These problems with Twitter don't just "happen". Twitter, like other social media companies, have unparalleled access to some of the best talent out there. Then they target that talent at maximizing comically reductive metrics like "engagement" and call it a day.
Twitter's design is extremely naive, that design leads to rampant toxicity and misinformation, and then they surprised_pikachu.jpg. For example: no matter how you interact with a post, you will boost it. So if you say something horribly toxic that incites outrage and reactions, Twitters dumb blind algorithm goes "NICE! Engagement!" and goes off to show that tweet to more people. Facebook does the same thing; every news article posted on Facebook has the most toxic comments right at the top.
These sites have designs that are not expressive enough, but they think they can get away with throwing ML algorithms at them; it does not work, and we end up with toxic cesspools.
As a former user of the Fediverse, I disagree. Every problem he describes are present there too. It goes deeper than the algorithms: it's because of the fundamental design choices. Default visibility: public. Follow instead of friend. Mentions, hashtags, quote tweets, retweets, likes.
But these features are also why it's so popular with celebrities, which is Twitter's unique selling point, so it's not like they can just change it up either.
Twitter's design is extremely naive, that design leads to rampant toxicity and misinformation, and then they surprised_pikachu.jpg. For example: no matter how you interact with a post, you will boost it. So if you say something horribly toxic that incites outrage and reactions, Twitters dumb blind algorithm goes "NICE! Engagement!" and goes off to show that tweet to more people. Facebook does the same thing; every news article posted on Facebook has the most toxic comments right at the top.
These sites have designs that are not expressive enough, but they think they can get away with throwing ML algorithms at them; it does not work, and we end up with toxic cesspools.