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I know a lot of Twitter defenders say "oh just follow the right people" but you don't know they're the right people until you follow them and then when you have

I know a lot of Twitter defenders say "oh just follow the right people" but you don't know they're the right people until you follow them and then when you have to unfollow or add more mute words the damage is already done and you're already thinking about the thing you didn't want to see. I've muted around 3000 accounts and 200 words, which is a lot when you consider I don't even post on the platform I just read it and still my feed will have political hot takes slip through the cracks. Twitter has the data, they could put a huge "Politics On/Off" switch in preferences but they choose not to because they know that forcing me to look at politics is both more profitable, ideologically I think they think controlling what political message I see is important too and they're fine with the tradeoff being mental health damage.

throwaway9980 6y ago
I agree. Earlier this year I muted and blocked on Twitter until there was almost nothing left in my feed. And then the ugliness grew up again and I ignored it. Very interestingly late last week my Twitter feed suddenly went from being dominated by ugly political yelling to mostly benign cultural commentary. I was struck by it and wonder if there is an on/off switch that was thrown in order to cool things in the days before the election.
- bglazer 6y ago
  Twitter stopped showing "liked" tweets from people you don't follow on the timeline. It's been an enormously positive change, in my opinion. It also happens to be a change that their users have been requesting for years. But, they have ignored those requests until they felt that this feature might actually hasten the destruction of American democracy. Dragging people into fights with people they've never met is quite good for engagement, as has been endlessly noted. I have no doubt they'll reinstate this feature after the election. Speaking personally, there are several people I follow who never actually generated real content. Instead they just liked asinine, toxic political takes, which then filled my feed. https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/2020-election-changes.html https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/2020-elec...
- ericd 6y ago
  Every time I visit Twitter, I'm reminded incredibly forcefully why I don't use Twitter. The level of discourse is just so much lower than anything else I see day to day, even major subreddits.

throwaway9980 6y ago

I agree. Earlier this year I muted and blocked on Twitter until there was almost nothing left in my feed. And then the ugliness grew up again and I ignored it. Very interestingly late last week my Twitter feed suddenly went from being dominated by ugly political yelling to mostly benign cultural commentary. I was struck by it and wonder if there is an on/off switch that was thrown in order to cool things in the days before the election.

bglazer 6y ago
Twitter stopped showing "liked" tweets from people you don't follow on the timeline. It's been an enormously positive change, in my opinion. It also happens to be a change that their users have been requesting for years. But, they have ignored those requests until they felt that this feature might actually hasten the destruction of American democracy. Dragging people into fights with people they've never met is quite good for engagement, as has been endlessly noted. I have no doubt they'll reinstate this feature after the election. Speaking personally, there are several people I follow who never actually generated real content. Instead they just liked asinine, toxic political takes, which then filled my feed. https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/2020-election-changes.html https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/2020-elec...
ericd 6y ago
Every time I visit Twitter, I'm reminded incredibly forcefully why I don't use Twitter. The level of discourse is just so much lower than anything else I see day to day, even major subreddits.