4 ms·

This is purely anecdotal, but recently I switched from the official Twitter app to a third party offering (Tweetbot specifically) because I was starting to feel

This is purely anecdotal, but recently I switched from the official Twitter app to a third party offering (Tweetbot specifically) because I was starting to feel like the algorithmic offerings were overtaking the people I actually follow. Third-party apps are, in most cases, just a reverse chronological list of tweets. New tweets load in, you scroll to the top of the list, and that’s it: you’ve read all the tweets. The first thing I noticed was that I would open the app after a few hours away and have 1000+ new tweets, which made me realise I was following far too many accounts. Why am I following my network provider on Twitter? Now I feel I have a much healthier relationship with Twitter. I open it a few times per day, I see if anything interesting has happened, and then I close the app. There are no tricks to keep me scrolling. I think the main difference is that scrolling up to view newer content has an end, while scrolling down to view older content essentially doesn’t. I would like to see that approach tried in more third-party clients—primarily Reddit.

aceazzameen 4y ago
I only use Twitter on the web, so no experience in the app. I have it set to display my feed in chronological order. Recently it reverted to the default algorithm feed without me knowing. I was seeing all sorts of toxic and hateful posts. Most were from followers of followers without the tweet being liked or retweeted. I hated it. It took me a while to realize I was no longer in chronological mode. Once I switched back, all the bullshit disappeared. This confirmed for me that algorithms on social media are slowly destroying society.
anotherevan 4y ago
I use the Choqok client[0] which also just does reverse chronological. The killer feature to me though, is that it remembers what tweets you've read. So I usually just scroll down to where I was up to last time and start reading up[1] - clicking on anything interesting to investigate further in my browser[2]. It's the only client I've found with that feature. It's a bit clunky in places otherwise, but that alone keeps me with it. [0] https://choqok.kde.org/ https://choqok.kde.org/ [1] I don't follow a huge number of people, and also shy away from "prolific" tweeters so my number of tweets per day is not huge. I really treat it like an RSS feel TBH. [2] I also use the Invidition browser add-on to redirect Twitter links to a Nitter instance - so much cleaner.

aceazzameen 4y ago

I only use Twitter on the web, so no experience in the app. I have it set to display my feed in chronological order. Recently it reverted to the default algorithm feed without me knowing. I was seeing all sorts of toxic and hateful posts. Most were from followers of followers without the tweet being liked or retweeted. I hated it. It took me a while to realize I was no longer in chronological mode. Once I switched back, all the bullshit disappeared. This confirmed for me that algorithms on social media are slowly destroying society.

anotherevan 4y ago

I use the Choqok client[0] which also just does reverse chronological. The killer feature to me though, is that it remembers what tweets you've read. So I usually just scroll down to where I was up to last time and start reading up[1] - clicking on anything interesting to investigate further in my browser[2]. It's the only client I've found with that feature. It's a bit clunky in places otherwise, but that alone keeps me with it. [0] https://choqok.kde.org/ https://choqok.kde.org/ [1] I don't follow a huge number of people, and also shy away from "prolific" tweeters so my number of tweets per day is not huge. I really treat it like an RSS feel TBH. [2] I also use the Invidition browser add-on to redirect Twitter links to a Nitter instance - so much cleaner.