Timeline Defense! (What?)

R.L. Goolsby
Nov 3 · 10 min read

Jack Dorsey’s recent decision to end political advertising on Twitter leads us into interesting times indeed. Twitter has saved lives. So has Facebook. Platforms bring us together in disaster and crisis, to share information, to help the causes we believe in. Today, we are now all too aware of its darker side, but back in the double-aughts, people saw social media as freeing, as pro-democracy, as a force for good where true information would naturally outcompete rumor and bad information. The question is: what happens next on Twitter? Or, how are we going to defend our timelines against social cyber-attack?

The Construction of Our Timelines (Feed the Algorithms!)

When we start a Twitter account, Twitter FORCES us to feed its algorithms by REQUIRING us to choose from a bunch of accounts on a variety of topics: do we like sports? The arts? Newspapers? Celebrities? Which ones?

This is the feeding of the initial algorithms that try to figure out who we are and what we like, so that they, the algorithms, can deliver up content that we like and want to read. Ever see an account following NO ONE? Then someone has patiently removed all of those accounts that Twitter forced them to follow on day one of the account’s creation. That’s not so creepy, because we all also probably just followed a bunch of accounts during that tedious “account creation” phase and unfollowed many of them afterward. Some of us unfollow all of them but still — most people keep at least a few.

Pro-Tip: If you look at your own followers, you can see that they appear in “last in, first up” order. Your most recent followers are at the top; at the bottom are the accounts you followed first. If you look at other accounts, you will see the same order. It’s tedious to get to the bottom of their lists, but it is possible, if you’re really curious.

What you put in your profile also matters. If you do nothing, never tweet, never like, then you will still get some followers. Your initial choices plus your profile become your “score” and Twitter tries to find followers FOR you by pushing your account into the “recommendation” lists of others. I have “food blogs” in my profile — and that impacts the score I get in Twitter. Food-related accounts are then promoted to me (because Twitter is keeping tabs) and I get lots of food-related accounts following me. They hope I will follow them back.

Do you ever notice that your timeline is getting kind of stale? I get a lot of material from people I’ve followed most recently — and very little from people I followed long ago. This is because if I don’t mention those accounts, don’t give fresh likes to their current content, or don’t reply to those accounts, the algorithms feel I’m not really interested in their content.

On occasion, I comment on a big fish account (blue check, tons of followers) — and the “big fish” likes it, or better, replies to my reply. Some of them may even follow me back. Now I’m seeing much more of their content — but that is at the expense of the “smaller” fish accounts that I follow. Twitter assumes I want to see more of the “blue checks” and high follower accounts, because it assumes that those accounts have better content.

Twitter’s servers are constantly receiving tweets and making decisions about which ones I should see — and which ones of mine that other people see. Twitter changes these algorithms six to eight times a year for several reasons. First, the algorithms are there to make sure we get content that interests us now. Second, they want to measure what we’re doing with the content we get, to adjust what we receive. The goal here is to keep people engaged on the platform.

Twitter’s algorithms are going to try to game us, to keep us on the platform for longer and longer amounts of time.

Ever see tweets that are nothing but a bunch of Twitter handles? If you want to see more content from particular people, you need to mention them in your tweets. This causes the algorithms to PRIORITIZE messages between your account and those accounts you mention. This maneuver makes the accounts more closely associated in Twitter’s algorithms, just as if one actually mentions them or replies to them in a “real” post with content.

Influencer accounts have a big advantage in this system. This is why politicians buy bot followers: the more followers the account has, the more likely that Twitter will spread your material to other accounts. Recently, Twitter’s changed its algorithms to include the LIKES of other people you follow. So, when the blue checks I follow LIKE the tweets of someone I find odious, like-it-or-not, I get that guy’s tweets in my timeline. Weirdly, my only choice seems to be to pro-actively block odious people I would never follow from my account.

In a side note, Twitter is currently only doling out about fifty tweets or so, before it forces us to refresh. This is to reduce server load. Twitter used to dole out 600 tweets at a times (back in the long ago). Few people could get to the bottom of their timelines. Now, many people do. It’s just a matter of reading quickly. However, if you are getting to the bottom of the page, you’re consuming a good amount of content. Stop for a moment and consider: how much of this content are retweets? How much of it is promoted content? Am I getting just a bunch of biased material from a few accounts or is this a good representation of the people I follow? What am I missing?

Now, imagine Aunt Clara, my imaginary cat-focused potential animal-shelter terrorist relative. She’s following Furr News and celebrities in her chosen anti-animal shelter movement affiliation. She’s getting more and more of unsettling, anxiety-provoking content that reinforces her beliefs that animal-shelters-are-no-good. Is shutting off the anti-animal shelter movement’s ability to promote content to her going to change her position? No.

Dorsey’s decision would end the ability of the anti-animal shelter people to use its cat-lady-finding algorithms to target people like Aunt Clara who might be susceptible to their propaganda. So this is a big win.

Dorsey’s decision to end political advertising is an attempt to mitigate the social harm of advertising to democracy — or social cyber-attack writ large — on the Twitter platform. The fact that Russia Today was critical of the move suggests that this does put something of a crimp in their plans to disrupt U.S. elections — and other elections, globally, going forward. However, this action will force adversaries to democracy to innovate.

