Comment by satvikpendem
11 hours ago
Lots of good discussion there still if you follow the right people and block certain categories of discussion. If you use lists then you'll see no suggested content beyond who you follow.
I'm more astounded that people think every single part of it is a cesspool when in reality there are gems to be found that aren't in any other X alternative like Bluesky or Mastodon or (lol) Threads.
OSINT, retrogaming, fantasy art, simpsons memes, music tech news, celebrities, bizzare art projects.. I love my experience on X. I dont make any lists or anything.
They’ve also started auto-translating and cross posting Japanese X content, which has been the coolest cross-cultural thing I’ve experienced on the Internet since I started using IRC.
This is a poor take. "You can make this mismanaged steaming pile of bot-infested garbage better if you just filter everything!"
How is it a poor take? Yes that's exactly what I said to do. It's the same as Reddit, I don't read whatever garbage is on r/all, I follow specific subreddits. Honestly people should curate no matter what social media they're on and find ways to stop seeing suggested content; my Instagram shows me only people I follow too, via a third party app/mod.
This would be true if the algorithm changes were limited to for-you feeds. But the larger problem is that the set of people willing to pay for X are boosted in replies. So if that set of people, which tends towards a certain political bias, is hostile towards a poster, that poster will be driven away from posting on X.
The net result is that X shows breaking news, in the same way that the (infamous) meme of bullet holes marked on the WWII plane only shows part of the story - the people who have departed the platform aren't posting, and thus X is only breaking news from a subset of people.
This might be fine for certain types of topics. For understanding the zeitgeist on culture and politics, though, you can't filter your way towards hearing from voices that are no longer posting at all.
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On this Instagram is far worse than X. Yeah, their suggested content rarely is the sort of thing that offends delicate sensibilities, but it is generally irrelevant slop and Meta always seems to be conspiring to trap you in it, giving you few options to remove it from your feed.
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The problem is that there isn't really an alternative. The discussion is still happening there and nowhere else. (Trust me, I've looked.)