Might be totally anecdotal but I'm seeing a lot of buzz about this in my circles. I haven't been able to check it out myself as I haven't been able to find an invite, but I find it fascinating how...
Might be totally anecdotal but I'm seeing a lot of buzz about this in my circles. I haven't been able to check it out myself as I haven't been able to find an invite, but I find it fascinating how popular some social services manage to create hype while others can't, despite having almost no discernible difference to the average user.
I think the biggest discernible difference the average user should care about is moderation and I have not been able to find or read anything about how Bluesky handles that. I realize Bluesky is not a platform but a name of a company that develops the protocol so it'd mostly be up to the platform owners to decide what's allowed and what's not, but I'm just surprised that after so many examples of social media companies mishandling, ignoring, or underestimating the importance of moderation (or lack thereof) that they'd be so willing to jump ship to an alternative that considers it an afterthought.
Mastodon has many issues, mostly on the usability side, but at least it's got clear rules. (Not saying it's perfect.)
I did not have the chance to check it out myself (no invite) but I read a reply from a dev I think that moderation is not at all an after thought and they are actively working on it but they...
I did not have the chance to check it out myself (no invite) but I read a reply from a dev I think that moderation is not at all an after thought and they are actively working on it but they wanted to get the very basics out first. What makes you think it's an after thought?
If anyone has a spare invite I would love to try it out myself.
Because the AT Protocol Bluesky is built upon and develops mentions moderation only once in its docs, and only in the title. The rest of the section talks about speech and reach, which is your...
What makes you think it's an after thought?
Because the AT Protocol Bluesky is built upon and develops mentions moderation only once in its docs, and only in the title. The rest of the section talks about speech and reach, which is your typical Silicon Valley bullshit du jour.
I mean, I realize this is only tangentially related to moderation, but Bluesky doesn't even have a block button yet. Their devs can talk about how moderation is not an afterthought all they want, but it clearly is. I'm not just talking about the lack of a button. I'm talking about the lack of thought for moderation when they designed the protocol.
They have a block button now! Your points are valid, but I think they are aware of the legacy they are inheriting, more than other platforms seem to be. The CEO has written cogently about their...
They have a block button now! Your points are valid, but I think they are aware of the legacy they are inheriting, more than other platforms seem to be. The CEO has written cogently about their plan — and so far it is just a plan, not a reality: https://blueskyweb.xyz/blog/4-13-2023-moderation
I hope they are able to find a scalable approach to moderation. It’s not easy, and I’d argue no one has really done it without heavy community fragmentation and human intervention. Maybe those are ultimately necessary because of divergent normative views across communities, but there’s still a question of how large those individual communities can get.
ok fair enough. I haven't personally looked into the design/implementation details of the protocol. Is it already publicly available? Have you checked if it's really designed in a way that adding...
ok fair enough. I haven't personally looked into the design/implementation details of the protocol. Is it already publicly available? Have you checked if it's really designed in a way that adding more moderation features is harder than it should be? I agree that you can design a protocol in a way that makes it hard to extend but if it's designed with extensibility and moderation in mind (which it should be), I would refrain from calling anything an after thought. I am not saying it's either way, I am just saying without looking at the implementation details you simply can't make a claim.
How is their policy on minority protection against stochastic terrorism and libel, and users who engage in said activity and the constant pushing of hate speech boundaries? Also do they allow nudity?
How is their policy on minority protection against stochastic terrorism and libel, and users who engage in said activity and the constant pushing of hate speech boundaries?
Here’s a blog post by the BlueSky CEO about how they plan to do moderation: Composable Moderation It seems very abstract. Everything is going to depend on what services there are and how well...
Here’s a blog post by the BlueSky CEO about how they plan to do moderation: Composable Moderation
It seems very abstract. Everything is going to depend on what services there are and how well they’re implemented in practice. It will take time to evaluate this after they launch.
It seems like there’s a possibility of abusive moderation. A system for labeling posts could be misused. I’m not sure it would be any worse than what could be done just by linking to posts, though?
In my memory - and bear in mind I'm old enough to have a 3-letter twitter handle which I created during the beta, which means I was there at the time but it also means I'm old enough that my...
