DU Is Also a Social Media Platform
Unlike Facebook and Twitter, though, it is a social media platform that has a specific focus. It is self-controlling, in that people who don't share that focus and a general set of beliefs soon find themselves locked out of the site.
As with Facebook and Twitter, users of DU have some tools they can use to control their experience on the site. Any DUer can put specific users into Ignore status and never see them. They can also hide a number of forums so they don't even see them. You can even block keywords in titles and never see posts that have those keyword in their titles. There are a number of settings users can use to customize DU, but that doesn't change the fact that most DUers are Democrats or progressives, so you're unlikely to encounter viewpoint that are extremely different from your own.
If you use Facebook or Twitter, you can use those websites' tools to control your experience on them as well. You can block everyone but those you choose as Friends from even seeing content on your Facebook page. You can block specific individuals from being seen by you, as well, on both sites. With a little effort, you can systematically block ads from specific sources from showing up in your feed.
However, what you cannot do is control who else uses Facebook and Twitter. That makes them different from DU, which is designed to keep people with views very far from its norms from using the site. DUers are protected from seeing most content that offends them. Most. Depending on your sensitivity to offenses, though, some content that's OK on DU might still offend you, but you do have settings you can use to minimize that as well.
Social media venues are what they are. You can choose to use them or not. If you do choose to use them, you can use the venue's settings to customize it for yourself. You can make it work the way you want to a large degree.
Or, you can just use DU as your social media and pretty much avoid being disturbed too much by what you see.
