I quit Twitter in disgust last year, frequently triggered by the trending topics. Now when I sometimes follow a Twitter link, I avert my eyes from trending topic, like I also often do with commercials and ads. I know that such manipulation works on me to some extent, so I make some effort not to consume it.
I hope some day sophisticated AI "ad blockers" can be easily extended to such non-advertising manipulative content. But I suspect that their adversary AIs will keep up with that arms race.
You can change the location you see trending topics for. Set it to some tiny country and there' wont be anything trending. (or use an adblocker to remove the trending box, but the other thing syncs with the account to everywhere)
Yeah, I used to set mine to Japan, so I literally can't even read the trending topics. Works pretty well, except a bunch of English-text trends still get in there. :\
I hope some day sophisticated AI "ad blockers" can be easily extended to such non-advertising manipulative content. But I suspect that their adversary AIs will keep up with that arms race.