Comment by ben_jones | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ben_jones | Hacker News Reader

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I initially had a negative reaction but after thinking about it I changed my mind. There is a major need to cut through the algorithmically generated suggestions that provably fuel misinformation, group think, and general hate. Twitter is a great medium to hack at this problem, and the first iteration of a product will always have some (positive or negative) biases in an effort to find itself and move forward on key features and mission.

Personally I think the conversation on this thread needs to stop thinking this product criminalizes content choice. If my interest is engineering blogs and most engineering blogs are written by men its ok for me to predominantly follow engineering blogs. What this product (to me) is there for is when I want to branch out I have an option for doing that in a powerful new way.

Finally (offtopic) I think we do need to have more civil conversations about virtue signaling. I don't think this product or announcement is virtue signaling. But virtue signaling IS a big problem in Silicon Valley, people shouting from the rooftops how they want to do good before quietly slinking back into a board room to do bad.

Good job OP, I'm not a hardcore twitter user but will definitely follow this projects development and wish it the best.

Appreciate your comment, I think it sums up well what I intended to go for with the platform. Taking aside what people might think about diversity, we've seen that ideologies radicalize when we are only surrounded by like-minded people, usually from similar backgrounds. Having the chance to find people based on a variety of filters allows you to discover pretty much any kind of person, and it can contribute to avoiding this issue in particular. Do I think that everyone must equally follow the same people from those different groups? No, not at all. But even having someone outside your bubble can help you broaden your view in a multitude of topics, for sure. Thanks!

First of all, props for shipping this! It says you're only 18 so great work!

I think that people are taking issue with this though:

> Taking aside what people might think about diversity, we've seen that ideologies radicalize when we are only surrounded by like-minded people, usually from similar backgrounds

You've classified people based on gender and sexual orientation but that doesn't actually mean they have different backgrounds. 99% of my upper middle class friends have nearly identical opinions (very liberal for the record). It doesn't matter if they're men, women, lgbqt+... I suspect you'd get more actual diversity by looking for people (regardless of gender or sexual preference) who don't live on the coasts or in major cities.

Fair. I think I might've mentioned this in another comment, but although I've put emphasis on identities, I also take into account background through filters such as language (different cultures), low-income (so not upper class), migrants... I will expand upon these now that I've got a decent userbase.

Cool! Great job taking the sometimes rough feedback too. The more you ship the more haters you're going to get. Take it in stride and do listen to see if people have a point (they won't always). Seems like you're doing just that though, so keep up the great work.

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