In my memory - and bear in mind I'm old enough to have a 3-letter twitter handle which I created during the beta, which means I was there at the time but it also means I'm old enough that my memory is perhaps not so trustworthy - the journalists were on twitter first, the brands and politicians went there later because it let them reach the journalists easily (and therefore the public, ultimately).
Musk seems to be working quite hard at pissing off the press right now, if they jump then a lot of people will follow them.
I'd caveat that with tech-bloggers and the tech press were on there first. Then culture writers and comedians and other creatives. The political journalists came after (and, IMO, ruined it).
I'd caveat that with tech-bloggers and the tech press were on there first. Then culture writers and comedians and other creatives. The political journalists came after (and, IMO, ruined it).
Really not sure why everybody's jumping on to this so quickly. It just looks like Twitter 2, and will in all likelihood inherit all of the problems that come with that. I mean, it's even run by...
Really not sure why everybody's jumping on to this so quickly. It just looks like Twitter 2, and will in all likelihood inherit all of the problems that come with that. I mean, it's even run by the same guy who did Twitter to begin with, so I've got next to no hope that it won't just follow in Twitter's footsteps.
I would've hoped that everything that's happened to Twitter over the years might've helped disillusion people towards it and want something better, but I guess familiarity is stronger.
They just sent me an invite. It feels like a barebones Twitter clone. There are people already farming followers. I already have few followers (bot?) even though I haven't posted anything....
They just sent me an invite. It feels like a barebones Twitter clone. There are people already farming followers. I already have few followers (bot?) even though I haven't posted anything. Hopefully, it will get better.
Because people sometimes learn things from previous experience, sometimes people make different decisions and it matters (even if it they don’t understand the consequences right away), and so...
Because people sometimes learn things from previous experience, sometimes people make different decisions and it matters (even if it they don’t understand the consequences right away), and so sometimes the way communities evolve is path-dependent rather than inevitably ending up in the same place.
We’ll find out eventually. In the meantime I default to assuming we don’t know what’s going to happen.
I'm a firm believer that the evils we deal with in the world today are a product of the systems we live in, not the people that make them up, and so the idea that this time around will be better...
I'm a firm believer that the evils we deal with in the world today are a product of the systems we live in, not the people that make them up, and so the idea that this time around will be better because some individuals learned a couple lessons isn't very reassuring when the system that surrounds them has barely changed.
I'd like to be wrong, but from what I can see on Bluesky, I'm just not hopeful at all. I've seen far too much capitalism to be optimistic anymore.
Yes, it’s a systems problem, but they’re building a system. I don’t see it as being particularly hopeful, just not pre-judging whatever they come up with sight unseen. It’s reasonable to ignore it...
Yes, it’s a systems problem, but they’re building a system. I don’t see it as being particularly hopeful, just not pre-judging whatever they come up with sight unseen.
I'm less concerned with the system they're building and moreso the social environment they're in, as that's the primary factor that will influence what they create, and that environment has not...
I'm less concerned with the system they're building and moreso the social environment they're in, as that's the primary factor that will influence what they create, and that environment has not changed for the better in the intervening time.
Besides, I'd be fine with ignoring it, but it doesn't seem like people are doing that. They're getting excited and pining for invites to a platform that has every reason to be just as bad as the last. It bothers me, especially when better alternatives exist already.
I’m not sure that briefly seeming popular when invites are hard to get means much. Clubhouse was like that for a while but it faded. I can’t remember the name, but I remember joining another...
I’m not sure that briefly seeming popular when invites are hard to get means much. Clubhouse was like that for a while but it faded.
I can’t remember the name, but I remember joining another social networking site that was briefly popular enough that several friends joined, and then we chatted a bit for a few weeks, but then we got bored and left. So if that’s how it goes then people have bad or just mediocre experiences and after the novelty wears off, the problem takes care of itself.
I remember begging for invites to Google Buzz and Google+ on reddit, getting on them and then having nothing to do on them because obviously everyone was on Twitter and Facebook. Ultimately this...
I remember begging for invites to Google Buzz and Google+ on reddit, getting on them and then having nothing to do on them because obviously everyone was on Twitter and Facebook. Ultimately this does seem to have more potential, since influencers are getting invited to this website before everyone else.
