I haven’t ever really been a twitter person, but when I nuked all my big socials years ago one of the driving factors was how my friends would tell me that my posts rarely showed up in their feeds even though I was one of like 2-3 people they explicitly liked stuff on and selected to follow.

the thing was, I rarely posted any heavy shit. usually just short little quips with a detournéd advertisement or other homemade graphic lampooning imperialism, consumerism, or what have you. maybe the occasional link to a generally accepted media outlet with a story about something fucked, but I made sure half of my posts were just like cool nature photos and shit because I didn’t want people to be burnt out on my feed.

yes, I was that kind of bozo who was really trying to curate my feed to reach an audience of friends and share my values in a digestible format. literally making only 2 posts per day, one always light and easy.

anyway, even though there would be engagement (likes, comments) people would always say they weren’t being fed my stuff. they had to click my profile to see what I had put up and it was “annoying” and made them mad because their feeds just kept showing them stuff they hated.

that was literally 4+ years ago.

people still casually assume their feeds are under some level of their control. they aren’t. I remember when my sister got in tiktok and she still parrots that line, that it only shows you what you like.

at best, these platforms are only effective at giving you that impression. their entire reason for being is to exercise control over your information exposure and monetize that control. they will never surrender this incredible power to their users.