My Twitter feed was a cesspool because it was beyond my control.
Its algorithm, optimized for addiction rather than enjoyment, would discover how best to push my buttons. Every day I was subjected to tweets that made me feel left out, angry, and defeated. But I couldn’t stop scrolling. A super-intelligent algorithm controlled my attention and fed me poison. Eventually I stopped using the “For You” tab altogether, and I felt happier than I had in a long time.
But I had lost something in doing so.
Despite its flaws, the algorithm had guided me to some interesting events where I made real-life friends. No platform is better for real-time information, and no platform gives better updates on local politics and elections (a hobby of mine). The power imbalance between me and Twitter disturbed me. Why wasn’t there a way to remove the garbage and keep the good stuff? Why wasn’t there a way to fight back against the feed?
Today, with a little help from AI, we can.
A better way to scroll
Introducing Bouncer, a Twitter feed filter that removes what you don’t want to see and gently retrains your algorithm.
Bouncer does more than blindly filter out exact keywords and phrases. It’s aware of context, meaning, and tone. You can type in any filter phrase you would like, even emotions like “arrogance” and “pessimism.”
Use Bouncer for a day or two and the Twitter algorithm will notice that you are not looking at certain types of posts (posts that you’ve “Bounced”). Over time, your algorithm begins to heal, and you are left with a feed that is truly tailored to you, not what some social media company wants you to see.
Technology that truly serves humans
To do the classification, we use an open-source LLM called Qwen 3.5 4B. It’s large enough to understand context, yet small enough to keep up with your scrolling speed. For now we’re serving this out of our own data center, but we’re doing some novel technical work to get it running directly on your laptop or phone. There are powerful GPUs lying almost dormant within most modern laptops and phones. Our aim is to unlock that power so that you don’t need to rely on a massive data center controlled by a big tech company. That way, the technology you use can be owned and controlled by you.
Imbue envisions a world of truly personal computing, where AI is used to empower rather than dominate. Bouncer is one step towards that mission. I’m excited for you to try it out.
What’s next
Today, Bouncer works in Twitter’s feed and is available as a Chrome extension as well as the App Store for iPhone. Soon, we’ll add support for social feeds like Reddit, LinkedIn, and other browsers like Safari and Firefox. We’ll also release another blog post with all the technical details. Stay tuned!
We’d love to hear what you think. If you have feedback to share, join us in Discord or DM me on Twitter @MillanPhilipose. Happy bouncing!