I think what he's talking about isn't that unique to twitter and more a trend across the entire web - that big "social media" companies have realized the most profitable way to get ad dollars and engagement is through rage bait. People interact much more frequently when they're enraged. This isn't my particular gripe with the "new" twitter - I find it goes out of its way to shove content down my throat I never wanted, never would want, like in a million years. I actually liked the previous "For you" implementation and like the author said it seemed pretty dang good at it, at least for me.

Now, no matter what, I get inundated with far right, and sometimes viciously racist drivel. Elon himself seems inescapable - blocking him stops the (completely unwarranted) push notifications of "wow i can't believe this" grandma-emailing-me-something-she-found-in-a-FW:FW:FW:FW:-chain style of tweets he will constantly post, and to a large extent keeps him out of my feed - but then there's a blue-check army of sycophants that will not just quote tweet but literally screen shot and repost his tweets that will start showing up in my feed too. I've tried and failed to stop any of this. To be fair, I didn't try super duper hard (because I shouldn't have to), and I'm sure there's some way to tailor it that I don't care to figure out. I decided I simply don't need to be there, and if that stuff floats your boat, that's fine by me - I just don't want to see it.

Really though, the biggest problem to me when engaging on platforms, especially if I accidentally "blow up" like the author describes - people have this pathological need to be angry at something or someone. Like, I've been in these baffling exchanges with people where I basically throw my hands up and say "Look, you don't have to be here engaging with me, you don't have to read anything I write, you can just go on about your day" but it becomes clear they are doing it because they enjoy that outrage and harassment. And that problem is definitely not unique to twitter/x, although some platforms deal with it better than others.