I want to curate my feed to mostly just contain serious people. Doesn’t matter whether I agree with their views or not - it’s all about how those views are expressed. So many people on social media are just thrilled to have a megaphone and the ability to make noise. I don’t like noise.

For example, right now there are people who opened the thread just because I put “AI” in the title and they can’t wait to share their views about AI in the comments as if it’s meaningfully relevant to what I’m saying. They know what I mean, but you can’t just miss an opportunity to score a few points dunking on AI, can you?

Whatever gene makes people want to shout these thought-terminating clichés, upvote others who do it, and find some sense of belonging from it is clearly missing from me. I’d rather just not even hear about it - it’s extremely exhausting and has never achieved anything worthwhile.

It doesn’t really matter whether most people like the smell of your farts or not - you’re still poisoning the air.

  • NaibofTabr@infosec.pubEnglish
    8·
    20 days ago

    I want to curate my feed to mostly just contain serious people.

    So I’ll just point out that this desire is kind of the whole point of features that allow you to follow specific users on a social media system. This is better when manually curated, rather than relying on some algorithm to do a bad job of it for you. So far, every application of such models to social media tends to amplify noise rather than reduce it, and this is mostly because it does not and cannot replicate human awareness.

    The desire for such a function to be performed automatically (without your direct attention and involvement) is diametrically opposed to the desire for high-quality output. Quality requires a level of attention that cannot be automated. The program doesn’t care, it’s not capable of that.

    Reddit-imitating platforms like Lemmy aren’t really built for following specific users, the intent is more of a public square. The benefit is that it’s harder to end up in an echo chamber (as long as you avoid places like hexbear and .ml where the admins enforce echo chamber conditions intentionally). The cost is that you will always be exposed to some noise. You don’t get freedom without some chaos.

    Platforms that might provide better what you want would be Mastodon or BlueSky, where you can follow professionals who voice public opinions on topics that you find relevant, and read responses from other users.

    Whatever gene makes people want to shout these thought-terminating clichés, upvote others who do it, and find some sense of belonging from it is clearly missing from me. I’d rather just not even hear about it - it’s extremely exhausting and has never achieved anything worthwhile.

    Hmm, well I’ll point out a couple of things:

    1. Self-expression is not really about “achieving” anything.
      There is a level of attention-seeking behavior that can get… cringy? for lack of a better word… but also, like, welcome to the human race, I guess? People want to feel included in the social group, and in the conversation of the moment, and that’s entirely normal behavior. Attention-seeking behavior happens because people don’t want to feel lonely, and that’s OK.
    2. I think you’re displaying a degree of entitlement here, where you expect other people to express themselves in a way that you find agreeable.
    3. There is some utility in this overall, as a sort of barometer of public opinion, though you have to be aware of the context of the community you’re in. (e.g. a commonly expressed opinion on Lemmy does not necessarily reflect a common opinion of people in your workplace or neighborhood)

    Also, at the risk of repeating a tired cliché, be the change you want to see in the world.

    • Iconoclast@feddit.ukOPEnglish
      1·
      20 days ago

      where you expect other people to express themselves in a way that you find agreeable.

      I’m making no demands on other people here. They can be jerks or virtue-signal as much as they want. I’d just prefer not to see it myself because I find no value in it. I’m not trying to stop them - I’m trying to exclude myself from it.

      And this is me trying to be the change. In the ideal case, more and more people would start enabling those filters and all of a sudden the people making noise would see their engagement dropping because more and more of their posts are getting caught in content filters. That would send the signal that if you want your voice to be heard, you actually need to put some effort into it.