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How to follow newspapers on mastodon without being spammed?

Hi,

I have a mastodon account and would like to follow some newspapers with that. I just did, but the newspapers are posting so much that my whole timeline is just spammed with their posts. Often also stuff I am not interested in.

Is anyone else here following newspapers on mastodon? How are you handling the spam?

12 comments
  • It's a really good idea to use the "Lists" feature on Mastodon for stuff like this:

    https://fedi.tips/how-to-use-the-lists-feature-on-mastodon/

    I follow a bunch of news that post a ton of content that I don't want cluttering up my usual home timeline. So, I've added them to a "News" list and excluded that list from my home timeline. This way, I can either view the list whenever I wanna scroll through the news or even add an entire separate column on the advanced web interface just showing that list with news that's separated from home.

    I only discovered the Lists feature recently. It's a gamer-changer.

  • Similarly I used to follow news groups on Mastodon, but found I was missing stories in-between my other follows. I ended up switching to RSS readers like Inoreader to handle my reading instead.

    I know it’s answer-adjacent, but I hope that helps.

    • I think this really is the best solution to news sites.

      I self-host FreshRSS, make good use of its filters, and I can chew through headlines and articles in no time using the web view on a PC or mobile web.

  • Are some of these posts, boosts as in reposts? There should be an option to hide a follower's boosts to prevent then from flooding your TL.

    You can also hide replies and use key words filters to help keep your TL tidy.

    Eta: links

  • Somehow get them to have a separate feed/account for each writer, as well as each section,

    and only subscribe to those subsections of their output YOU care about.

    I don't expect ANY newspaper to have the working-brains to understand this concept.

    Enforcement/enshittification is the only religion which fits in the heads of "executives", nowadays, right?

    Unfortunately, that's the proper answer.

12 comments