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Comment by brc | Hacker News Reader

In the last twelve months I have stopped using Twitter. It used to be fun but it just became a mess of marketing and moral posturing and bullying. It wasn't a conscious decision, it just happened.

It's like the photos of the woman scorned - the guy with his car trashed and clothes thrown out, he's probably getting back together with her after an apology. The guy with his stuff neatly folded and packed on the front is gone for good because she moved on.

It's one thing to think of a Twitter boycott over some issue like this, but when it fails to meet the standard of providing value so you just move on, well that's a lot worse for Twitter.

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I have restarted using Twitter recently; after not using it for years.

The content you see depends entirely on who you choose to follow. I only follow the people who regularly publish awesome content, initiate discussions, and have a positive outlook on things. Also some credible news sources, and add a few personal idols like Elon Musk.

I did see some people become toxic, start bullying and so on, I unfollow them, or make another decision, depending on the circumstances.

It feels like you make your own community on Twitter. You need to moderate it too.

You're correct, but it seems like too much work and random people just one day blow up your feed with some type of rant. The signal/noise ratio requires too much tuning

I follow the national weather service for my area (US). It's awesome they're total geeks about weather and share it.

Everything else is mostly meh.

This is good advice. I love Twitter, and find you need to be ruthless in unfollowing anyone who ruins the experience for you. Unlike Facebook, there usually aren't social / real-world consequences for unfollowing someone on Twitter.

For people who are noisy but you still want to follow, shuffle them off into a Twitter list you check occasionally. I love @SwiftOnSecurity, but she's too noisy/frequent for my main feed, so I don't follow her and only include her in my Infosec list (that also includes @troyhunt and @tqbf).

You'll probably enjoy Twitter a lot more if you use 3rd Party clients like Tweetbot (Mac / iPhone) and Fenix (Android). Zero ads and more flexibility with features like Mute Filters (eg muting specific hashtags as well as specific users). The official Twitter experience is terrible.

Don't feel obligated to follow friends. This is often the fastest way to ruin your Twitter experience.

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