At the same time, doing that feed management feels increasingly like swimming upstream against Twitter's desires. First, they started showing tweets that people I follow simply liked. Now they suggest "topics" all the time.
I have to spend more and more time reminding Twitter not to do that garbage. But, overall, I still find the time spent is worth it in return for the quality of conversation and education I get in return.
Reddit is like this for me 10x, with very little effort required to maintain my feed. Spend a few minutes picking a handful of healthy subreddits and unsubscribing from the giant ones and Reddit easily becomes one of the best sites out there.
Subs like /r/sysadmin ban this sort of question and tend to be mostly populated by working professionals.
Communities where all the top 10 hottest posts are made by newbies generally never grow into great subs. That sort of thing should be prob reserved to /r/askfoo or something.
While in principle, you might assume certain topics should have a community of a certain size and caliber, there's no guarantee that such a community exists if the right set of humans haven't happened to coalesce around it.
That's just the nature of human group behavior. You might live in a city that has enough disco fans to support a thriving disco night every Saturday, but there's no guarantee that the right DJs and nightclub will get together to make it happen.
This makes sense. These platforms are in the "engagement" business. They're trying to have you spend more time by suggesting content you will watch, not turn you off and have you close the tab.
During the pandemic, my family settled into a routine of watching some YouTube every evening before we get the kids in bed. The recommendation system has dialed in our tastes very well and basically get an enriching, relaxing, enjoyable ~30 minutes or so of shared experiences every night specific to our hobbies and interests.
When we pick up a new interest, it's quick to notice and start recommending related stuff. When we move on, it doesn't tend to take long to get it to stop recommending stuff in that category.
It definitely tends to overfit, but it's so much better than most other systems and I will absolutely take that over it recommending garbage-but-popular content.
Also, most of my music listening these days is DJ mixes on YouTube.
What do you do when someone somewhat important in your industry puts out 20% abusive/toxic content (and that 20% is probably 90% of their engagement)? If you ban them you create drama, if you mute them you're still cutting yourself out of potentially important non-toxic conversations.
But when you don't ban/mute them twitter seems to want to constantly show you their hottest hottakes-- the very reason that you're not following them. (I'm not even sure if muting is enough to prevent the recommendations).
These features aren't available on any third-party clients. You should give a third-party client a try, because you'll just get the straight timeline.
False; Twitter’s algorithm pushes lots of stuff you don't directly follow and is very clearly heavily driven by subject categorization (which is often also hilariously bad), as well as stylistic categorization (or maybe instead of it, as I see very little indication that the latter plays a role.) So, if you see toxic posts, it probably means you engage with tweets ON SUBJECTS on which some people post toxic takes, or follow people who post tweets on such topics.
It doesn't require any direct interaction with toxic tweets or individuals.
I don't see any of that, on the official mobile app with timeline set to "latest Tweets". The only stuff from non-followed accounts I see are ads, and those aren't even terrible.
I do use the killfile zealously though.
I like Twitter precisely because it puts me in control over which accounts I get to see. It's the only social network that I still enjoy using.
Yes, if you use a non-default setting carefully isolated from the Settings menu on its own menu with a non-intuitive icon, it behaves differently.
I had no doubt that somebody who hates Twitter could find a facile excuse for that hate. I didn't need the demonstration.
Now if Twitter removes 3rd party client access, well, yeah, I guess I'll see where my followees go. Or find another source of entertainment/news.
You need to be really brutal with muting anyone who creeps into your timeline and posts something you dislike, and turning off the retweets or just unfollowing people who bring the people you find yourself muting into your timeline.
Like straight away see something you don't like then hit mute.
Or you follow people who post (relatively innocuous) things that enrage the sorts of people who post angry comments in response to opinion points.
As someone who deleted Facebook after maybe two years on the platform and never took up anything else, I find Twitter to be slightly useful. I get insight from a handful of people for whom Twitter is their best outlet. I use it very much as source of information. It sucks as much as anything else when it comes to discourse. For my usage, I would see Twitter moderate content much, much more strictly than they do now. The most valuable creators don't come within 100 miles of violating any ethical boundaries and I'd reckon the vast majority of readers (and ad clickers) don't post much at all and will be completely unaffected by any moderation rules.
