Follow the people and hashtags I want to follow (usually games, anime, tech, art, maybe food), unfollow anyone after they've posted stuff that I hate or don't want to hear, filter all posts with keywords of stuff I don't want to see.

That's what I do.

My friends had a negative experience because everytime they open the app it's some drama, some politics, some horrible human actions.

After telling them what I do, and told them to do that (but custom for their interests), then they started to enjoy it and use it more.