Twitter’s algorithm is effectively a heat seeking missile for controversy and conflict.
It’s not *the* root cause of polarization, but it’s a hell of a catalyst. Needs a serious redesign, stat.
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Is a redesign possible? It sorta feels like the heatseekingness is an emergent property of human beings or the way attention works or something. I feel confused about what it would even mean to have something structured in a way that's both competitive and also not heatseekingy
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I still think that if hating a Tweet naturally led to it being seen less instead of more, that would help a lot
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e.g. if it were expressed with a downvote that made the thing less seen, instead of via RTing it with a description of your unhappiness
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I mean I guess this is the way that reddit works, though for some reason I don't think of reddit as less toxic than twitter. But maybe it is actually less toxic!
99% of my interaction with Reddit is looking at reddit.com/r/NatureIsFuck which is entirely non-toxic afaict but perhaps not representative
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I see Reddit as least toxic, even in the less pure fun groups.
Twitter was testing a downvote button for a while - I wonder where that is going.
The other big thing Reddit has going for it is moderators, who have a lot more incentive + local context than Reddit employees.
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