On the subject of the fediverse, Lemmy is a pretty interesting attempt at creating a federated Reddit clone. What it needs are a few good servers. Literally the only two major ones are a communist...
On the subject of the fediverse, Lemmy is a pretty interesting attempt at creating a federated Reddit clone. What it needs are a few good servers. Literally the only two major ones are a communist community and the main Lemmy server.
If you want to share a Tildes post with the Fediverse, you can link to it. The replies will be separate and I think that’s for the best, given differences in moderation.
If you want to share a Tildes post with the Fediverse, you can link to it. The replies will be separate and I think that’s for the best, given differences in moderation.
That ended up going in the opposite direction I expected. Maybe I'm just not familiar with the well moderated internet because I thought tildes was an example of good moderation (as far as what...
That ended up going in the opposite direction I expected. Maybe I'm just not familiar with the well moderated internet because I thought tildes was an example of good moderation (as far as what ends up being removed goes).
There's also advantages to not posting in a bubble that's in cultural lock-step. I get why some people desire that, and we probably all desire it to some degree but not everybody does nor to the...
There's also advantages to not posting in a bubble that's in cultural lock-step. I get why some people desire that, and we probably all desire it to some degree but not everybody does nor to the same level.
Well you did lead with this: I guess you could argue 'cultural lock-step' might not apply, but relative to here it sounds like it would. But probably not diversity of opinions.
Well you did lead with this:
Some of it is cultural though, and these instances have a pretty big advantage over Tildes in that they are well-defined "ideological neighborhoods". Odds are, someone who wants to join one of these instances, or gets invited to join them, already vibes with them, resonates with their values and culture, etc.
I guess you could argue 'cultural lock-step' might not apply, but relative to here it sounds like it would.
That actually makes them more diverse, and better for discussion than Tildes.
I hear what you're saying and largely agree with your intent, I think we just disagree on semantics and execution. I'm not a 'free-speech' person whatsoever, and I don't think any...
I hear what you're saying and largely agree with your intent, I think we just disagree on semantics and execution.
I'm not a 'free-speech' person whatsoever, and I don't think any non-self-loathing user of Tildes is. I'm not looking for an extreme amount of breadth in my internet discussions, but some amount of range is nice. Tildes is a big-tent and largely left-aligned space that appears to run the gamut from anarchist to neoliberal and everything in-between.
As @Cyclonblaze pointed out, this might not be explicitly spelled out for you but there are established norms here and they tend to be mostly enforced.
These places are great for discussion, specifically because they structure themselves beyond the regurgitated simplicity of "be civil".
Do you have an example of this? Because I'm struggling to see a material difference in your description from Tildes.
I think it might be that Tildes groups aren’t separate communities? They were meant to be (I assume) but it didn’t happen. There are only a few people here and we mostly read (or skim) everything....
I think it might be that Tildes groups aren’t separate communities? They were meant to be (I assume) but it didn’t happen. There are only a few people here and we mostly read (or skim) everything. When you post a new topic, you can assume everyone will see it no matter which group it is.
You can get diversity of opinion from having a lot of communities (like subreddits or blogs or fediverse servers) even though each community has less diversity. But there would need to be better boundaries, somehow, for separate communities to form.
I don’t think we’ve seen separate communities form within a subreddit, either, even if the number of active users is far more than Tildes?
The original design for tildes (I think - cfabbro or deimos might disagree) outlined a kind of hierarchical structure of communities. It never really materialized much beyond the subgroups of...
I don’t think we’ve seen separate communities form within a subreddit, either, even if the number of active users is far more than Tildes?
The original design for tildes (I think - cfabbro or deimos might disagree) outlined a kind of hierarchical structure of communities. It never really materialized much beyond the subgroups of health, creative and games, and I think it doesn't really have much of an effect on visibility of posts due to the mentioned "monolithic" community on here. But in a larger network, I think that makes a lot of sense.
(Pet theory: Because topics are a graph and not a tree, including a subcommunity of another community makes sense. On a case by case basis. The people of programming.gamedev might decide to accept games.gamedesign as a honorary subcommunity of their own, making the topic graph a proper graph. Distant future kinda stuff though.)
