Twitter is not the community that it used to be. Twitter used to provide me with new updates and cool communities of people.
Since the platform got repurposed to become X, the feeds became a negative in my day— so much ragebait, violence and other negative content that pushed me away.
Apart from the fact that the algorithm was tweaked to become Elon and Trump biased [1] and that link load times to “undesired” websites got artificially increased [2], the whole monetisation strategy attracted cheap, ragebait content [3]. The platform started paying out for 5M+ impressions. This incudes negative and positive impressions and essentially drives up polarising content more than anything.
I believe the issue isn’t about community notes at all, as some suggest, that is such a small thing and critical replies were always a thing. In contrast I believe the real problem is: 1) there’s no point engaging on a platform where every feature can and will be manipulated to serve personal agendas that you do not have control over. 2) Maintaining a presence on X has become a liability– it’s damaging to a set of brands both now and likely in the future.
I’m glad the Guardian and other accounts are moving away from X.
[1] https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/elon-musk-trump-x-algorit... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37130060 [3] https://web.archive.org/web/20230714080253/https://help.twit...