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> What's left is people who are logged in, _engaging_. And man, that was always the worst part of Twitter, the constant posturing and troll-baiting for clicks, pushing every viewpoint toward its extreme.

I do agree that engagement farming is—and has been—a problem, but as someone that worked in social media (mostly on the data side, fwiw), it's been a problem for like a decade+ now, long predating "modern" Twitter. And it's a consistent problem on all platforms (I mostly use Instagram, and it's annoying on there as well).

by Shog912 hours ago|

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I'm well aware; I previously worked "adjacent" to this sphere, and a non-trivial part of my work life was spent trying to forestall precisely this outcome.

The difference between Twitter now and Twitter a decade ago isn't in the quantity of vapid interactions; it's the proportion of that to anything else. The slide started a long, long time ago and at some point effectively no one was trying to stop it anymore. I'm sure there are still corners where useful information gets passed on in a timely manner, but like the citizens of so many venues before it those corners have been diminished and isolated to an extent that it no longer feels worthwhile for those not already entrenched in them to bother seeking them out

by dvt11 hours ago|

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> it's the proportion of that to anything else

And my point was that, from what I can tell, that proportion of trash::value has been increasing on all social media in (more or less) lockstep. If anything, I'd say Facebook has seen the most precipitous drop in quality, not Twitter. So much so that I don't even log in anymore, and I was veritably addicted during college.

by simianparrot9 hours ago|

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It's increased in lockstep here on HN as well. It used to be that I came here for the comments, but more and more the comments are going the way of everywhere else: Inflammatory, polarising, and more and more botted (both automated and human bots) -- no proof, but I've been around the internet since the early 90's, I see the patterns.

I even get sucked into contributing at times, which is why that descent into trash _works_ so well. I hate it, and I visit HN less and less as a result.