> It can be a decent _heuristic_ for “I probably don’t want to hear from this person”. Like, it’s not bulletproof, but the _cost_ of a false positive is low. I

> It can be a decent _heuristic_ for “I probably don’t want to hear from this person”. Like, it’s not bulletproof, but the _cost_ of a false positive is low. I think “follows Trump” would be a not-great heuristic, for the reason you mention, but, say, ‘follows libsoftiktok’ is probably a good heuristic for filtering out arseholes. I feel you're calling something a good heuristic based solely on how predictive it is, and not considering the impacts of using that heuristic. A property tax based on the number of windows in a house[0] may have acceptably low false positives, but encourages people to brick up their windows. Here it makes follows performative rather than just about what I'm interested in seeing on my timeline, since I'd now be hesitant to follow content that doesn't align with my views. In addition, everyone on the site being discouraged from receiving content from outside their bubble seems likely to exacerbate echo chambers. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window_tax