Some experts say trolls who built businesses and media careers on Twitter have had to escalate shock value tactics as the audience of “normal people” shrinks
Elon Musk's business model depends on “triggering” liberals — but he's now running out of progressives to bait Mastodon: @carnage4life@mas.to , @timfordwrites@mstdn.ca , and @bruno_j_navarro … . Bluesky: @martinsfp.bsky.social Twitter: @gindaanis , @amandamarcotte , @manigarm , @crashthompsonxo , @brosandprose , and @letitmelo See also Mediagazer Mastodon: Dare Obasanjo / @carnage4life@mas.to : There's a class of online grifter who lives to make liberals mad and conservatives gleeful as they drink “liberal tears”. As Twitter has swung more to the far right in tone & content, they've had to become more extreme to stand out. … Tim Ford / @timfordwrites@mstdn.ca : Interesting insights here, and more reasons to get the eff off of Twitter. But also an early warning for why going to a new corporate platform, like Bluesky, is flawed. So long as profit is a core concern, the outrage machine will be a threat. — Outrage is profitable. … Bruno J. Navarro / @bruno_j_navarro@mastodon.social : Brian Hughes of American University, who is the co-founder of the Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab (PERIL): “As normal people, for lack of a better term, continue to leave Twitter, that's actually going to cause probably a reduction in the use of the platform by these trolls and these fraudsters. … Bluesky: @martinsfp.bsky.social : “The clawing need to get attention from progressives seems to be driving these engagement farmers a little nuts, as they up the weird-and-evil ante, hoping to get those precious clicks and plays.” [embedded post] Twitter: @gindaanis : Putting this out there because with all love and respect, if it wasn't for leftists retweeting and arguing with white supremacists and all that's adjacent to them I wouldn't see most of it. You're not changing their minds. You're giving them access. https://t.co/... Amanda Marcotte / @amandamarcotte : At best, we have hours until the next indictments. Possibly days or weeks. So have some fun reading about how the collapse of Twitter is making life sad for some of the worst people online. Featured: Bari Weiss, Freddie deBoer, RFK Jr. Michael Tracey. https://t.co/... Dr. Holly Walters / @manigarm : How many times do we have to learn the same lesson. We keep telling you that algorithms don't differentiate between support clicks and hate clicks. These people's careers are made on rage-baiting you and you keep falling for it. https://t.co/... @crashthompsonxo : Lol. Yep. Block early, block often, do not engage. 🙏 https://t.co/... Ella Dawson / @brosandprose : “Grifters need people to harass and a mainstream discourse to counter. As traffic takes a nosedive and Twitter becomes less a part of the conversation, it's going to be harder for these folks to make money.” https://t.co/... Melo / @letitmelo : Wow it's like all you people QRTing “get a load of this guy” were actually propping up entire industries that exist soley to outrage you into QRTing “get a load of this guy” to prop up entire industries that exist soley to outrage you into QRTing “get a l https://t.co/... See also Mediagazer
Context & Ripple Effects
The reported shift follows Twitter's restriction of unauthenticated browsing, a product change that reduced casual access to posts, profiles, and threads. That matters because outrage-driven accounts depend on distribution beyond a committed ideological audience.
The platform’s older discovery mechanisms had already been associated with context collapse around trending topics, where disconnected audiences collide without shared context. The story frames a narrower audience as changing the incentives for creators who monetize those collisions.
First-order effects
- Creators whose reach and revenue rely on provoking political opponents face a smaller pool of responsive targets, increasing pressure to make posts more extreme or attention-grabbing.
- X’s discourse becomes more concentrated among highly engaged political participants rather than casual cross-audience readers, reinforcing the dynamic described in the report.
Second-order effects
- Opponents who quote, retweet, or argue with inflammatory accounts can become an inadvertent distribution channel, giving those accounts visibility that a shrinking general audience no longer supplies.
- Newer corporate social platforms, including Bluesky, face the same moderation and product-design challenge: profit-seeking engagement systems can reward outrage before a broad audience base is established.
Third-order effects
- If attention increasingly comes from a committed political niche, social platforms may trade broad public-square utility for a more polarized, high-engagement media market.
- The durable competitive issue is trust as platform infrastructure: platforms that cannot limit incentive-driven antagonism may struggle to retain the ordinary users needed for diverse conversation.
The trend: This is one instance of social platforms’ engagement incentives concentrating political discourse and rewarding increasingly performative conflict.