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The most egregious example of this that I have seen was this tweet, just the other day https://twitter.com/BernieeSanderrs/status/12197474935308328...

I'm not following this account. Nobody I follow is, and nobody I followed interacted with this tweet in any way. Twitter's "reason" for showing it to me was "Bernie Sanders (Parody) received a reply", which is a bizarre justification for adding it to my feed.

For a moment I 100% thought this was a real tweet because I usually look at the user's handle rather than their display name. Anyway, this encounter has made me decide to take a break from Twitter this election season.




Same story, but wasn't this just a trending post? Like it popped up for you long before it had 200k+ likes? I remember seeing it and nobody I know follow it but I don't recall thinking anything of it (I also thought it was Bernies account).

I barely know how to use twitter in all honesty. I'm worried I'm liking too many things and shoving stuff in peoples faces. That's a big turn off on me using social apps.


Yeah, it popped up for me as it was rising (I couldn't tell you how many likes it had). I thought "wow, I didn't expect Bernie to address this issue in that way." Then I saw the username, felt a little duped but hey, this is the web, I'm used to it. Then I felt very duped when I realized that nobody I followed had followed the account, let alone liked or retweeted it. It wasn't Promoted. It ended up on my feed because it was popular and related to my interests, I guess? What made me feel uneasy was that I follow the real Bernie Sanders, and a website showed me something that I legitimately thought he had said for a moment, and I didn't even set myself up to be in that position.


That is by design. Serves somebody's interests, just not yours.




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