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Show HN: Filter out engagement bait and politics on your X/Twitter feed

unbaited.danielpetho.com

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Re: Show HN: Filter out engagement bait and politics on your X/Twitter feed

#51

Post by dustingetz »

enaaem wrote: post #30
nomilk wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social media apps have downsides, but I find the algorithmic short videos on facebook ("reels") quite incredible. The algo seems to suggest mostly science; niches I would never have known about, let alone had an active interest in, had the algo not suggested them. I suspect experiences using social media apps differ wildly from person to person.

X is by far the least fun social media app. I tried it and I never got the appeal. Just stick to insta for lighthearted content.

i followed 1000 scientists on X last year. Quantum mechanics, particle physics, general relativity, astrophysics and cosmology, molecular bio, chemistry, math, microbiology, environment, linguistics, psychology, middle east, islam, French. Oh and work stuff: programming languages, compilers, AI, venture capitalists of all stage. Where else can you find this? The main issue with X is it is a mirror. It puts us in a room with people like ourselves. If you like to argue, it will send you a lot of bait. I just stopped doing that. Muted a few keywords (nazi, greta, trump, elon, gun). And read a lot of paper summaries about black holes! (Oh and unfollowed most of the VCs, that was terrible)

Re: Show HN: Filter out engagement bait and politics on your X/Twitter feed

#52

Post by alias_neo »

eddieh wrote: post #6

It was much easier and healthier for me to just leave Twitter (never gonna call it the other name). In fact, I’ve left nearly all of social media. It would be nice to get away from all algorithmic content feeds. Maybe someday.

I only ever used Twitter for news because it was were all of the big names were;, but I stopped using it entirely when it took a massive dive after the recent sale. I checked back a couple of days ago, and top of my feed was some BS take on a subject (I forget what), and _every_ _single_ response was from a blue-tick agreeing with it, I immediately knew I can close it and not come back unless I want to click through to a specific tweet for whatever reason.

Re: Show HN: Filter out engagement bait and politics on your X/Twitter feed

#53

Post by soco »

bjornsing wrote: post #22
eddieh wrote: post #6

It was much easier and healthier for me to just leave Twitter (never gonna call it the other name). In fact, I’ve left nearly all of social media. It would be nice to get away from all algorithmic content feeds. Maybe someday.

It pains me but I’m leaning in this direction too. I found the idea of a digital town square with a commitment to maximum truth appealing, but seeing what Twitter has become it’s hard to not feel this was naive of me. To me the big blow was seeing the response to what’s happening in Gaza and what narratives people and algorithms in combination end up promoting. The thoughtful, balanced, humanistic view gets approxima…

"completely untruthful propaganda" honest question: how are you able to discern that?

Re: Show HN: Filter out engagement bait and politics on your X/Twitter feed

#54

Post by input_sh »

blueflow wrote: post #34
tempfile wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Whats your endgame with these people after you have won the fight? Ship them off to Madagascar?

Leave them be. Observe them from the distance. Having nobody to argue against makes them fade into irrelevance. They're incapable of creating anything worth consuming in isolation.

See: Parler, Gab, Truth Social, Gettr, Rumble, BitChute etc.

Re: Show HN: Filter out engagement bait and politics on your X/Twitter feed

#55

Post by danielpetho »

gigatexal wrote: post #41

Would instantly use it if I could also have it filter Elon’s tweets and his fans and followers.

you might be able to craft a system prompt eg.: filter out anything that mentions or even slightly related to elon musk, his companies, etc.

obviously it's never going to be perfect tho

but your best bet is still blocking/muting people then

Re: Show HN: Filter out engagement bait and politics on your X/Twitter feed

#56

Post by [deleted] »

input_sh wrote: post #54
blueflow wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whats your endgame with these people after you have won the fight? Ship them off to Madagascar?

Leave them be. Observe them from the distance. Having nobody to argue against makes them fade into irrelevance. They're incapable of creating anything worth consuming in isolation. See: Parler, Gab, Truth Social, Gettr, Rumble, BitChute etc.

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: Filter out engagement bait and politics on your X/Twitter feed

#57

Post by palmfacehn »

croisillon wrote: post #40
danlugo92 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling everyone Hitler /creates/ Hitler. So be careful.

[flagged]

It should be possible to distinguish between the responsibility of an outcome and a poor strategy that drives further polarization. Most will agree that an individual actor is responsible for his own actions. That doesn't mean we should dispense with empathy and engage in divisive rhetoric.

Re: Show HN: Filter out engagement bait and politics on your X/Twitter feed

#58

Post by danielpetho »

wkat4242 wrote: post #26

Um yeah good idea in principle but for me if I don't want to see the bad content it's better to just not look at it. The hate is everywhere, even on positive posts in the comments. But good idea yes.

i agree. but sometimes my lizard brain just can't resist the temptation and i will stop to read the tweet/start a video. and the algorithm already could think that i'm interested in this type of content

Re: Show HN: Filter out engagement bait and politics on your X/Twitter feed

#59

Post by insin »

> i'm pretty tired of engagement bait and all the political nonsense on my x/twitter feed

Getting rid of "For you" entirely and removing Retweets from the chronological timeline (default configuration for [1]) gets you 95% of the way there - you'll only get engagement bait and political nonsense if the people you choose to follow are the ones actively doing it, in which case…

[1] https://jbscript.dev/control-panel-for-twitter

Re: Show HN: Filter out engagement bait and politics on your X/Twitter feed

#60

Post by nomilk »

pavlov wrote: post #49
nomilk wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun and useful are different things though. I use X for 'news', debate, and updates on anything global. YouTube for specific tech tutorials and 'junk' viewing (e.g. something light-hearted while eating). And insta/fb reels for filling in idle gaps (e.g. while waiting in a queue). I gave up legacy media about 3-4 years ago and although Twitter is trash, would take it over mainstream media any day of the week (same wit…

Didn’t we use to laugh at boomers who got their news from their Facebook feed? X is the same thing, but with the lies amped up 10x and fractured into discontextualized atoms of outrage to keep you scrolling.

Yup. The variance of truthiness on X is probably the highest of all platforms. Meaning you get the most accurate news if you can filter/discern well enough, at the risk of being brainwashed if you can’t. Since alternatives also brainwash, X is more or less pareto optimal
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