A lot of the political content is bad but really what broke Twitter/X for me was the extent to which it began pushing endless videos of violence at me... just people getting punched, assaulted, run over, fighting... I like to think I'm fairly mentally resilient but constant exposure altered my mood.
Reposted from
Financial Times
X refuses to remove stabbing video watched by Southport killer
https://www.ft.com/content/3c8923f3-9e30-4fdd-927c-d69754efd737
https://www.ft.com/content/3c8923f3-9e30-4fdd-927c-d69754efd737
Comments
I'd say that was the main driver for me getting off X actually. Collapsing engagement made the decision easier.
Any more than 30 years of gun show culture, pushed by Kremlin-backed, far-Right conspiracy grifters, accidentally destroyed truth and created an ever growing spate of mass shooters.
It's hybrid warfare.
In this thread, I'm purely commenting on tone. I recognise that there may more and deeper traumatisation involved, as suggested in the OP.
Thanks for reading.
Unfortunately the most engaging content seems to be violence, conspiracy, misinformation, etc.
"Why are they showing me stuff I hate? Ohhhh, ‘engagement’ is it? Sod that."
So what broke Twitter for me was all the tossers arguing for arguing's sake.
Whilst I believe these videos should be removed if excessively violent in nature - You have to take some responsibility for what you see.
It was that change to a "For you" feed, for some reason it was just full of violent videos even though my account was only used for work which meant all I followed, interacted with or Tweeted about was energy issues/markets. Why would an algo push that to me?
Unrelated: here's my blog on the top 10 deaths I saw on Twitter in '24....
Although seriously, I think you're broadly right, they are probably the top 'grossing' accounts so just get blanket pushed, but completely broke my use as that plus porn bots made it unusable.
Sure the enshittification cycle will kick in at some point though.
One of the things with 'X' was that it used to default to the 'For You' feed, which I think I'm right in saying is not (yet) the case on here.
Most of my time on FB / IG is spent blocking promoted posters.
We've got you..
An archived copy "lives on" on the internet..
https://archive.is/2025.01.24-124549/https://www.ft.com/content/3c8923f3-9e30-4fdd-927c-d69754efd737
Because of X, and without proactively searching, I've seen innocents get their throat slit...run over...punched...shot...bullied...killed by misadventure...it's a progressive desensitisation to atrocity. Apathy through saturation. Imagine the effect that has on a susceptible person.