> Doesn't that just leave you in an echo chamber of people who agree with you, and you don't learn anything new?

This was an interesting question. I have two thoughts here:

1. On unfollowing content that I don't disagree with: I got very tired of a lot of the dev content I was following on Twitter and how it was flooding away other stuff I follow. I unfollowed a TON of devs. It's not that I disagree with them, I just don't want to consume that content.

2. On unfollowing content that I disagree with: I don't think the issue with echo chambers is the echo chamber itself.

For example, I'm not religious. I can choose not to follow religious content and be in an "atheist echo chamber", and still, when encountering religious people talking about religious things, respect them. If I'm coming from a tolerant and accepting place, when I encounter them I can learn from them, hear them out, understand their point of view, but otherwise choose to live my life without constantly consuming religion.

Religion is very much in the social discourse, but this applies to other things too. I don't know much about Nepal. If I ever go to Nepal, meet a Nepalese person, or just get curious about it I'll respect their ways and be ready to learn a lot, in spite of not consuming Nepalese content.

I don't think its the "echo chamber" per-se that's the issue— it's the intolerance, and for some people the echo chamber just makes it worse.

> Doesn't that just leave you in an echo chamber of people who agree with you, and you don't learn anything new?

If you follow an account that tweets (reliable!) information about space rockets, you will learn a lot of new things about space rockets.

Not everything on Twitter is a manifestation of a political viewpoint. There is a huge amount of worthwhile stuff that is just informative, interesting, beautiful, or fun.

> Doesn't that just leave you in an echo chamber

Only if you choose to. "I don't want to be consuming" doesn't need to mean that you disagree with them, just you aren't getting value from reading it.

Further to your point: It's one of those paradoxes that while the marginal utility of listening to some people you disagree with is obviously high, the marginal utility of listening to any particular person you often disagree with is likely quite low. Most people are not particularly thoughtful or particularly articulate, but your best bang-for-buck will be to try and find some who are both.

Some bubbles aren't echo chambers. If you only follow people who agree with you that math is cool, or that the majestic octopus is the best animal, maybe that's a bubble where you'll learn tons of new stuff.

Maybe google+ was right all along. Publish this to the octopus circle, publish that to the math circle, and this other thing to the politics circle.

> Doesn't that just leave you in an echo chamber of people who agree with you, and you don't learn anything new?

Only if the GP does not want to consume expressions of opposing viewpoints.

> Doesn't that just leave you in an echo chamber of people who agree with you, and you don't learn anything new?

The idea isn't to unfollow people you disagree with. The point is to curate your follow list to contain the type of content you want to see.

I enjoy reading different viewpoints, as long as they're presented in good faith and with a willingness to discuss them openly. I still follow a lot of people I disagree with.

I've also followed a lot of people with whom I agree, but I don't want to consume their endless Twitter dogma about the subject.

Shape the feed to the content you want to consume. If you want to consume healthy debate and alternate viewpoints, curate accordingly. The idea that the only way to break an information bubble is to let low-quality arguments from the other side flood your timeline is not true.