> but the algorithm just works like a slot machine
I'm always surprised that people, especially on HN, complain so much about twitter's algorithms that are so easy to bypass. I use Twidere as a client, and my feed doesn't have any of twitter's algorithms - it's simply a reverse chronological feed. Even the website and twitter's official app have a button right on the feed page that allows you to switch to a reverse chronological feed
> In addition it's almost impossible to have a civilized discussion
Just don't use it for discussion then. I use it to read opinions of people all across the ideological spectrum and form my own. You don't need to engage if you don't want to! Also, it's very easy to mute/block accounts that you find are being abusive or uncivilized
It's an invaluable tool to gather peoples' opinions and what they really think.
But then you only get opinions of those ppl that engage in the sort of "discussions" OP talks about.
You really aren't exposed to real ppl opinions, only the opinions of the most crazy and or manipulative.
Actually I've seen that if you're following accounts that get on average a few hundreds-low thousands of RTs/likes (vs 10s of thousands of RTs/likes), the discussions are pretty good. They're also easy to quickly scan and follow and are most likely real opinions of real people.
Another option is https://tweetdeck.twitter.com/ with an ad blocker. No ads, feed in order. I mostly follow people I know and my feed is very decent and for the most part positive.
To see the loons, I typically have to find a popular account and read replies, and the Tweetdeck URL even hides most of those (which is fine by me - makes me realising I'm wasting my life reading rubbish).
Even if you're using a different client (which is already a strike against Twitter as a social network, along with the need to manually block users because it has no effective moderation) the content you're reading will have been written by users targeting the default algorithm.
> How? The value of the twitter's social network comes from the recommendations of the people I follow, not twitter's recommendation
It's an admission that the platform is broken. If you have to rely on workarounds to have an acceptable experience, you should probably just choose a different platform that doesn't have an adversarial relationship with its users.
>I wouldn't want it any other way! I want to be in control of who I block - I don't want anyone else deciding that for me
Individuals blocking each other does nothing to address problems with the community.
>That doesn't matter, since I'm not using their algorithm anyway
The content will be worse for targeting their algorithm regardless of how you access it.
I'm always surprised that people, especially on HN, complain so much about twitter's algorithms that are so easy to bypass. I use Twidere as a client, and my feed doesn't have any of twitter's algorithms - it's simply a reverse chronological feed. Even the website and twitter's official app have a button right on the feed page that allows you to switch to a reverse chronological feed
> In addition it's almost impossible to have a civilized discussion
Just don't use it for discussion then. I use it to read opinions of people all across the ideological spectrum and form my own. You don't need to engage if you don't want to! Also, it's very easy to mute/block accounts that you find are being abusive or uncivilized
It's an invaluable tool to gather peoples' opinions and what they really think.