“Twitter has an algorithm that creates harassment all by itself”
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Re: “Twitter has an algorithm that creates harassment all by itself”
#2To an algorithm, harassment looks like engagement. To the market, engagement looks like success. We're participating in a system that has no choice but to create this result.
Re: “Twitter has an algorithm that creates harassment all by itself”
#3>The experience of having made a viral tweet is The Worst Fucking Thing.
If you make a "viral tweet", don't read the replies. You have the tools to do so, since Twitter allows you to mute a thread.
Re: “Twitter has an algorithm that creates harassment all by itself”
#4Yeah, this has been a pretty obvious change in the recent months/years. I started noticing tweets in my timeline that were there because it was something someone I follow had replied to -- and these tweets were often "outrage-worthy" or otherwise click/flame-bait. I have since written my own Chrome extension to hide all "suggested" tweets of that sort (as well as hiding all sponsored tweets, and the "Favorite" button).
There's a pretty long list of CSS classes you can just toss a "display: none" on, but unfortunately other stuff can only be discerned by checking that certain elements are inside a given container. I had to start writing actual JS to evaluate the contents of the page and omit/delete stuff that way.
Re: “Twitter has an algorithm that creates harassment all by itself”
#5Yeah, this has been a pretty obvious change in the recent months/years. I started noticing tweets in my timeline that were there because it was something someone I follow had replied to -- and these tweets were often "outrage-worthy" or otherwise click/flame-bait. I have since written my own Chrome extension to hide all "suggested" tweets of that sort (as well as hiding all sponsored tweets, and the "Favorite" button…
Out of curiosity, why did you hide the favorite button? Couldn't you just not click it?
Re: “Twitter has an algorithm that creates harassment all by itself”
#6"Twitter has an algorithm that creates harassment all by itself"
What am I missing here? There was no harassment of any sort. Alternative headlines could have been:
"Twitter has an algorithm that helps you gain more followers"
"Twitter has an algorithm that helps you drive awareness"
"Twitter has an algorithm that helps you get more twitter followers for your cause or business"
"Twitter has an algorithm that expands your social impact from beyond your sphere."
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In other news: public posts on public site go.... public.
Re: “Twitter has an algorithm that creates harassment all by itself”
#7My business does a lot of posting on Facebook of sometimes controversial things (we're a news site and we sometimes cover local politics). By far the most engaged stuff is the most controversial where people begin to fight and attack each other.
I have ~3k followers on one of my pages. Usually ~200-300 people see any given post if it has no engagements. If it has normal engagement, it might get to 1000-2000 views, still short of my follower count. If it has sparked controversy and there is a fight, I've had the views spike up over 8000-9000 without any shares. Facebook posts to your timeline "your friend commented on this" and others start piling in too. Facebook emails me saying "this post is getting more attention than 95% of the rest of your posts, please pay us money to show it to more people". The more toxic the comments, the more views it gets and the more Facebook begs me to pay them for it.
That's the problem with these algorithms that humans don't watch over. Usually it works great and good content is seen by the people who want to see it. But every now and again it goes out of control and people end up getting hurt and Facebook/Twitter profit from it and even promote it. And as the person who posted it, I have zero ways to stop it from spreading other than deleting the post.
-edit- oh another story... I run a news site for a town, lets call it Townsville. There is another Townsville in another state, but it is not my Townsville. I had a post go super viral, 90,000 views from my 3k followers, because somehow the post made it to the wrong Townsville and 87,000 people were being shown the wrong news article. Again, I had no way to stop this, no tools to correct it. Absolute insanity.
Re: “Twitter has an algorithm that creates harassment all by itself”
#8I am slightly salty about this because I had complained about the same effect on reddit with the red inbox — I disabled my own inbox years ago — but nobody really cared.
It’s a more general case of advertising pollution. Just as it benefits advertisers to make viewers uncomfortable and manipulate their attention, Reddit and Twitter (and Facebook!) systematically display messages that make users uncomfortable to get their attention, stimulate emotional vulnerability, and create opportunities for marketers to step in with a palliative, “shopping therapy”.
Re: “Twitter has an algorithm that creates harassment all by itself”
#9"Twitter has an algorithm that creates harassment all by itself" What am I missing here? There was no harassment of any sort. Alternative headlines could have been: "Twitter has an algorithm that helps you gain more followers" "Twitter has an algorithm that helps you drive awareness" "Twitter has an algorithm that helps you get more twitter followers for your cause or business" "Twitter has an algorithm that expands…
The alternative headlines would make sense if that was the consequence of the algorithm, but instead it seems to predominately result in folks who have runaway tweets getting harassed by folks who they don't know. Why would you sugar coat that with some noise about driving awareness?
Re: “Twitter has an algorithm that creates harassment all by itself”
#10Yeah, this has been a pretty obvious change in the recent months/years. I started noticing tweets in my timeline that were there because it was something someone I follow had replied to -- and these tweets were often "outrage-worthy" or otherwise click/flame-bait. I have since written my own Chrome extension to hide all "suggested" tweets of that sort (as well as hiding all sponsored tweets, and the "Favorite" button…
Out of curiosity, why did you hide the favorite button? Couldn't you just not click it?
Yeah, but I just don't even want to see it. It's a feature I would prefer had never been added to Twitter (just like the other stuff I omit using my Chrome extension). Visual noise distracting from the stuff I care about seeing. :)