This only works if you treat Twitter as read only. Any Tweet that reaches a sizable enough audience will have people interact with it and its author in a toxic way. The level of the toxicity will often depend on the specific author and certain types of people definitely receive more toxicity than others.
I don't even use twitter but I've lost friends because they became intolerable after being radicalized by the twitter hot-take feed. It sucks. Also ignoring it or even avoiding the platform completely doesn't solve the problem when toxic twitter traffic has made you a target.
2. the toxicity is primarily in replies and interactions not always in posts. the posts which are toxic can still appear in your feed via RTs and simply looking at trending topics.
I agree you can do a lot to control your experience on twitter, but it simply isn't that simple unless you have a small <500 follower account.
- check their liked items. Is this something I agree with or want on my timeline? Are they being consistent with their online persona? (Is a Christian account going out and liking pics of scantily clad people?)
- check their replies for how they talk to others. Ctrl+f for words or topics I just don’t want to see (and already have muted).
- check their following list. Who are the following? Do I want to see their 3p retweets in my feed?
Regarding the “topics” feature, I almost always click “I don’t want to see this” and I’m at the point where I never see that feature. It’s related to what you “like” so ymmv on how accurate it is for you. Additionally, I never follow tags or trends. That’s just asking for noise.
I’ve effectively created a twitter account that is isolated to “homesteading/gardening/farm twitter” and I’m pretty pleased with the experience. It’s everything I want and nothing I don’t.
It didn’t come without some online weed pulling though ;)
Both of which I enjoy, but that's hardly cause for lavish praise.
Definitely not my experience, or that of anybody I know who curates their feed carefully. It certainly promotes shallower conversation, and forces irritating kludges like threads. But it's simply not true that it categorically precludes complexity or depth.
If you recognize the need to immediately unsubscribe from lists and have a practice of doing it, you can keep your inbox functional and sane.
If you don’t, the thing gets hard to use or downright unpleasant to work with.
Or try element picker from ublock origin.
I've started using twitter heavily over the past year, and honestly as long as you keep it focused and immediately unfollow anyone who starts tweeting unrelated things it's a pretty decent experience.
Just pick a theme, and follow people who tweet about that theme. If they go off track, just unfollow them.
1. you only see direct tweets and commented retweets from people you follow 2. no trending 3. no suggested
What's too political for you? Taken too far, this can be putting your head in the sand.
But a major source of toxic tweets is buying up all of Twitter.
$420 funding secured, "Thailand guy is a Pedo", constant attention-seeking, COVID19-conspiracy theories, etc. etc. Elon Musk's Twitter Account is one of the worst.
To see that this man is about to become the owner of Twitter really doesn't strike much confidence in me.
Lab leak was a conspiracy _theory_ a year ago. Today it's _very_ much a serious contender for the source.
If people are _crazy_ and blocked or censored for theorizing about conspiracy, then conspiracies will happen.
The best solution to bad speech is more good speech.
> Based on current trends, probably close to zero new cases in US too by end of April
>> 5:38 PM · Mar 19, 2020·Twitter for iPhone
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Musk was constantly marginalizing COVID19 statistics and downplaying the effects. There's more than one COVID19 conspiracy.
Musk was part of the "not that bad", COVID19 is like the flu, etc. etc. conspiracy theorists.
How is that a conspiracy theory? That's an opinion. Everyone has them. Why would you label him a conspiracy theorist for having an opinion you disagree with?
edit: why also is conspiracy theorist considered a pejorative? Conspiracy turns out to be the stuff of history.
At this point, we can say that "COVID19 will be done by April 2020" is a laughably incorrect response to the COVID19 issue entirely. Elon Musk was 100% the "like the flu", "Gone by April", "Lockdowns are stupid", "masking doesn't work" (etc. etc. etc.) bullshit train.
Everybody has their bad takes on various subjects. Elon Musk's COVID19 hot takes are among the worst I've seen. Others include some rather shitty behavior, like calling the Thailand guy a pedo for instance.
All-in-all, Elon Musk is NOT a good poster on Twitter, and if he takes over Twitter, I don't think I have much confidence in the long-term benefits of the platform. Its as if other online-trolls decided to take over various media outlets.
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Do you remember the 2020 election with any decent amount of memory? "COVID19 will go away as soon as the election is over", etc. etc. Tons of terrible takes on the subject. Musk was just part of that, and I daresay that falls into fall on conspiracy nut now that we can look back upon the pandemic with 2+ years of hindsight.
