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That's definitely the problem, but the answer isn't to change Twitter's algorithms. We must ask why Twitter's algorithms ended up where they did, and the answer

That's definitely the problem, but the answer isn't to change Twitter's algorithms. We must ask why Twitter's algorithms ended up where they did, and the answer is that it's more profitable to do what Twitter does than the alternative. It's not like Twitter's creators maliciously set out to become the flaming hellscape it is now. It responded to market forces and user behavior. Neither of those factors have changed, so why would we expect any for-profit public square to do it any differently?

nullcipher 4y ago
> It's not like Twitter's creators maliciously set out to become the flaming hellscape it is now. It responded to market forces and user behavior. "I didn't tear down the rainforest, the markforces made me" "I didn't cause global warming, I was merely responding to market forces" Please. They wanted profits and made the world a worse place. Don't condone such behavior.
1shooner 4y ago
>for-profit public square This is an oxymoron, and distills the dysfunction very well.
mFixman 4y ago
Back in 2007 Hotmail was so big that it was profitable for them to have accounts that deleted themselves if you didn't log in in a couple of months and not pay too much attention to spam filtering. Then Gmail came along and ate their lunch. TikTok is winning the race for zoomers' attention by doing better content filtering. I'm sure that a well-ran Twitter competitor can take all of their market.
- freedomben 4y ago
  This is a great observation and link to hotmail. I suspect there's some serious valuable lessons to be learned by brainstorming on the similarities/differences there.
mikkergp 4y ago
In direct conflict to your assertion is that the other _more successful_ social networks don't do this, they put people in their bubbles. Tik Tok is fun to use because it shows me content I want, not the flamewar topics. Jack Dorsey specifically had this vision for Twitter and it has served to make it less monetizeable and mediocrely successful (compared to the other SN's) My biggest issue with Twitter is not even really that the content is inflammatory or controversial, it's that seeing "a person I don't know calling another person I don't know a Nazi" is irrelevant to my life.
joe_the_user 4y ago
It's not like Twitter's creators maliciously set out to become the flaming hellscape it is now. It responded to market forces and user behavior. Ah, a variation of "don't hate the player, hate the game". Well, we can and should do both.
numpad0 4y ago
Politics ragefest require almost zero prior training, education or qualification, to generate buzz and be gratified of attention gained. “Good” contents that the vocal minority wants are rocket science compared to that. They’re not finding @NASA after another.

nullcipher 4y ago

> It's not like Twitter's creators maliciously set out to become the flaming hellscape it is now. It responded to market forces and user behavior. "I didn't tear down the rainforest, the markforces made me" "I didn't cause global warming, I was merely responding to market forces" Please. They wanted profits and made the world a worse place. Don't condone such behavior.

1shooner 4y ago

>for-profit public square This is an oxymoron, and distills the dysfunction very well.

mFixman 4y ago

Back in 2007 Hotmail was so big that it was profitable for them to have accounts that deleted themselves if you didn't log in in a couple of months and not pay too much attention to spam filtering. Then Gmail came along and ate their lunch. TikTok is winning the race for zoomers' attention by doing better content filtering. I'm sure that a well-ran Twitter competitor can take all of their market.

freedomben 4y ago
This is a great observation and link to hotmail. I suspect there's some serious valuable lessons to be learned by brainstorming on the similarities/differences there.

mikkergp 4y ago

In direct conflict to your assertion is that the other _more successful_ social networks don't do this, they put people in their bubbles. Tik Tok is fun to use because it shows me content I want, not the flamewar topics. Jack Dorsey specifically had this vision for Twitter and it has served to make it less monetizeable and mediocrely successful (compared to the other SN's) My biggest issue with Twitter is not even really that the content is inflammatory or controversial, it's that seeing "a person I don't know calling another person I don't know a Nazi" is irrelevant to my life.

joe_the_user 4y ago

It's not like Twitter's creators maliciously set out to become the flaming hellscape it is now. It responded to market forces and user behavior. Ah, a variation of "don't hate the player, hate the game". Well, we can and should do both.

numpad0 4y ago

Politics ragefest require almost zero prior training, education or qualification, to generate buzz and be gratified of attention gained. “Good” contents that the vocal minority wants are rocket science compared to that. They’re not finding @NASA after another.