I want to love Mastodon but the flippant, naive attitude it has to decentralization seems to make it incompatible with being a mainstream replacement for twitter. I read some introductory guide...
I want to love Mastodon but the flippant, naive attitude it has to decentralization seems to make it incompatible with being a mainstream replacement for twitter. I read some introductory guide (which was way too long) and at one point they discourage to register with any major instance and instead go with a small, unknown one because it's "much faster" and you can "easily switch". But that just spreads the burden of moderation among thousands of probably ill-prepared private hosts and in case they decide to shut down (possibly because of the legal problems mentioned in the link), you have to scramble to find a new one or have your account vanish. I know there's a policy for three months notices and whatnot but it still seems insecure and unsustainable. You can't have a major social network that basically just tells you to trust random nerds running servers in their living room.
I agree but for a completely different reason. I think it's insane that so many people are tying their social handle to hosts that can disappear from one day to the next. At least mastodon makes...
I agree but for a completely different reason.
I think it's insane that so many people are tying their social handle to hosts that can disappear from one day to the next. At least mastodon makes it easy to migrate and broadcast new accounts, but still, if you're nothis@social.example.com and that instance is shut down without warning, there's no easy migration path.
People will re-learn the lessons of email hosts of the 90s. I'm sure there's a decent group that still remembers making the mistake of getting an email address with their isp...
In the mean time, there's no way I'm not going to do this on my own domain
I mean, it's true that lots of people are tying their social handle to hosts that could disappear, but isn't that exactly what people are fleeing on Twitter? As long as you have some connection to...
I mean, it's true that lots of people are tying their social handle to hosts that could disappear, but isn't that exactly what people are fleeing on Twitter? As long as you have some connection to the admins of your instance, it's not a downgrade, really, especially for trans people and BIPOC who are routinely banned from Twitter without recourse for offenses like saying "fuck off" to bigots or posting about their personal experiences, positive or negative, of existing in society.
I think it's a huge upgrade that Mastodon makes it possible to choose an instance that takes these considerations into account, but I also think "As long as you have some connection to the admins...
I think it's a huge upgrade that Mastodon makes it possible to choose an instance that takes these considerations into account, but I also think "As long as you have some connection to the admins of your instance" is a big enough ask for most users that it would kill adoption entirely if it were a necessity.
I absolutely agree. I think that online spaces that pursue growth at all costs, or even "reasonable growth" via invite systems or whatever, are extremely prone to problems that online spaces made...
I also think "As long as you have some connection to the admins of your instance" is a big enough ask for most users that it would kill adoption entirely if it were a necessity.
I absolutely agree. I think that online spaces that pursue growth at all costs, or even "reasonable growth" via invite systems or whatever, are extremely prone to problems that online spaces made up of communities - small communities, preferably, where one has to have at least a short conversation with some members before joining - are not. Many Discord servers (not actually federated, but with similar aesthetics and moderation issues) have realized this and have started requiring at least a short conversation before giving users access to most channels.
Adoption is not an unalloyed good, for either users or administrators. It's only always good for VC backed companies that must demonstrate growth or die.
For sure, and I think the forum we're on right now is a great example of niche community done well! My self-interested hope for Mastodon's growth, and more generally for open protocols rather than...
Adoption is not an unalloyed good, for either users or administrators. It's only always good for VC backed companies that must demonstrate growth or die.
For sure, and I think the forum we're on right now is a great example of niche community done well!
My self-interested hope for Mastodon's growth, and more generally for open protocols rather than platforms, is that they get big enough to be self sustaining and ideally even big enough act as viable alternatives to those VC backed companies. It doesn't have to be an infinite or unthinking pursuit of users, but I'd be pleased if it's enough of a focus to shift the landscape a bit.
Yeah, Mastodon's "solution" to the scale issue is "well, federation!" but it's not really a solution. Beyond technical limitations (if most of your users are following a select group of...
Yeah, Mastodon's "solution" to the scale issue is "well, federation!" but it's not really a solution. Beyond technical limitations (if most of your users are following a select group of celebrities like on Twitter, that info still needs to fanout to all the tiny instances, federated or not, which implicitly forces those tiny instances to have very high read loads), there's many social, regulatory, and practical reasons for people to gravitate towards de facto instances.
If Mastodon succeeds, there'll inevitably be at least an oligopoly of places where the vast majority of people make their accounts, and who somehow or another have figured out how to pay for services, maintenance, and content moderation.
As long as open and self hosted is still an option I still see this as an absolute win, to the extent that I'd actually much prefer if projects like Mastodon acknowledged and leaned into it. Most...
