Will Oremus for some reason agrees with Twitter itself that one of Twitter’s “problems” was that the chronological timeline made users not follow many people, and that following as many people as possible apparently is an important metric. It might be an important one for Twitter, but should it be considered an important one for users themselves? I don’t see how. Really, this post is just one long apologia for the algorithmic timeline.
Addenda
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Arguably, the idea that a Twitter user should follow as many people as possible itself is one of Twitter’s problems. Where did this idea come from? Oremus doesn’t appear even to challenge it.
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In fact, arguably this is just another example of social media’s obsession with indication over interaction, excitation over expression. Get those retweet numbers up, get those likes numbers up, get those follow numbers up. It’s an empty signifier.