Twitter's algorithmic feed has been loathed and derided by users since it started in 2018. For years, the platform worked like a simple RSS feed,

How to Take Your Twitter Feed Back From the Algorithm

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2021-05-29 02:00:04

Twitter's algorithmic feed has been loathed and derided by users since it started in 2018. For years, the platform worked like a simple RSS feed, showing users content posted by people they follow in reverse-chronological order. You could scroll for a bit, get caught up, then stop.

Twitter, like every other social media platform, moved primarily to an algorithmic feed that tries to guess what users want to see. This means it’s organized to keep us on the platform, running our eyeballs over advertisements and engaging with people who are inevitably The Worst instead of usefully keeping things in order. Ironically, the "show best tweets first" function first launched in 2018 never fails to show me trash, in an incomprehensible order. I keep it turned off, but various other algorithms running behind the scenes still show me bad tweets people I follow liked, or clumps of hashtags and keyworded Moments.

I've previously mentioned my struggle to wrangle my social media feeds to a bearable din. My mute list is a living document containing hundreds(!) of people against whom I hold no personal grudge but either tweet too much or retweet dumb shit into my feed too often. Over the holidays this year, I tried to limit opening the Twitter app to only once every few days (as opposed to every 90 seconds, compulsively) and found that only the worst people online were logged on, tweeting about nothing to no one. It was a convenient way to grow my mute list.