Here’s another problem with the context-free instant indication of social media engagement through likes and retweets: unless you’re liking or retweeting something posted by someone you know, you could be boosting something by an abuser, asshole, or racist. Who’s going to spend five minutes checking out a user’s history first? This sort of thing sometimes gets attention when the issue is misinformation, or even disinformation, but not so much when the issue is the overall character of the poster you don’t know. So, again, it comes down to social media needing more friction, and fewer tools designed to be innately “now”.
Addenda
- All of which is only going to get worse with Twitter moving toward letting users follow not just people but “interests”, compounding the existing problem arising from the Explore tab.