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Comment by Gigachad | Hacker News Reader

Tbh the best direction for twitter to move in is to stop recommending content people did not subscribe to. And then adjust the rules to allow anything legal to be tweeted to your own page. If you object to someones tweets, don't follow them. There may still need to be rules on replying to others tweets since thats pushing content on people.

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Discoverability is important, but imo there should be a dedicated section for it instead of mixing it with the tweets of the people you actually follow. But on the other hand, people might not really be willing to "switch tabs" and so if you move the feature somewhere else then people will never really see it.

It's kind of a trade off. I think what's a bit annoying is that often times these discovery features are used to advertise rather than to provide actual good recommendations.

I use twitter because you can switch to a chronological feed by using the "sparkle/stars" button in the upper right corner. This removes all of the suggestions and tweets from people you don't know. Basically it turns discoverablity off. You still get retweets if shared by someone you follow (you can also turn that off by going to their profile).

This is the main reason it's the only social media company I use. I can avoid the algorithm completely.

I also use Twitter lists and made a list of close friends so I can see a feed of just their tweets in case I miss them in the chronological feed.

The tools are already there. The UX to surface them needs to be better though.

Somehow I missed this (very noticeable actually) non-algorithmic toggle button until I saw your comment, so many thanks for mentioning this.

Perhaps an alternative is rather than getting banned from the platform, you can just get banned from discoverability if your posts are a detriment to the community. But your direct followers can always keep seeing your content.

I imagine they'd also have to find a solution for replies and retweets. Those also can also show up on your feed, even if the original post is not from someone you follow.

I don't see how retweets are a problem. If someone doesn't want to see retweets of a certain person, they can unfollow everyone who retweets them. Twitter even allows you to show only original tweets, and not retweets, from someone you follow.

I like that idea, but note that youtube already has that - the default "home" tab is the recommendation engine, you can go to the "subscriptions" tab to show only your subscriptions - and people still keep whining about it.

I didn't know that... Thank you.

Ps: I don't use Twitter, frequently only when a very interesting hn discussion points there

YouTube spams the "watch next" spam list on every video you watch.

There’s very good reason why platforms like that recommend the content. Without it, it you’re not a power user (and that’s usually tiny %), your experience gets boring/empty pretty fast, as the platform ages.

True. I'm interested in hearing from people I follow, and the comments they make and even the posts they like or retweet. But to recommend other posts to me because the people I follow happen to simply follow (not interact with) other people, really screws with my feed.

Where does liability come in once third parties start flooding propaganda/misinformation to the masses? Do you simply allow it to be a convenient platform for a foreign govt to astroturf a local population to affect a local election with misinformation as an example of moral gray area where 'Keep it blindly open!' seems to fall flat I think.

Without recommendation, I think Twitter should have the same liability as an ISP for allowing posting over the internet.

I do think Twitter should moderate what they promote and recommend but don’t think they are responsible for posts and users that users manually seek out.

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