But if the COVID19 issue is a bad example / too political for your tastes, then I pivot to the Thailand Pedo guy tweets instead, which hopefully you can agree with me are uncalled for?
> ..."COVID19 will go away as soon as the election is over", etc. etc. Tons of terrible takes on the subject...
are not terribly likely to sway me. In the same nature as you thinking people like that are crazy, I personally find your views to be wild. But it's nice we can both voice them and remain civil.
> Musk was just part of that, and I daresay that falls into fall on conspiracy nut now that we can look back upon the pandemic with 2+ years of hindsight.
Particularly:
> falls into fall on conspiracy nut now
Conspiracy is when a group of people conspire. To have a bad opinion is not to be a conspiracy theorist. If you want to call him a nut for a bad opinion, fine, but I just don't think conspiracy theorist makes sense when it has nothing to do with groups of people conspiring.
> But if the COVID19 issue is a bad example / too political for your tastes, then I pivot to the Thailand Pedo guy tweets instead, which hopefully you can agree with me are uncalled for?
Maybe I'll check out the Pedo guy tweets. I'm not on twitter, and don't know to which you refer.
Frankly I couldn't care much less about Musk. I care a great deal about free speech and throwing conspiracy theorist around as a pejorative.
The use of conspiracy theorist as a pejorative is an echo chamber way of attacking the message deliverer and dismissing what they have to say out of hand without consideration of their message. We do that too much in today's society, and considering the corruption present, we really shouldn't.
> All-in-all, Elon Musk is NOT a good poster on Twitter, and if he takes over Twitter, I don't think I have much confidence in the long-term benefits of the platform. Its as if other online-trolls decided to take over various media outlets.
Sure, maybe fair. I don't know. I feel that if he removes moderation and adds free speech, then it will be a net positive.
If any billionaire puts their slant on content moderation, I think its a net negative whether I agree with them or not. So, if he somehow does _just_ bring free speech back, then good. If not, then twitter will just be another biased platform as it has been, but with a new bias.
Do you even Jan 6th insurrection?
Donald Trump was removed from the platform because he has, and continues, to be a Jan6th conspiracy theorist. Donald Trump still believes he won the 2020 election.
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There's also a severe amount of Russian propaganda going around the internet right now. Do you support letting the Russian bots reign free on Twitter?
Russia / Moscow are clearly trying to use the internet to spread false information on Ukraine.
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In any case, having a "jackass" as the leader of Twitter (Pedo Tweet, Elon Musk "funding secured $420", and other such lies) is definitely a reason to leave the platform IMO. Elon Musk will attract other high-profile jackasses at a minimum.
The dumbass celebrity shitposting is the worst part of Twitter. I like Twitter mostly as an RSS-like replacement (since RSS itself is not as popular these days), with well-intentioned bloggers sharing information on a "push to serve" basis.
But the long-back-and-forth of 2-sentence long debates is... not useful for any form of discussion. It generates traffic and ad-revenue for sure, but its not useful to me. Good debates need longer-form formats, blogposts with multiple paragraphs and data to discuss.
I think "thread-reader" and 1/x and 2/x style long-form posts help a lot, but Twitter really isn't designed for medium-form discussion.
This is gross language. I assume apparently implying something so obvious as to make my points absurd?
Regardless free speech should be welcomed in this case too. People can then just ridicule his opinions and tear them down directly. It's not like he can't reach his audience on Gab or some other network.
For background, I'm not pro-Trump. I'm libertarian and think both sides of the spectrum are just legs of the same body that stomps on our freedoms and makes us poor.
> Do you support letting the Russian bots reign free on Twitter?
With regards to propaganda I think I have an operating brain. As such, I can make up my own mind. As for bots, I do think it would be nice if we could come up with a technical solution guaranteeing a human is posting the tweet.
> In any case, having a "jackass" as the leader of Twitter (Pedo Tweet, Elon Musk "funding secured $420", and other such lies) is definitely a reason to leave the platform IMO. Elon Musk will attract other high-profile jackasses at a minimum.
Sure.
> since RSS itself is not as popular these days
Which is really too bad. I really love RSS based podcasting though!
