recommendation
5. You can set different recommendation pools for different languages by clicking the For language dropdown menu

I can’t find the Follow Recommendations section!

Servers running older versions of Mastodon may have the pool editing and follow suppression at Preferences > Moderation > Follow Recommendations

It’s the same feature, it’s just been moved to a new location on newer versions of the server software.

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