twitter is what you make of it. if you follow toxic people, you will get a toxic timeline.
me? i follow close friends, a bunch of economists from all sides (mostly from my own country) and some comedians. that's it. my timeline is super clean, i open every once in a while and it's never bad.
(side note: i met both of my best friends on twitter. oh and i also met my wife on twitter. it's not a bad platform as long as you can curate what you see).
It happens where a lot of people just have a bad week and need to rant, but it does get annoying. Doing it this way you won't lose out on insightful stuff they usually post and keeping the lists smaller gives you glimpses into area events or interests without drowning you.
EDIT: Also, add 'unroll' to your mute list.
Maybe I'm just the wrong audience for twitter. Facebook, as problematic as it is, has people I actually know, with their real names, and their real pictures, and their real life.
The nature of an "open" platform like Twitter seems to be specifically for people who want to hear from people they don't know, and unfortunately the content from those public figures is almost never about the thing you actually follow them for, because, guess what, people are multi-faceted.
Add to that the outrage-driven like/RT algo and I think it's toxic by default.
Don't visit the front pages, stay in the curated sub-reddits.
And the fault is still on Reddit/Twitter themselves because they aren't/can't ever de-emphasize those main top-level channels, as that's their main audience and so that's where they make money in advertising.
And I agree it gets way overused by many. And maybe toxicity is a stretch for reddit front page but I think you still know what I’m talking about: the shallow, mindless/hivemind garbage. It brings down everything and everyone else to primal attitudes and people go straight for the shock value in order to get internet points.
> And I agree it gets way overused by many.
It isn't just overused. The language itself and other terms and phrases that usually accompanies it gets used as a stick to beat legitimate criticism. By using their language which redefines what is commonly meant you are promoting such an ideology.