adapted from a reply, poster wanted to leave x because their timeline was “too negative”

i didn’t need to weigh in on this, but i see this sentiment a lot in the wild, this one got to me for whatever reason

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in the most well-intended and productive sense possible, you get out of it what you put into it

this is not a statement meant to direct blame, the mechanics behind the For You page are invisible for the most part, and most of the reason people get into a bad situation here is simply poor maintenance.

just like any matter of maintenance, if you let the garbage build up too much then you are creating a bigger problem for yourself down the line

if you are primarily seeing negativity then you have trained the algorithm towards that type of content

this was likely not intentional, and for most people probably not desirable. but it is an easy trap to fall into if you aren’t informed or paying attention

you need to take out the trash. if you don’t then you can’t reasonably complain that your home smells like garbage.

Timeline Maintenance

okay we know now that the problem isn’t the platform, we just have some cleaning to do, so how do we actually do that?

• create an internal curation ruleset you need a system of rules, something personal to you, a way for you to be the judge, jury, and executioner of the posts you see. without some mental framework for approaching the problem then you can’t expect to be able to fix it
• be aggressive about culling it is extremely rare that i see something distinctly “negative” in the grand sense (i.e. pure hatred, violence, etc.) - the early days of my account was when that type of thing crept in a hell of a lot more
• engage fully with content that is “For You” this sounds simple but not for a lot of casual/ordinary users (myself formerly included)- it is necessary though! there are many ways you can engage, and they all affect the outcome, every action causes an algorithmic reaction

so double down instead of dropping out

my immediate circle is entirely good vibes, great discussion both technical and non-technical, a bunch of extremely productive output, but also a lot of goofing around to balance it all out

post-curation it became really tough to not spend my whole day just scrolling and engaging with everything and throwing replies out, and that is great. that means it’s working, and as a result my feed now definitively fits “For You”

can’t remember the last time something distinctly “negative” (in the grand sense, i.e. pure hatred, violence, javascript-based functional programming, etc.) has appeared for me, especially when compared to my early days where i didn’t engage with or remove any content from my timeline

the difference is night and day

Algorithm Effects:

you need to learn how to speak the language of the algorithm, think of it like a personal assistant- if you are direct and explicit about what you want then you dramatically increase the chances of getting what you want, but if your communication is poor and confusing then your morning coffee probably won’t taste too good

here are some things you can do to tell the algorithm “yes, show more of this, this is For Me”

• like what you like
• repost what you believe
• bookmark what you want to see again
• reply when you want to be part of the discussion
• follow people if the content they post matches what you are looking for
• share posts that you believe in the value of (people do this with negative posts for the “omg look at this, wtf?!” reaction when shared to a friend - without realizing it pushes what you see in that direction)

and here are some things you can do to tell the algorithm “no, show less of this, this is **Not For Me”

• press not interested when you aren’t interested
• mute/block people who are poison to the feeling you want on your feed
• remove people you follow if the content they share doesn’t fit
• do the same with the people who follow you

in the settings you can:

• mute words and phrases you don’t want to see
• unfollow interests that the algorithm has determined you might like

“you clearly don’t want to leave or you wouldn’t have posted- you would have just disappeared”

there is so much control when you learn the language of the algorithm, and a well curated feed has such incredible value, it seriously can’t be underestimated.

the timeline is fragile, and you don’t get the best out of it if you don’t put in some effort, but that is most things in life

clean your feed.

〆 alia