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>I think it’s down to who you follow. Isn't there the problem where your favorite "celebrity" you follow posts nice stuff but when election or some other event

>I think it’s down to who you follow. Isn't there the problem where your favorite "celebrity" you follow posts nice stuff but when election or some other event is happening they start posting a ton of "off-topic" stuff ?

Broken_Hippo 6y ago
If you don't like the stuff they post, don't follow them. This includes things that you don't think they should post - you know, the "off-topic" stuff. Them posting that stuff isn't a "problem" just because you do not appreciate some of the content.
- wolco2 6y ago
  You also get posts that they may have favourited or friend a they follow. That's when things get toxic.
  - macintux 6y ago
    Twitter was just starting to share favorites when I stopped using it. What a terrible decision that was.
  - alkonaut 6y ago
    No. That’s not what Twitter does. That’s something some clients do , unfortunately including the official Twitter clients. I just see tweets from those I follow, in chronological order, with no ads. If I saw ads, “recommended” or “trending” etc., I’d get off that client in a hurry.
    - bronson 6y ago
      Twitter indeed works like that. You’ve used the star menu to set your feed to chronological, which is not the default.
      - alkonaut 6y ago
        I don’t use any client from Twitter (such as the official Twitter app or the Twitter dot com website) and I’d probably rather stop using Twitter than use one of them. That’s my point: Twitter isn’t half as good if using the official clients.
      - ziml77 6y ago
        Not only is it not the default, it switches back after an arbitrary amount of time (they do say they'll do that when you switch, but they aren't specific on how long and don't alert you when it's gone back)
alkonaut 6y ago
Absolutely. You follow humans. Whole humans. They have every right to attract followers with technical tweets and then suddenly anger half their followers by being political come election year. I don’t think it’s possible to create a safe space from opinions you disagree with. What happens on twitter could happen with your friend or uncle. On Twitter it’s at least easy to unfollow someone and it’s not a personal tragedy like it is if you need to break from a relative because they turn out to believe in conspiracy theories.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  It could happen, but it doesn’t happen nearly so often. I’ve had to mute one of my best friends on Twitter, because his posts are just filled with toxic bile that I’ve never seen reflected when I talk to him in person.
  - webmaven 6y ago
    The Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory is relevant here: https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19 https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19 Except it isn't actually anonymity (or pseudonymity) per-se, as the phenomenon has long existed in many other contexts as well: https://youtu.be/kFHT1lw3vSI https://youtu.be/kFHT1lw3vSI You can probably generalize to something like "technologically mediated assholism", but there is more than one thing happening here, such as: + Filter bubbles/homogeneous in-group opinions lead people to becoming more extreme in their views. + Observing some rando (it doesn't have to be an authority figure, although that helps) "say the quiet part out loud" is validating, to say the least. + Lack of f2f contact leads to thinking of individuals as impersonal abstractions, and in particular, as the "other". + The pathetic fallacy applies to groups just as it does to inanimate objects. + Text communication often causes people to misread tone. + The affective fallacy (the assumption that the effect of an action was the intent behind it) becomes particularly powerful because of the former two points. + The affective fallacy seems to operate in reverse too: Someone informing you of an outcome seems like they are making a claim about your intent. + No-one is a villain in their own story. On the internet, everything is a story, and if the story is about someone like you, obviously they can't be a villain either. + Exposure to information that conflicts with (even weakly held) beliefs tied to a person's identity often triggers defensive rejection of the new information and strengthens those beliefs. + Group dynamics are in play for public interactions, so there is always a performative aspect even for ostensibly 1-to-1 communications. This often doesn't get turned off for private electronic channels such as email. And so on. A lot of these mental quirks are like ratchets that only ever tighten. Although each in isolation is often self limiting, the limiter can be bypassed by some other quirk, after which the ratchet can tighten some more.
rjtavares 6y ago
Muting specific words usually fixes that problem.
DoofusOfDeath 6y ago
The seems like one area where Google Circles could have been superior.
- simion314 6y ago
  I don't think that could help, because you have a person with many followers and in their mind they think they are doing a good thing to spread "the message" so they would push their message to as many people as possible. I was thinking you could have say a way to tag your posts or shares so your professional posts and personal posts could be separated but the "activist" would ignore the tags so they push their message to everyone. So as other suggested you would need a filter on client side to get around people that attempt to push some to everyone.