Fundamentally, yea. Tagging has kinda taken over the details of that hierarchy in practice, and thus avoiding many of those mesh vs hierarchy problems.
Because topics are a graph and not a tree
Fundamentally, yea. Tagging has kinda taken over the details of that hierarchy in practice, and thus avoiding many of those mesh vs hierarchy problems.
I don't know if federation is the best idea for something like reddit. Unlike Twitter, where you want a chronological timeline of posts, a lot of sketchy stuff can come from voting, for example, a...
I don't know if federation is the best idea for something like reddit. Unlike Twitter, where you want a chronological timeline of posts, a lot of sketchy stuff can come from voting, for example, a rogue instance upvoting certain posts to get it to the top of the federated frontpage, servers selectively not counting votes from other servers, certain frontpages down weighting other instances' posts, etc. Basically think every reddit moderator drama but now they have admin powers over their subreddit.
Bluesky appears to be trending in my circles on twitter. What are people's thoughts on it/is there much discussion of it on the mastodon side of things?
Bluesky appears to be trending in my circles on twitter. What are people's thoughts on it/is there much discussion of it on the mastodon side of things?
As someone who's been on Mastodon since 2018, can I ask what is confusing about it? I've seen the broad complaints, but I guess I'm looking for the experience of someone with at least some...
As someone who's been on Mastodon since 2018, can I ask what is confusing about it? I've seen the broad complaints, but I guess I'm looking for the experience of someone with at least some tech-savvy (evidenced by your presence here) who still felt rebuffed by the fediverse.
I thought that was by design - i.e. Mastodon does its absolute best to hide retweet/like counts until you click on the post itself. I'm pretty sure this was done to stop the issue of ratio'ing...
I thought that was by design - i.e. Mastodon does its absolute best to hide retweet/like counts until you click on the post itself. I'm pretty sure this was done to stop the issue of ratio'ing folks and whatnot, and trying to enable a more civil conversation around things.
A lot of Twitter/social media gamification is super hard when coming to Mastodon, but then once you get used to it, it feels weird coming back to Twitter and seeing people go nuts over random numbers under tweets. Reminds me when caring about karma was all the rage on Reddit to the point where folks who had massive amounts of karma would act like dicks because they had so much karma they could "afford" to burn some of the karma. In reality, it was a loser who was obsessed with numbers being played by algorithms to interact with the machine more than he would've done.
It's an intentional decision, not a consequence of federation; the idea is to disincentive dogpiles and reduce the addictiveness of social media. https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/420
It's an intentional decision, not a consequence of federation; the idea is to disincentive dogpiles and reduce the addictiveness of social media. https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/420
For the average user the very notion of subscribing to a node that's administrated by an independent entity, each with highly customized layouts that are not exactly the same everywhere (I can't...
For the average user the very notion of subscribing to a node that's administrated by an independent entity, each with highly customized layouts that are not exactly the same everywhere (I can't stress enough how important consistency is for the non-techie...) is too much to handle. Additionally, nodes may or may not remain in existence, and manage a complex relationship to other nodes that is difficult to comprehend.
The very fact that one must choose an instance is too much friction.
In most cases, anyone saying Mastodon is simple is being like my friend who's a professional cook when he tells me Beef Wellington is easy to make. Or someone from Germany who can't understand why Americans can't speak German. The highly competent overestimate the competence of others.
I feel lazy just thinking about using Mastodon, and I used it before. Besides the above, the fact that each node is essentially its own community with its own cliques and group dynamics makes me uneasy. Feels hard to navigate.
I mean...if that's too hard for everyone, we should not have any large social network with frictionless messaging, because we cannot trust each other or the administrators of any such network. Not...
I mean...if that's too hard for everyone, we should not have any large social network with frictionless messaging, because we cannot trust each other or the administrators of any such network. Not if the users aren't willing to invest that energy into responsible communication. This is not some baroque system, it is almost exactly as hard as email. Friction is good sometimes, convenience is killing us all.
I'm sorry but what the heck are you talking about? 99% of B2B communication happens via email; I have my own domain identity for that and pay a provider, and it works just fine. Almost literally...
I'm sorry but what the heck are you talking about? 99% of B2B communication happens via email; I have my own domain identity for that and pay a provider, and it works just fine.
