I follow a couple of writers on X through Nitter on a desktop browser. These writers inevitably draw bot comments whenever they touch on something relevant to some or another powerful country’s politics. For me, it’s easy to verify that these commentators (who often have convincing-sounding fake names and photos) are bots by simply ctrl-clicking on the commenters’ usernames and, in the tab that immediately opens, seeing at a glance that they post weird single-issue material at an unusually sporadic pace, and often in tellingly flawed English.

Do I suspect correctly that in the way most people consume X, though the official website or an app, this is not so transparent? Whether because opening new views is so slow on a phone screen, or because the official interfaces probably intersperse content with advertisements and other visual crap? I don’t think state actors would be so active in trying to manipulate discourse if the platform hadn’t degraded to a point where their activity isn’t obvious to most users.

It's a full PvP server now. Old Social media outrage algos + paying people for posts further broke it

I just use the "Following" tab (and not the "For you" tab).

I prefer the X now. Unlimited stream of unhinged, unfiltered thought stream from strangers straight into my feed.

Only last week is shocking to me. People were saying this about twitter for like 10+ years as soon as it was commercialized and was no longer just user content.

I am honestly curious what Elon would need to do for you to dislike him. That ship sailed for me long ago

I mean his personal lack of ethics, bigotries, greed, and ignorance is what directly made twitter what it is today. Maybe you should dislike him and hold him in low opinion.

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What is garbage engagement?

I think its entirely reasonable that an algorithm shows you things that you engaged with. It would be weird if it didn't promoted stuff I didn't engage w/.