If Mastodon succeeds, there'll inevitably be at least an oligopoly of places where the vast majority of people make their accounts, and who somehow or another have figured out how to pay for services, maintenance, and content moderation.
As long as open and self hosted is still an option I still see this as an absolute win, to the extent that I'd actually much prefer if projects like Mastodon acknowledged and leaned into it. Most people want a zero effort process that connects them to the people and content they care about, and that means just going to a big provider and hitting the sign up button - if we want Mastodon et al to succeed in the face of competition from the incumbents, they need to provide equivalent UX as a bare minimum.
Vetting the credentials and stability of a smaller instance just isn't something that the average user wants to spend time on even if they happen to have the skills to do so, and running a personal instance (or knowing someone who does) is not even close to being on their radar. That's fine, these people are 90%+ of the people on any given platform, so let's accommodate them. So long as self hosting is still possible it gives two absolutely crucial benefits: the small percentage who do care enough to do so can take responsibility for controlling their own data, and for everyone else there can still be competition between large providers (including the ability for a new one to take over entirely without loss of state if a Twitter-equivalent fuck up takes place) rather than "our way or the highway".
It's the same as email or the web itself: having a few giant players dominate an open protocol isn't ideal, but it's vastly preferable to having one giant player control a space entirely with no alternative and no possibility to challenge them without starting from scratch and going head to head. I'd prefer a pragmatic solution that expects moderate centralisation than one that hopes for perfect distribution and fails because of it.
I'm going to piggyback off this post to just mention for those wondering that self-hosting still carries legal risks, at least in the case of federated platforms like Mastodon. From the article:...
I'm going to piggyback off this post to just mention for those wondering that self-hosting still carries legal risks, at least in the case of federated platforms like Mastodon. From the article:
Even if you have a single-user Mastodon server, the fact Mastodon can cause federated content (other people's posts) to show under your URL means that you should register a designated agent. If a rightsholder sees the YourServer copy of an infringing post, they will go after you because it appears under your URL. The recent surge in "automated DMCA enforcement" copyright troll legal shops means that you should register a designated agent, check the email address you give regularly for copyright violation DMCA notices, and follow the process set forth in the law for handling them.
...whether or not the Mastodon server in question is likely to actually have this happen is beyond me, as I don't use Mastodon, but I think it's worth being aware of.
Absolutely. There's a weird dichotomy between what people trying to join Mastodon are told ("it's just like email, don't worry what instance you pick!") and the typical response when issues occur...
Absolutely. There's a weird dichotomy between what people trying to join Mastodon are told ("it's just like email, don't worry what instance you pick!") and the typical response when issues occur later on ("it's because you're on a huge instance, you should switch to a smaller one ASAP!"). The fact of the matter is that the instance you choose is absolutely important, because even if you do decide to move later on, not all of your connections may get transferred if the place you're moving to has different federation policies. This also ties into the moderation issue, since mastodon.social was essentially running with no moderators except Eugen himself for a few months up until this surge of new users. Many smaller instances have chosen to silence mastodon.social and even completely suspend communication with it in some cases, simply for fear that its recent efforts to build a moderation team are too little, too late.
This is a feature. Twitter sucks. No, but you can have one where genuine connection is the norm. I met half my current friend group on Mastodon, and my current partner.
seems to make it incompatible with being a mainstream replacement for twitter
This is a feature. Twitter sucks.
You can't have a major social network that basically just tells you to trust random nerds running servers in their living room.
No, but you can have one where genuine connection is the norm. I met half my current friend group on Mastodon, and my current partner.
For example, I love tildes. But I know it wouldn't work as a mainstream social network. Those are different categories. What I'm arguing is that, if twitter genuinely goes up in flames, something...
For example, I love tildes. But I know it wouldn't work as a mainstream social network. Those are different categories.
What I'm arguing is that, if twitter genuinely goes up in flames, something will fill the void. That's just human nature and the internet colliding. I'm just hoping whatever comes next is actually better.
Yes. I agree with you. What I'm saying here is that the Fediverse should be treated as a way for distinct communities to connect with each other, not one big social network, and certainly not one...
Yes. I agree with you. What I'm saying here is that the Fediverse should be treated as a way for distinct communities to connect with each other, not one big social network, and certainly not one that's attempting to go mainstream.
I get many don't like Elon for many reasons but Twitter is still working fine, how are you going to say it sucks when Twitter adds Signal's private DM and on the other hand Mastodon admins can...
I get many don't like Elon for many reasons but Twitter is still working fine, how are you going to say it sucks when Twitter adds Signal's private DM and on the other hand Mastodon admins can read your DM?.
