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Curration. I don't see the bots (unless I look at a post's replies) because I only see who I follow.

Same with Reddit back when I was regularly visiting. I don't see the dumping ground of low value memes because I only see the subreddits I want.

Probably the same for facebook? But I wouldn't know.

Like most things, it takes a bit of work to reap rewards.

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Defaults as they are today on reddit are terrible. Log out and look at the shitshow. Its either low effort flamebait, gawking at hotties, or basically shill driven ad posts, all of which probably contribute to engagement from multiple angles. The beast is rotten. At this point all thats of value are the vestigial users who still have their network of non-default subreddits they frequent. However that population will only decrease over time since these new users engage with the site in a different way now than e.g. nerdy niche interests like it was in the past. I don't even know where to go these days to discover content that isn't pure agitprop or on the race to be something like that these days. Even this board is only so busy. I might have to just write off browsing the web like I've done for years and get into that pile of books I've been meaning to read instead.

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