Broken_Hippo 6y ago

If you don't like the stuff they post, don't follow them. This includes things that you don't think they should post - you know, the "off-topic" stuff. Them posting that stuff isn't a "problem" just because you do not appreciate some of the content.

wolco2 6y ago
You also get posts that they may have favourited or friend a they follow. That's when things get toxic.
- macintux 6y ago
  Twitter was just starting to share favorites when I stopped using it. What a terrible decision that was.
- alkonaut 6y ago
  No. That’s not what Twitter does. That’s something some clients do , unfortunately including the official Twitter clients. I just see tweets from those I follow, in chronological order, with no ads. If I saw ads, “recommended” or “trending” etc., I’d get off that client in a hurry.
  - bronson 6y ago
    Twitter indeed works like that. You’ve used the star menu to set your feed to chronological, which is not the default.
    - alkonaut 6y ago
      I don’t use any client from Twitter (such as the official Twitter app or the Twitter dot com website) and I’d probably rather stop using Twitter than use one of them. That’s my point: Twitter isn’t half as good if using the official clients.
    - ziml77 6y ago
      Not only is it not the default, it switches back after an arbitrary amount of time (they do say they'll do that when you switch, but they aren't specific on how long and don't alert you when it's gone back)

alkonaut 6y ago

Absolutely. You follow humans. Whole humans. They have every right to attract followers with technical tweets and then suddenly anger half their followers by being political come election year. I don’t think it’s possible to create a safe space from opinions you disagree with. What happens on twitter could happen with your friend or uncle. On Twitter it’s at least easy to unfollow someone and it’s not a personal tragedy like it is if you need to break from a relative because they turn out to believe in conspiracy theories.

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
It could happen, but it doesn’t happen nearly so often. I’ve had to mute one of my best friends on Twitter, because his posts are just filled with toxic bile that I’ve never seen reflected when I talk to him in person.
- webmaven 6y ago
  The Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory is relevant here: https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19 https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19 Except it isn't actually anonymity (or pseudonymity) per-se, as the phenomenon has long existed in many other contexts as well: https://youtu.be/kFHT1lw3vSI https://youtu.be/kFHT1lw3vSI You can probably generalize to something like "technologically mediated assholism", but there is more than one thing happening here, such as: + Filter bubbles/homogeneous in-group opinions lead people to becoming more extreme in their views. + Observing some rando (it doesn't have to be an authority figure, although that helps) "say the quiet part out loud" is validating, to say the least. + Lack of f2f contact leads to thinking of individuals as impersonal abstractions, and in particular, as the "other". + The pathetic fallacy applies to groups just as it does to inanimate objects. + Text communication often causes people to misread tone. + The affective fallacy (the assumption that the effect of an action was the intent behind it) becomes particularly powerful because of the former two points. + The affective fallacy seems to operate in reverse too: Someone informing you of an outcome seems like they are making a claim about your intent. + No-one is a villain in their own story. On the internet, everything is a story, and if the story is about someone like you, obviously they can't be a villain either. + Exposure to information that conflicts with (even weakly held) beliefs tied to a person's identity often triggers defensive rejection of the new information and strengthens those beliefs. + Group dynamics are in play for public interactions, so there is always a performative aspect even for ostensibly 1-to-1 communications. This often doesn't get turned off for private electronic channels such as email. And so on. A lot of these mental quirks are like ratchets that only ever tighten. Although each in isolation is often self limiting, the limiter can be bypassed by some other quirk, after which the ratchet can tighten some more.

rjtavares 6y ago

Muting specific words usually fixes that problem.

DoofusOfDeath 6y ago

The seems like one area where Google Circles could have been superior.

simion314 6y ago
I don't think that could help, because you have a person with many followers and in their mind they think they are doing a good thing to spread "the message" so they would push their message to as many people as possible. I was thinking you could have say a way to tag your posts or shares so your professional posts and personal posts could be separated but the "activist" would ignore the tags so they push their message to everyone. So as other suggested you would need a filter on client side to get around people that attempt to push some to everyone.