Twitter has been an absolute mess over the last few years. Through the explore tab, they aggressively promote topics that I have no interest in: k-pop, fashion, reality TV, telenovelas and birthdays. And there's no way to tell them that I don't really care about those topics, you can't even hide them.
The trending topics used to be a very good way to know what's happening. Being the pulse of the planet was achieved. Nowadays, the trending topics are heavily abused. When a streamer or an influencer does something, there's usually 6 or 7 trending topics all related to that person.
And then there are the spoilers. Every major movie release has the name of the characters or actors right in your home page the very same day of the premiere. I had to permanently hide them in my browser, and I've been reducing the usage of Twitter in my phone. I'm very tempted to uninstall it from it and use it only in a PC, although I don't see myself closing my account.
And even though they're alienating a big part of their user base by promoting topics that clearly drive their numbers, they're still not reaching their goals. I wonder what they'll do next.
I changed my trends location to Tokyo on someone's recommendation, and it's been a great workaround. I don't speak Japanese, so it's the same as 'hiding' the trends to my brain.
(I think the way to do this is 'Explore' -> gear icon, at least on desktop.)
I loathe how often BrooklynDad_Defiant!, DutyToWarn, OccupyDemocrats, Palmer Report, Gravel Institute, Jeff Tiedrich, and many others always end up being the top tweet of whatever trending topic there happens to be. I refuse to believe this is a coincidence or the result of organic participation. Their appearance is far too consistent, predictable, and durable. Politically motivated trends also start appearing around a paltry 2,000 mentions, which seems absurdly low.
But also, in terms of non-politics, I am so tired of seeing "JUST ANNOUNCED".
I suspect these social networks don't really care, but I block any and every "public" facebook page that gets shared in my feed. Of course, you still see "what was your first car? from 93.7 THE OCTOPUS Des Moines, or whatever page you haven't yet blocked, but at least it gets rid of the worst, most-often shared offenders like the ones you cite. I'm assuming Twitter doesn't let you do that, though. I wish Facebook would give you an option "never ever ever show me anything from a public page". I will never care that a friend shared or posted on a public page. I will only ever care about their own content, and the groups I choose to be a member of.
(Incidentally, this is more broadly my problem with the default-public nature of Twitter).
I just wonder at what phase of growth-and-bust the networks will start to care a bit more about serving the demands of their eyeballs.
The biggest problem for me is showing me favorites/likes/hearts of the people I follow in my feed with no way to hide them. Not only does it make my feed into a hot mess, I now make sure not like anything since I don't want that showing on my followers feed.
Nah, TikTok is much, much worse since their algorithm and the nature of the UX is so much better at it. We only think Twitter is the king of this because we have so much experience with it after 10+ years.
You have to aggresively curate your For You page constantly to stop TikTok from throwing a bombastic opinion piece at you
> You have to aggresively curate your For You page constantly to stop TikTok from throwing a bombastic opinion piece at you
As you regularly hear people say about TikTok.. "ive never seen that on my FYP". I think honestly you react in a certain way to the opinion pieces dude. Do you comment on them? Share them? Linger? Just scroll on and leave it alone...
The trending topics used to be a very good way to know what's happening. Being the pulse of the planet was achieved. Nowadays, the trending topics are heavily abused. When a streamer or an influencer does something, there's usually 6 or 7 trending topics all related to that person.
And then there are the spoilers. Every major movie release has the name of the characters or actors right in your home page the very same day of the premiere. I had to permanently hide them in my browser, and I've been reducing the usage of Twitter in my phone. I'm very tempted to uninstall it from it and use it only in a PC, although I don't see myself closing my account.
And even though they're alienating a big part of their user base by promoting topics that clearly drive their numbers, they're still not reaching their goals. I wonder what they'll do next.