Recently I started muting people on Twitter according to a few rules: anything where they were telling people how to behave (“i don’t know who needs to hear thi

Recently I started muting people on Twitter according to a few rules: anything where they were telling people how to behave (“i don’t know who needs to hear this but it’s not ok to do X”); anything very sanctimonious; anything attacking a person rather than debating their views; anything discriminating against someone based on their skin, their background, etc. The end result, after many weeks of muting, was fascinating: firstly, twitter became much more considered and informative. And secondly, it became far, far, less engaging! I’d read something and think “huh, that’s useful” or “seems reasonable” and with a yawn close the app. Enragement is engagement. Twitter (the business) has failed to figure out what problem it solves, what its really _for_, and that vacuum of leadership has been filled by the emergent consequences of its algorithms.