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Is it for some reason not a viable solution to just stop following people who shitpost? Or does Twitter push random users' posts at you? I ask because I've been

Is it for some reason not a viable solution to just stop following people who shitpost? Or does Twitter push random users' posts at you? I ask because I've been circling around Twitter for a month or so, but if you can't isolate yourself from public tweets, I'm definitely not going to jump in.

cicero 9y ago
It is certainly viable. I follow an interesting group of users and unfollow anyone who becomes problematic. There are some "Promoted" tweets that are essentially ads, but they are easy to ignore if not interesting.
- Thlom 9y ago
  I don't think I see any ads using Tweetbot. I may also miss some features, but don't really care about that. I like that my Twitter feed is just a stream of tweets.
- gideonparanoid 9y ago
  I've found that with blocking every account I see a promoted tweet from, I barely see any any more.
stryk 9y ago
If I may make a suggestion, and I'm not sure what your use-case plans are for it -- maybe this isn't feasible for you, but if you absolutely MUST use Twitter, do not install it on your phone. Keep it to just the desktop website version. My reasons for suggesting this are three-fold: 1) Twitter at it's core is, IMO, nothing but a distraction. You will be less productive and less interactive with real people in real life. 2) The Internet Fuckwad Theory is in full effect in the Twitter-verse at all times. Depending on your personality, it may very well make you more depressed/mad/whatever -- it's not going to change your daily life for the better at any rate. 3) Twitter tracks you & harvests your data, and if you install it on your phone they will have much more data about/from you -- and we (as in, everyone on the planet) do not need any more tracking/spying/snooping/etc.
- mfjordvald 9y ago
  Thanks for the push. I never use Twitter on my phone anyway but I had the app installed for no use at all. Just got rid of it.
eksemplar 9y ago
Isn’t it typically the comments that are shitposts? Trump posts and the comments look like: “Liberals are the worst” “Trump is a god” “Send 5 ETH to receive 10ETH” Obviously Trump is a great shit poster himself, but virtually everyone with a lot of followers end up with nothing but stupid as their replies. A Danish politician recently commented on the problem by saying that we’ve alway had village idiots, but social media let them lose.
- tajen 9y ago
  Are you by any chance a believer that half of the political spectrum is wrong? When people talk about trolls, it always seems like they talk about people they just don’t agree with, and conventional media is a more comfortable space for them because all the right wing doesn’t have the possibility to speak. You may consider the It’s-the-Russians disorder is not a disorder, but that only works if you want to live in a bubble where the other 50% citizen shut up.
  - sleepychu 9y ago
    I don't think your parent makes judgement on the value of any political position. Trolls here just refers to people who are shouting without contributing to the discussion. What they're saying is that once any user has a sufficiently large following the replies to their tweets with any signal are lost in the noise of unrelated political rantings (both sides) and scam bots hoping to take advantage of the exposure that replying to big users has. These groups both manipulate the rankings. Political ravings are upvoted by the similarly inclined politicals. The bots work in swarms to favourite their own posts and reply with "Wow, worked for me, thanks!"
nikofeyn 9y ago
i find complaints against twitter to be somewhat alien because it is a fairly major source of good content for me. as an example, i just browsed my twitter for a minute or so on my phone and came across a discussion on programming languages, some cool generative artwork, an article on continuations, and i learned of david attenborough's new documentary on bioluminescence. and i recently went to a design conference where i saw bret victor give a great talk. i found out about the conference on twitter.
- aaachilless 9y ago
  This is the sort of experience I’m looking for. Specifically, there’s a number of writers/journalists who I’d like to follow and Twitter seems ideal for following them. So what do you think the causal difference is between your experience and others? Are you just more diligent about curating the list of people you follow?
  - nikofeyn 9y ago
    i suppose i have a higher bar for clicking follow. and yes, i will unfollow people who annoy me in any way. haha. so i end up having this collection of artists, designers, programmers, musicians, etc. who post interesting content. you can check out who i follow. same username as here.

cicero 9y ago

It is certainly viable. I follow an interesting group of users and unfollow anyone who becomes problematic. There are some "Promoted" tweets that are essentially ads, but they are easy to ignore if not interesting.

Thlom 9y ago
I don't think I see any ads using Tweetbot. I may also miss some features, but don't really care about that. I like that my Twitter feed is just a stream of tweets.
gideonparanoid 9y ago
I've found that with blocking every account I see a promoted tweet from, I barely see any any more.

stryk 9y ago

If I may make a suggestion, and I'm not sure what your use-case plans are for it -- maybe this isn't feasible for you, but if you absolutely MUST use Twitter, do not install it on your phone. Keep it to just the desktop website version. My reasons for suggesting this are three-fold: 1) Twitter at it's core is, IMO, nothing but a distraction. You will be less productive and less interactive with real people in real life. 2) The Internet Fuckwad Theory is in full effect in the Twitter-verse at all times. Depending on your personality, it may very well make you more depressed/mad/whatever -- it's not going to change your daily life for the better at any rate. 3) Twitter tracks you & harvests your data, and if you install it on your phone they will have much more data about/from you -- and we (as in, everyone on the planet) do not need any more tracking/spying/snooping/etc.

mfjordvald 9y ago
Thanks for the push. I never use Twitter on my phone anyway but I had the app installed for no use at all. Just got rid of it.

eksemplar 9y ago

Isn’t it typically the comments that are shitposts? Trump posts and the comments look like: “Liberals are the worst” “Trump is a god” “Send 5 ETH to receive 10ETH” Obviously Trump is a great shit poster himself, but virtually everyone with a lot of followers end up with nothing but stupid as their replies. A Danish politician recently commented on the problem by saying that we’ve alway had village idiots, but social media let them lose.

tajen 9y ago
Are you by any chance a believer that half of the political spectrum is wrong? When people talk about trolls, it always seems like they talk about people they just don’t agree with, and conventional media is a more comfortable space for them because all the right wing doesn’t have the possibility to speak. You may consider the It’s-the-Russians disorder is not a disorder, but that only works if you want to live in a bubble where the other 50% citizen shut up.
- sleepychu 9y ago
  I don't think your parent makes judgement on the value of any political position. Trolls here just refers to people who are shouting without contributing to the discussion. What they're saying is that once any user has a sufficiently large following the replies to their tweets with any signal are lost in the noise of unrelated political rantings (both sides) and scam bots hoping to take advantage of the exposure that replying to big users has. These groups both manipulate the rankings. Political ravings are upvoted by the similarly inclined politicals. The bots work in swarms to favourite their own posts and reply with "Wow, worked for me, thanks!"

nikofeyn 9y ago

i find complaints against twitter to be somewhat alien because it is a fairly major source of good content for me. as an example, i just browsed my twitter for a minute or so on my phone and came across a discussion on programming languages, some cool generative artwork, an article on continuations, and i learned of david attenborough's new documentary on bioluminescence. and i recently went to a design conference where i saw bret victor give a great talk. i found out about the conference on twitter.

aaachilless 9y ago
This is the sort of experience I’m looking for. Specifically, there’s a number of writers/journalists who I’d like to follow and Twitter seems ideal for following them. So what do you think the causal difference is between your experience and others? Are you just more diligent about curating the list of people you follow?
- nikofeyn 9y ago
  i suppose i have a higher bar for clicking follow. and yes, i will unfollow people who annoy me in any way. haha. so i end up having this collection of artists, designers, programmers, musicians, etc. who post interesting content. you can check out who i follow. same username as here.