Almost literally everyone uses email. It's a core part of the infrastructure of our society at this point.
I'm talking about how nobody uses email for personal and social stuff. The use cases where Twitter and Discord and Facebook and Whatsapp and Instagram and so on have become so dominant. Part of...
I'm talking about how nobody uses email for personal and social stuff. The use cases where Twitter and Discord and Facebook and Whatsapp and Instagram and so on have become so dominant. Part of the reason those things are so successful is that they're easier to use than email, not to mention that they're just better for that kind of communication.
I thought it was obvious that I wasn't talking about corporate/business stuff - but only a tiny fraction of people are using Twitter for that so it isn't really relevant in the context of this discussion. My apologies if I didn't provide enough clarity on that.
Fwiw I barely use email for work. Most of my business is done via other messaging channels. But then I tend to deal with customers directly.
That's fascinating to me - most of my family uses email primarily, and I'm only a few years too old to be Gen Z. Lots of my friends, too, in addition to other things of course.
That's fascinating to me - most of my family uses email primarily, and I'm only a few years too old to be Gen Z. Lots of my friends, too, in addition to other things of course.
I don't really know what all the American generational age boundaries are but even my parents - who are both in their seventies - prefer whatsapp to email. I very occasionally get a personal email...
I don't really know what all the American generational age boundaries are but even my parents - who are both in their seventies - prefer whatsapp to email. I very occasionally get a personal email from my dad but I don't recall seeing one from anyone else for many, many years. To all intents and purposes, zero of my friends use email any more and we did used to, a lot. But it's so clunky and everything else is so much easier and faster.
I would say that is rather uncommon outside some specific technical, academic, or corporate environments. I can't remember the last time I sent or received a personal email, or any human-made...
I would say that is rather uncommon outside some specific technical, academic, or corporate environments. I can't remember the last time I sent or received a personal email, or any human-made email message at all. Not even my roughly 70-year-old parents use email for messaging. I use it almost exclusively for authentication purposes.
My experience is similar. Family who have gmail accounts use gmail chat almost always instead of email and most other people connect on SMS or Facebook. Sending an email to someone when I haven’t...
My experience is similar. Family who have gmail accounts use gmail chat almost always instead of email and most other people connect on SMS or Facebook. Sending an email to someone when I haven’t in years feels a little weird since I don’t know if the email works anymore, but still occasionally happens.
I just get email from businesses. Email newsletters are still supposed to be big, though, at least compared to RSS.
Email newsletters are written and read by people. I think the difference is that it's a publication that goes out to subscribers, not a personal message. Similarly for a comment notifications sent...
Email newsletters are written and read by people. I think the difference is that it's a publication that goes out to subscribers, not a personal message.
Similarly for a comment notifications sent by email. A comment is written and read by people, but it's not really "native" in the sense that a person didn't write it in an email client and decide which email addresses to send it to.
I think e-mail and ActivityPub are alike in that way: they started out as ways for people to directly communicate, but they are also messaging substrates for other applications. For instance, see...
I think e-mail and ActivityPub are alike in that way: they started out as ways for people to directly communicate, but they are also messaging substrates for other applications. For instance, see this WordPress plugin that turns ActivityPub into a comment substrate, or Darius Kazemi's RSS to ActivityPub server.
It's probably worth noting that email is the old and popular. It had no competition when it arrived. If the email had been created in 2016 (like Mastodon), it might never achieve its immense...
It's probably worth noting that email is the old and popular. It had no competition when it arrived. If the email had been created in 2016 (like Mastodon), it might never achieve its immense userbase.
The same goes for other old tech, such as IRC for example, or even something way more recent like Facebook.
Are email and mastodon more complicated than learning to drive a car? Apply for a loan? Purchase insurance? Graduating high school? These are things viewed as inevitable for everyday life in North...
Are email and mastodon more complicated than learning to drive a car? Apply for a loan? Purchase insurance? Graduating high school? These are things viewed as inevitable for everyday life in North America, and most in Europe as well. Are all these systems too baroque for the average person to manage? Can the average person not learn to cook and clean and build and think? Or is it that people feel entitled to an easy soapbox and feed which delivers digestible content that conforms to their worldview?