Musk saying Twitter is going to get E2E messaging isn't the same as Twitter actually getting E2E messaging. He says a lot off stuff. Anyway, a sprinkling of crypto won't stop Twitter sucking. Nor...
Musk saying Twitter is going to get E2E messaging isn't the same as Twitter actually getting E2E messaging. He says a lot off stuff. Anyway, a sprinkling of crypto won't stop Twitter sucking. Nor does not having it make Mastodon suck less, frankly. Chaaracter-limited blogging is fundamentally sucky.
I find it very curious that you appear to be suggesting the reason people think Twitter sucks is the lack of a feature that it doesn't currently have?
I recently told @th0mcat about a few twitter threads I found regarding this topic that gave a general overview of what to expect. Recently, though, I found out that the same person who made said...
The impending entropy-related demise of Twitter has been prompting a lot of people to start up their own Mastodon servers for them and their friends, and people are thinking about them like starting Discord servers. Because Discord hosts their 'servers' for you, under their URL and on their hardware, the potential liability accrues to Discord, not to the person who started a Discord server.
However, the same isn't true for Mastodon. Because Mastodon servers are self-hosted, appear under URLs the server owner controls, and are on hardware that server owners arrange the details of, the potential liability for anything posted on an individual Mastodon server (including content that was originally posted on another Mastodon server but appears under your URL due to federation) accrues to the individual server owner, not to Mastodon gGmbH, the nonprofit that handles the code and oversees the protocol.
I recently told @th0mcat about a few twitter threads I found regarding this topic that gave a general overview of what to expect. Recently, though, I found out that the same person who made said threads also wrote up an extended post on their site about how to handle this kind of thing in detail, and so I figured it deserved its own post.
This info is from a United States perspective, and is less applicable if your service is hosted outside the U.S., but it's still a very handy reference with loads of links that can give you some ideas of things you may need to watch out for. This said, nothing beats getting an actual lawyer and talking to them, and this post will never replace that, so if you're unsure, you should find one!
I want to love Mastodon but the flippant, naive attitude it has to decentralization seems to make it incompatible with being a mainstream replacement for twitter. I read some introductory guide (which was way too long) and at one point they discourage to register with any major instance and instead go with a small, unknown one because it's "much faster" and you can "easily switch". But that just spreads the burden of moderation among thousands of probably ill-prepared private hosts and in case they decide to shut down (possibly because of the legal problems mentioned in the link), you have to scramble to find a new one or have your account vanish. I know there's a policy for three months notices and whatnot but it still seems insecure and unsustainable. You can't have a major social network that basically just tells you to trust random nerds running servers in their living room.
I agree but for a completely different reason.
I think it's insane that so many people are tying their social handle to hosts that can disappear from one day to the next. At least mastodon makes it easy to migrate and broadcast new accounts, but still, if you're nothis@social.example.com and that instance is shut down without warning, there's no easy migration path.
People will re-learn the lessons of email hosts of the 90s. I'm sure there's a decent group that still remembers making the mistake of getting an email address with their isp...
In the mean time, there's no way I'm not going to do this on my own domain
I mean, it's true that lots of people are tying their social handle to hosts that could disappear, but isn't that exactly what people are fleeing on Twitter? As long as you have some connection to the admins of your instance, it's not a downgrade, really, especially for trans people and BIPOC who are routinely banned from Twitter without recourse for offenses like saying "fuck off" to bigots or posting about their personal experiences, positive or negative, of existing in society.
I think it's a huge upgrade that Mastodon makes it possible to choose an instance that takes these considerations into account, but I also think "As long as you have some connection to the admins of your instance" is a big enough ask for most users that it would kill adoption entirely if it were a necessity.
I absolutely agree. I think that online spaces that pursue growth at all costs, or even "reasonable growth" via invite systems or whatever, are extremely prone to problems that online spaces made up of communities - small communities, preferably, where one has to have at least a short conversation with some members before joining - are not. Many Discord servers (not actually federated, but with similar aesthetics and moderation issues) have realized this and have started requiring at least a short conversation before giving users access to most channels.
Adoption is not an unalloyed good, for either users or administrators. It's only always good for VC backed companies that must demonstrate growth or die.
For sure, and I think the forum we're on right now is a great example of niche community done well!
My self-interested hope for Mastodon's growth, and more generally for open protocols rather than platforms, is that they get big enough to be self sustaining and ideally even big enough act as viable alternatives to those VC backed companies. It doesn't have to be an infinite or unthinking pursuit of users, but I'd be pleased if it's enough of a focus to shift the landscape a bit.
