The longer you think about that scenario the more fucked up it gets. Google argues that it’s a problem of scale, which is outrageously BS when you consider Google of all companies let their own account system be easily botted, and don’t use any of the ludicrous number analytical tools purpose built for detecting spam trends (3rd parties use them all the time to spot political spam).

Their mention of signal:noise struck a chord for me.

Ever since this gelled for me a few years ago, I have been on a miserable (and obviously impossible) mission to find places to see and discuss useful, HUMAN information with other useful HUMAN people on the internet.

Blocking whole forums on topics I really enjoy is mechanically easier than curating the contributors to those conversations on an individual basis. It hurts my heart to do it, but it is impossible to keep the noise out without wholly ignoring signal that I enjoy.

Even people I used to really enjoy talking to have had to be ignored. They stopped caring about nuance, and got intellectually lazier. They switched from reading to skimming, and the well thought out comments got shorter, and more hostile.

This is undoubtedly the snake eating it’s own tail.

They filter their inputs so heavily, and have done battle with bad faith for so long that their outputs resemble the very thing they were trying to avoid.

Unsure what my point is other than commiseration with OP. It’s utterly disheartening to realize that the technology that was created to connect us all has been co-opted and subverted - transforming it into a hideous monster of hate, and misery that forces us all to internally disconnect from entire parts of it.

That’s not to say that it couldn’t have been expected… but I have no fucking idea how it could’ve been prevented.

I’ve never been a Twitter user, but this makes me wish I could follow Mastodon users from here