> 2-sentence long debates is... not useful for any form of discussion
I completely agree.
Jan 6th insurrection is what started this "Twitter moderation debate" when Donald Trump was banned from the platform.
This is absolutely central to the entire discussion, and I'm trying to remind you of it. What should we, as an internet / online society do, to bad actors and/or trolls?
I think the solution chosen is obvious. We ban bad actors from online platforms of note. Russia (particularly Russian propaganda sources like RT) are another group, like Trump, who likely deserve the axe.
Once you and I agree that some actors deserve to be banned from online platforms, there's not much else to discuss. Its simply a matter of moderation, who truly deserves it or not. I think that moderation is a difficult and thankless job (I've done it myself on occasion).
But I absolutely see value in moderating forums / discussions. Twitter banning some bad actors is just a continuation of the online moderation model that we've used for so many years (since USENET at least).
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The #1 thing going all across conservative media right now, is how Elon Musk (might) bring Trump back to Twitter and reverse the Trump ban. Is this hypothetical something you'd support?
There's "free speech", and then there's "inciting rebellion against our entire system of government". And alas, I don't think that supporting the Jan 6th insurrection falls under the "free speech" camp, and that Donald Trump's ban should remain firm.
If a group of people want to spread conspiracy theories about the inadequacy of our election systems, then they no longer fall under "free speech" and are instead well within the category of "high treason" and/or "enemy of the state". That's the kind of talk that almost took down our entire country, and still threatens to do so in the next election cycle.
I don't think there's much to remind me of. I'm not on twitter and never really had the debate until now.
> What should we, as an internet / online society do, to bad actors and/or trolls?
Point out where they're factually incorrect. Ignore them. Ridicule them.
> I think the solution chosen is obvious.
This doesn't make it right.
> Once you and I agree that some actors deserve to be banned from online platforms, there's not much else to discuss.
I don't agree. And frankly, you just pointed out a a slippery slope that is exactly why I think you shouldn't ban anyone.
> But I absolutely see value in moderating forums / discussions.
I'm on the fence. Moderation is probably fine, but I don't like when megacorps do it. Centralization of power is my biggest concern.
> The #1 thing going all across conservative media right now, is...
I don't care. In my mind conservative and liberal media, cable news networks, and NPR, Etc... are just mouthpeices for the government and or corporatocracy. So long as the funding comes from a government or advertising, it's junk media in my mind.
> There's "free speech", and then there's "inciting rebellion against our entire system of government".
I would like you and me to peacefully rebel against our current system of government. Stop voting and stop paying taxes. Stop registering your vehicle, and stop getting government involved in marriage licensing. Let the whole dirtly system dissolve so we can be free individuals.
There, I openly incited rebellion. I'm sure you disagree, but that's not the point.
> I don't think that supporting the Jan 6th insurrection falls under the "free speech" camp
I disagree. But I think we're running in circles now.
> If a group of people want to spread conspiracy theories about the inadequacy of our election systems, then they no longer fall under "free speech" and are instead well within the category of "high treason" and/or "enemy of the state".
Wow, that's pretty dogmatic. Who watches the watchers? At some point a hammer like that will be used against perfectly peaceful people. Your statement sounds like it belongs in 1984 bequeathed by the Ministry of Truth. What if there at some point is an issue with the voting systems?
> particularly Russian propaganda sources like RT
One man's propaganda is another's BBC. BBC and NPR are both sponsored by governments that have bad track records of abuse of human rights. Why is Voice of America still allowed to operate on Twitter?
Good luck with that.
Trump, and his followers, today still believe the election was stolen. I don't believe there's any way to convince them otherwise. The only thing that can happen is to mitigate the damage.
You're welcome to try to convince them. I've done what I can from my side.
> Ridicule them.
That doesn't work for state-sponsored propaganda sites like RT. These groups have access to huge amounts of state-sponsored money and hire troll-farms from 3rd world countries to gaslight the discussion.
The opposite occurs, I'm ridiculed more often than not with these ridiculous discussion points. Its a losing battle because I fight fair, while they fight by buying up troll farms.
Unless I myself use a ton of fake accounts to build up a fake-following and build up a fake discussion, there's pretty much no hope at actually reaching critical mass and making discussion points move.