Global communication is a privilege, something humanity has had to work towards for, effectively, thousands of years. I'm not implying any sort of "internet license", but maybe we should stop pretending that the privilege of having our messages signalboosted to the feeds of millions around the world should come before we've put in a modicum of effort.
Yes, they can be, for some people. Depends on your base skillset. Have you even met people? But seriously, every person who doesn't have the time or inclination or - let's be honest - intellectual...
Are email and mastodon more complicated than learning to drive a car?
Yes, they can be, for some people. Depends on your base skillset.
Can the average person not learn to cook and clean and build and think?
Have you even met people?
But seriously, every person who doesn't have the time or inclination or - let's be honest - intellectual ability to learn how to use Mastodon or figure out how to run an email list, can do something you can't. Because instead they put the time in learning to applique or do all the voices reading Funnybones or tie flies or any of millions of other skills you didn't learn. That's sort of how we have an advanced culture, people learning different things and all working together.
If we can make things easier and better to use, why shouldn't we? That's literally all human progress has ever been about. I don't see why technology in particular needs to be kept behind a gate. I really don't see why we should keep the ability to communicate away from people when there is no reason to. Email was great, game-changingly so, when it first came along but then so were wax cylinder audio recordings and steam engines. The world has moved on from those things for good reason and the same for email. It was good, now it's less useful compared to other options, so it's slowly falling into disuse. No big deal.
Or is it that people feel entitled to an easy soapbox and feed which delivers digestible content that conforms to their worldview?
I don't think the vast majority of people feel entitled to this, and I think that's a very unfair assumption to make about our fellow humans. Presented with an easy (or at least easier) way to keep in touch with the people they care about, why would you expect people to not take that opportunity? Of course they're going to, they're people. Caring about other people (for better or worse) is what people do.
I'm not implying any sort of "internet license"
Sorry, but it does seem you're doing something very much like that. Your comment seems to suggest that you think people should have a certain level of technical knowledge and intellectual ability in order to be allowed to participate. Maybe not a paper license, but still.
Yes. Most of them have been taught not to learn. That doesn't make the lesson right. I'm essentially arguing that we need to enforce some degree of responsibility on one another when posting on a...
Have you even met people?
Yes. Most of them have been taught not to learn. That doesn't make the lesson right.
I don't see why technology in particular needs to be kept behind a gate. I really don't see why we should keep the ability to communicate away from people when there is no reason to.
I'm essentially arguing that we need to enforce some degree of responsibility on one another when posting on a public forum that's globally accessible. Not that some people don't deserve to be able to, but that if they don't take it seriously, then we get the cesspits we have today.
Presented with an easy (or at least easier) way to keep in touch with the people they care about, why would you expect people to not take that opportunity?
Oh, is this what people use twitter, tiktok, etc. for? Most of the use I see is people shouting opinions into the void and dogpiling strangers. A system for keeping up with friends and family would focus on direct messaging, or ad hoc group communication, and not trending topics, a feed populated with strangers' opinions, and its own culture.
Sorry, but it does seem you're doing something very much like that. Your comment seems to suggest that you think people should have a certain level of technical knowledge and intellectual ability in order to be allowed to participate. Maybe not a paper license, but still.
When somebody makes a social network, that isn't based on venture capital, that doesn't rely on incentivizing self-destructive habituation, that doesn't instigate shallow argumentation over considered conversation, and that gets popular, I'll believe that we don't need to make instant, global, universal communication slightly more difficult to access in order to prevent things like incel forum-driven violence, the mess that has been western politics since 2014, and further empowerment to the already-ruling people.
I'm not talking about the internet, I'm not talking about using it to send messages and look things up, I'm talking about being able to say something mean about your least favorite actor and have a 1/1000000 chance for them to see it, or make a political statement that gets shoved in front of thousands of other's faces, both essentially cost-free. Those aren't good for us, and they often seem like the ulterior motives in these conversations, when people who have broad knowledge across many subjects complain that they don't understand the idea of choosing a server based on moderation policies.
You're absolutely right that a lot of what gets channeled through social media is bad for society. I say channeled because of course technology doesn't create the problems inherent to human...
