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Of course hidden behind the ⋯, there are other buttons. 🔇, 👤❌,🚫,🏳️. These are all negative feedback to the algorithm. But they're necessarily uncommon and "violent" relative to 💬♻️❤️, and for good reason they are hidden an extra click away.
When Twitter decides what to show in your feed using feedback generated from prior attempts, this is a problem of control theory. A feedback system seeking optimal equilibrium. Twitter is attempting to balance the feed using *only positive feedback* on *significant time delay*.
A quick diversion: "positive" in this sense doesn't mean "emotionally positive", it means "amplifies the signal". "Look at this idiot" is positive feedback in this sense, not negative. Maybe we should have used different names but it's too late now so just try to keep it in mind.
What we know from control theory is that systems with only positive feedback, especially when combined with latency, result in wild swings to extremes. This is true in supply chain shocks, robots attempting to self-balance, and apparently social media networks as well.
Which brings us to 🤡, the missing button. Clicking it should be invisible (because visibility is promotion). It should cause Twitter to show you that Tweet and others like it less often. And it should have the same effect, somewhat attenuated, on the feeds of your followers.
This is negative feedback, which control theory teaches us is a dampener and reduces the extremes. Which is exactly what the doctor ordered, if you want to reduce outrage-driven extremism. https://t.co/6Y3RZElRsG (Sorry for the horrid crop...another Twitter feature...) https://t.co/7HRfOnDM8p
If it seems like the loud angry people are dominating the conversation...it's because they are, and the apparent tool to "fight back" (yelling louder) just makes the problem worse. The solution is the 🤡, the hero we both need and apparently deserve.
@mechanical_monk Yes. But downvote only appears in thread contexts for replies, not in the core feed itself. With good reason unfortunately -- negative feedback necessarily reduces consumption! It suppresses exactly the viral content we don't want but it means 🤡 will always fail a/b test.
@eshear Yeah, such a shame that at the moment the only way to hit that 4th button is to ignore the tweet. It's so unsatisfying! And only works via negative space, not actual direct dampening. +100 to your recommendation—dampen for my followers