Twitter users, already inundated by material promoted by bots and cyborgs, are likely to see an uptick in automated political content. Many of the accounts I follow are likely automated; I follow many journalists. Journalists often use automation to repost their stories and comments, multiple times a day. This is how they get crazy numbers in their “numbers of posts.” These are what is known as “cyborg” accounts: accounts with real people who are using a product like HootSuite or Tweetdeck to schedule their posts. Many popular accounts use automated processes to amplify their voices.

Dorsey’s decision to end promoted content in politics would prevent SOME people from becoming ensnared in anti-animal shelter (or whatever) propaganda in the first place, those people being the other, future Aunt Claras. In this scenario, Aunt Clara herself would never have heard of Furr News, which is a significant vector for much of the anxiety provoking, maddening content she’s currently consuming, if Furr News hadn’t promoted itself into the “cat lady” algorithms through purchasing access to those marketing algorithms through Twitter. There are tons and tons of evil doers out there with blogs and websites, using these algorithms to polarize crowds, inflame people, and purvey disinformation to them. Facebook has made the decision to continue to sell to these people.

This doesn’t protect the Aunt Claras of the world — or you and me — from being influenced by deceptive accounts. If World Cats Today began following Aunt Clara, and liking her content, and replying to her posts, then Aunt Clara might follow them BACK — and find her timeline is being inundated by anti-animal shelter propaganda. Should Aunt Clara UNFOLLOW her helpful friend who likes all her posts and even makes cute little replies? That would seem — so RUDE!

Further, World Cats Today doesn’t even have to retweet — it can just LIKE lots of anti-animal shelter content. And because Aunt Clara follows World of Cats back, anti-animal content that it doesn’t even RETWEET will ALSO have a good chance of appearing in her timeline. So Aunt Clara can get a HUGE dose of anti-animal shelter content in this way. This is particularly true if Aunt Clara isn’t following that many other accounts that are as active as she is.

WHY is Twitter throwing these liked tweets into my timeline? The simplest answer is that Twitter has run out of content to give me, or in this case, Aunt Clara. It throws in the “likes” of big influencer accounts in order to provide me with what, in its artificially not-so-intelligent-way, it calculates would also satisfy my request for more tweets.

Ever see an account PLEADING you to like their content or reply to them in some way? Those accounts are finding that the Twitter algorithm is no longer prioritizing their content and it’s finding it hard to get their content out to be seen, the way they used to. Conservatives think this is “shadow-banning” and that it is entirely based on their content. That’s being paranoid. The algorithms change and shift so that this month’s new accounts get a chance to be seen — and older accounts that did not make use of their advantage, get down-selected.

The more you engage with an account, the more Twitter prioritizes its content so that the server will send you its tweets.

So what do I mean by timeline defense?

Malicious, social cyber-attack accounts typically are coordinated using a bank of cellphones: hundreds, thousands, even millions are technically possible. Dorsey’s decision is likely to spur the growth of this cottage industry. Mal-actors who can no longer use Twitter’s marketing algorithms to reach crowds are going to have to rely on the botnet industry. We’re going to see more bots and more new techniques for social cyber-attack. We gotta stay frosty and get better educated to defend ourselves.

Here are some things you can do.

Be suspicious of new followers. Do not automatically follow them back. Follower parties, always a good way for propaganda purveyors to target people, are going to be a problem. Yes, they help us to expand our following. But they also make us vulnerable to receiving dubious content that hit all our hot buttons and make us unable to think straight. The regular news as it is is pretty upsetting. Be careful. When we’re upset, we are far more open to disinformation and rumor.

Re-engage with old friends. Go through your follower and following lists and “like” content from followers you haven’t heard from in a while. Reply to their jokes, even if it just a thumbs up. This will refresh your relationship in the algorithm.

Turn off retweets from your Aunt Claras. If I find one of the sources in my timeline is taking up too much room, I turn off their retweets for a while. You can turn them back on. Actual tweets from them stay on and that will enable you to get some original content from time to time — but you won’t have to deal with them when they are maximally triggered and retweeting everything under the sun.

Don’t be afraid to mute people. You can always unmute them. And they don’t know they’re muted.

How to turn off Retweets

First, find the person you are following who is sending you the retweets you no longer want to see. (Click on “Following) on your account page.

Click on the following number

Next, click on the person whose retweets are no longer wanted. (Here I’m using a friend. (No offense, @parmesansmama! This is purely for instructional purposes!)

You see, I get the opportunity to MUTE (to turn off all communications for a while), to BLOCK her, or to turn off her retweets or mobile notifications.

With MUTE, I won’t see content from her, though she can still see mine. I believe she can still send me direct messages.

BLOCK will prevent her from seeing my content — as well as from me seeing HER content.

TURN OFF RETWEETS will prevent her retweets from invading my timeline. I won’t see them but if she posts something herself, that I could see.

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Taking a look at people whose retweets are taking over our timelines is a good method of starting to think defensively about what goes in our timelines and influences us. The automated accounts have a big advantage; they can retweet endlessly and that can trigger us, make us anxious, angry and prone to losing our sensibilities.

Playing Twitter a bit defensively is going to help us through these upsetting times. We must keep our wits about us and be able to think clearly, given the crises we all face. Don’t forget to step away from the phone, the computer, all screens from time to time. Take a hot bath. Have lunch with a friend. Walk the dog. Get refreshed so that you can enter the conflicts with a well balanced mind and an optimistic perspective.

R.L. Goolsby

Written by

Digital anthropologist, grandmom, knitter of the raveled sleeve of care, all opinions are definitely my own.

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