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The same occurs with billionare-level supporters like Elon Musk and/or Trump. They have the money to buy up false support and astroturf their supporters. You're up against literal professionals, who are paid per tweet to make the discussion look like their sponsored billionare is winning the discussions.
Its not quite as bad as state-sponsored propaganda like RT, but still bad.
You are naive. You aren't aware of the tactics being used in the modern social networks or how poisoned the discussion has become.
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> Why is Voice of America still allowed to operate on Twitter?
Are you seriously comparing BBC and Voice of America to RT? What side of the Ukrainian war are you on?
> I disagree. But I think we're running in circles now.
You're free to disagree, and I'm free to think of you as naive fool for doing so. At best, you're unaware of the tactics. At worst, you're in tacit support of them and are trying to convince me that the pro-Trump Jan6th insurrection crowd is a reasonable group that can hold a discussion with.
Alas, my experience says otherwise, and there's nothing you can say to convince me otherwise. Because I have actually talked to many Jan6th truthers and alt-right people on my own time. I've also discussed the Russian/Ukraine issue with pro-Russian / RT-supporters.
Its not like their "free speech" has disappeared off the face of the internet. I still seek them out for debate and they're readily available to discuss the issues with me.
Bit defeatist, but fair enough.
> Its a losing battle because I fight fair, while they fight by buying up troll farms.
Now who's the conspiracy theorist? Who's they!?
Just ribbin' you. : )
> You are naive. You aren't aware of the tactics being used in the modern social networks or how poisoned the discussion has become.
I've read some articles and have found most of this to be unconvincing. I think you're probably right that Twitter lends itself to bad conversation. But, just because a bunch of bots show up with false information or call me a dork, doesn't mean I have to believe them. I can verify sources, and quantity != quality when it comes to shitposts.
> Are you seriously comparing BBC and Voice of America to RT? What side of the Ukrainian war are you on
I'm on the side that understands without governments there aren't wars.
> You're free to disagree, and I'm free to think of you as naive fool for doing so.
Yup.
> Because I have actually talked to many Jan6th truthers and alt-right people on my own time.
Not unique to your experience. Many of that view run in my circles.
> Alas, my experience says otherwise, and there's nothing you can say to convince me otherwise.
Okay. Well talking to an immovable wall isn't a good look, so I'll drop it.
> Its not like their "free speech" has disappeared off the face of the internet.
Yup, which is why I don't care too much about Twitter either way. I'm just an advocate for free speech.
@dragontamer,
Thank you for the extended discussion. I'm going to try to get some work done.
Hope you have a great evening (assuming it's near night wherever you are)
Cheers,
- reedjosh
I feel I have the ability to figure this stuff out too.
Unfortunately, the people I care about do not have such ability. And they trust these online personalities (who are largely supported by bots) more than my discussion points or arguments.
Yes, I'm defeatist, but there's a reason for that. I don't think my friends being dumbasses / unable to handle propaganda is a reason to cut them out of my lives, but it is very disconcerting to me how terrible at logos they've become, and how much ethos/pathos sways them these days.
These are people close to me: my mother, coworkers, my sister, etc. etc. I enjoy a spirited debate with them now and then still but its not to actually convince them of any facts, but only for me to check up on how far the propaganda train they've gone. Actually trying to convince them of anything doesn't work, and is not the point of discussions in my experience.
The fact remains: online personalities (be they Ben Shapiro, Joe Rogan, Trump, etc. etc.) hold more sway to these people than my own words. I cannot win the ethos or pathos battle, only the logos battle (but that's only one peg of the rhetorical triangle). Without any support of ethos or pathos, its all for naught.
That's why rhetoric is ethos + pathos + logos. We can't just focus on the logos leg. Figuring out ways to punish the ethos (ex: banning Trump from Twitter, to diminish his reputation) seems like the only answer.
Any attempts for me to diminish ethos on my own only leads to an ad hominem attack which is easily deflected and diminishes my own logos.
> Hope you have a great evening (assuming it's near night wherever you are)
You as well.
Here is a guideline for a good Twitter experience:
1. Everyone who is negative, irrational, too political and so on gets unfollowed.
2. Everyone who is interesting gets followed.
3. Unfollow is more important than follow, because negative Tweets are more attention grapping.
The most difficult part about Twitter is to start out and curate your feed from nothing. But once you have that, it's one of the best social media tools out there.