Yeah, Mastodon's "solution" to the scale issue is "well, federation!" but it's not really a solution. Beyond technical limitations (if most of your users are following a select group of celebrities like on Twitter, that info still needs to fanout to all the tiny instances, federated or not, which implicitly forces those tiny instances to have very high read loads), there's many social, regulatory, and practical reasons for people to gravitate towards de facto instances.
If Mastodon succeeds, there'll inevitably be at least an oligopoly of places where the vast majority of people make their accounts, and who somehow or another have figured out how to pay for services, maintenance, and content moderation.
As long as open and self hosted is still an option I still see this as an absolute win, to the extent that I'd actually much prefer if projects like Mastodon acknowledged and leaned into it. Most people want a zero effort process that connects them to the people and content they care about, and that means just going to a big provider and hitting the sign up button - if we want Mastodon et al to succeed in the face of competition from the incumbents, they need to provide equivalent UX as a bare minimum.
Vetting the credentials and stability of a smaller instance just isn't something that the average user wants to spend time on even if they happen to have the skills to do so, and running a personal instance (or knowing someone who does) is not even close to being on their radar. That's fine, these people are 90%+ of the people on any given platform, so let's accommodate them. So long as self hosting is still possible it gives two absolutely crucial benefits: the small percentage who do care enough to do so can take responsibility for controlling their own data, and for everyone else there can still be competition between large providers (including the ability for a new one to take over entirely without loss of state if a Twitter-equivalent fuck up takes place) rather than "our way or the highway".
It's the same as email or the web itself: having a few giant players dominate an open protocol isn't ideal, but it's vastly preferable to having one giant player control a space entirely with no alternative and no possibility to challenge them without starting from scratch and going head to head. I'd prefer a pragmatic solution that expects moderate centralisation than one that hopes for perfect distribution and fails because of it.
I'm going to piggyback off this post to just mention for those wondering that self-hosting still carries legal risks, at least in the case of federated platforms like Mastodon. From the article:
...whether or not the Mastodon server in question is likely to actually have this happen is beyond me, as I don't use Mastodon, but I think it's worth being aware of.
I can't believe I'm saying this but... could this be an actual use of blockchain technology?
Broadcasting your handle as it changes? I guess. It seems overkill though.
Yeah, you don't really need the blockchain, just the cryptography.
Absolutely. There's a weird dichotomy between what people trying to join Mastodon are told ("it's just like email, don't worry what instance you pick!") and the typical response when issues occur later on ("it's because you're on a huge instance, you should switch to a smaller one ASAP!"). The fact of the matter is that the instance you choose is absolutely important, because even if you do decide to move later on, not all of your connections may get transferred if the place you're moving to has different federation policies. This also ties into the moderation issue, since mastodon.social was essentially running with no moderators except Eugen himself for a few months up until this surge of new users. Many smaller instances have chosen to silence mastodon.social and even completely suspend communication with it in some cases, simply for fear that its recent efforts to build a moderation team are too little, too late.
This is a feature. Twitter sucks.
No, but you can have one where genuine connection is the norm. I met half my current friend group on Mastodon, and my current partner.
For example, I love tildes. But I know it wouldn't work as a mainstream social network. Those are different categories.
What I'm arguing is that, if twitter genuinely goes up in flames, something will fill the void. That's just human nature and the internet colliding. I'm just hoping whatever comes next is actually better.
Yes. I agree with you. What I'm saying here is that the Fediverse should be treated as a way for distinct communities to connect with each other, not one big social network, and certainly not one that's attempting to go mainstream.
I get many don't like Elon for many reasons but Twitter is still working fine, how are you going to say it sucks when Twitter adds Signal's private DM and on the other hand Mastodon admins can read your DM?.
Musk saying Twitter is going to get E2E messaging isn't the same as Twitter actually getting E2E messaging. He says a lot off stuff. Anyway, a sprinkling of crypto won't stop Twitter sucking. Nor does not having it make Mastodon suck less, frankly. Chaaracter-limited blogging is fundamentally sucky.
I find it very curious that you appear to be suggesting the reason people think Twitter sucks is the lack of a feature that it doesn't currently have?
Well, there's work on both sides to encrypt DMs, and currently neither one has it, so I'm not sure what your argument is here.
I recently told @th0mcat about a few twitter threads I found regarding this topic that gave a general overview of what to expect. Recently, though, I found out that the same person who made said threads also wrote up an extended post on their site about how to handle this kind of thing in detail, and so I figured it deserved its own post.
This info is from a United States perspective, and is less applicable if your service is hosted outside the U.S., but it's still a very handy reference with loads of links that can give you some ideas of things you may need to watch out for. This said, nothing beats getting an actual lawyer and talking to them, and this post will never replace that, so if you're unsure, you should find one!