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amitav1 parent
I don't know why you're getting downvoted for this, but it's the same thing for me. The For You tab is a cesspool, but if you stick to the Following tab and unfollow anybody who says pretty much anything political, it's actually a pretty nice platform.
earthnail
Reads a bit like “nah if you ignore the main streets and just walk on the paths that you like you’re safe from crime in your neighbourhood.”

I find it crazy that we accept this madness on social media.

amitav1 OP
I feel like it's more "if you don't sprint through the middle of the freeway and instead cross at the crosswalk, you're safe from cars". Also, there's not some genie sprinkling fairy dust on all of the political posts that's making them go up to the top, it's because that's what most people interact the most with. If you have atypical tastes (as most people on this website do), then you shouldn't be surprised when content tailored for typical tastes do not fit your tastes. After enough time on Twitter, even the For You becomes a bit better, with only occasional political posts.
irishcoffee (dead)
nephihaha
I agree with your comment about the "for you" tab. It is really the death of Twitter. Like Faecebook and YouTube, much of their suggested content is suss.
harvey9
YouTube is very good at showing me what I am interested in and nothing else.
nephihaha
I continually catch it trying to take me down rabbitholes. It's always trying to get me to watch a Monty Python video for example. Also testing my political views to take me down one road or another. I clicked "not interested" on both MSNBC and Fox videos... They're just bipartisan trash.
andrepd
Youtube, without fail, every SINGLE time I look up anything in my native language, suggests me videos of the local far-right party. Doesn't matter if I'm watching a funny video or educational content, in comes (autoplayed, no less) some variation of "the gypsies and communists are coming to steal your money". I should note neither centre nor left parties have the honour of such promotions. I am not logged in.

Fuck all of these platforms with a retractable baton (to quote a great letter).

nephihaha
I do get those types of suggestions, and it's one reason I don't like autoplay. I suspect centrist videos don't garner much attention because they are less dramatic.

For what it's worth, I do try and watch videos by people I don't agree with politically. Yet YouTube keeps trying to lock me into one worldview or another.

But I do get far left suggestions and from other political groupings. For the last two or three days, for example, YouTube keeps suggesting videos about the transgender movement. (I suspect this is because I had just watched a music video by someone who seemed to discuss this elsewhere on his channel.) I have also been suggested videos by a white man from Scotland who is an out-and-out Maoist, who is very interesting and very intelligent, but often very wrong.

When I first set up my current YouTube account, I noticed it kept trying to work out whether I supported the US Democrats or Republicans, and to take me down one of those rabbit holes. Like social media, I think there is an agenda to divide folk up into two polarities and set them up against each other.

One of my friends has fallen for some of this. His suggestions are full of what I call Trumpbait videos, where people rant about Trump but don't really tell you anything new or of value. He also gets propaganda videos about Russia saying it is about to collapse or lose the Ukraine War (which may sound okay, but they've been peddling this idea for several years and it hasn't happened yet). I try to point him to analyses which are less superficial.

kstrauser
I signed up for a new account a month ago for a specific purpose, and the default timeline was full of literal Nazi crap, like dumb 1488 references, and blaming weather on Jews, and other bullshit like that. I did absolutely nothing to get that. I signed up and that’s what it showed me until I went on a spree of blocking stuff.
chasing0entropy
With that description you could have been using tiktok with a new account or instagram with a non-us account. Twitter is no more or less a cesspool of misinformation that every other algorythmic content addiction generator (aka 'social media' site).
chneu
Lol not true at all. Twitter actively promotes hate speech. The other platforms don't do that.
spiderfarmer
I recently signed up for TikTok. The default feed is entirely pop culture driven. Twitter really is bottom the garbage bin rage bait slop by default. It’s no comparison and no coincidence. It’s exactly what’s driving Elon Musk to do and say the things he does.
chneu
The algorithm will eventually start putting sensationalist shit in your feed. That's the point.

It promotes what trends. What trends on twitter is racist far-right misinformation and porn.

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