You're absolutely right that a lot of what gets channeled through social media is bad for society. I say channeled because of course technology doesn't create the problems inherent to human nature, it just amplifies them.
And that's the thing, human nature. People, speaking of the masses, will ultimately end up using low friction solutions. First, because adoption rates are far higher, and then because of network effect.
So, while it's no doubt true that a slightly higher intellectual (or motivational) barrier to entry would create better online spaces, it just doesn't matter. It's not what's going to happen, at least not when we're talking Twitter (or IG, or TikTok) scale.
Any solutions to our mass social media problems are going to have to be low friction, otherwise they'll remain niche (which is a sort of solution for some).
Look, if you want to be fatalistic, that's your prerogative. But I have more faith in humanity than assuming that this local minimum is indicative of our capacity for being better. I'm not...
Look, if you want to be fatalistic, that's your prerogative. But I have more faith in humanity than assuming that this local minimum is indicative of our capacity for being better. I'm not surrendering to a narrative that only seems to benefit the status quo, and I'll keep complaining about people insisting on limiting others because they don't believe in themselves.
Any solutions to our mass social media problems are going to have to be low friction
We could also get rid of mass social media. That is an option.
Not fatalistic, pragmatic. Humanity is both noble and apathetic at once. The best way to make the world better is to first accept humanity for what it is, rather than imagining replacing it, in...
Not fatalistic, pragmatic. Humanity is both noble and apathetic at once. The best way to make the world better is to first accept humanity for what it is, rather than imagining replacing it, in some magical way, with a new version.
We could also get rid of mass social media. That is an option.
I wouldn't be opposed... but how, realistically, would that happen? By realistically I mean, not in an ideal world, but in the one we occupy.
Fatalistic. Humans prefer comfort to responsibility, but that doesn't mean we're doomed to always be as bad as we are in systems where we are raised to objectify ourselves for the ease of...
Fatalistic. Humans prefer comfort to responsibility, but that doesn't mean we're doomed to always be as bad as we are in systems where we are raised to objectify ourselves for the ease of manipulation of others and surrender our powers of reason in order to thrive in corruption. Certainly not as bad as those abused people act in the ultimate accelerators of polarization and alienation that modern web culture is.
how, realistically, would that happen?
No clue, but I'd rather die frustrated for having tried than ensure the future we're currently hurtling toward by giving up.
Somewhere in the middle ground between giving up and unrealistic asks is where change actually happens, usually much more slowly than we'd like, but it happens nevertheless.
Somewhere in the middle ground between giving up and unrealistic asks is where change actually happens, usually much more slowly than we'd like, but it happens nevertheless.
Okay, and? If everyone stops bringing up the flaws in our system, they'll get better by themselves? We shouldn't discuss how far we are from meeting our own supposed principles? It really seems...
Okay, and? If everyone stops bringing up the flaws in our system, they'll get better by themselves? We shouldn't discuss how far we are from meeting our own supposed principles? It really seems like popular discourse on this matter has collapsed into "we tried the free and open web, and it didn't work, so we need to support thought policing via corporations" vs "free speech is the only meaningful standard, as long as it is only used to spread hate and decry democracy", should I just pick a camp and seethe at the other?
My ask is that people hold themselves accountable, and, failing that, they hold each other accountable. How can people who refuse to learn about a website be trusted to do that, or to be engaged in global discourse? It's hardly news to me that tech-savvy people have an easier time learning about novel technology than the layman, but if you contrast the mental models required to navigate Twitter or Facebook against Mastodon, the difference in complexity is small.
How did you manage to interpret what I'm saying as "we should stop holding each other accountable"? I can't speak for the popular discourse, my point is that we should look for solutions that will...
How did you manage to interpret what I'm saying as "we should stop holding each other accountable"?
I can't speak for the popular discourse, my point is that we should look for solutions that will have an impact on the world we live in, and the people we live in it with. I'll be amazed if Mastodon is that.
But don't feel like that means you should defend mastodon, I'd love it if the old school web for the tech inclined and intellectually curious came back.
I didn't, really. I was clarifying: I'm not sitting around here saying "tear down twitter! tear down social media!", and I don't think that would be helpful. What I'm saying is that if we have...
I didn't, really. I was clarifying: I'm not sitting around here saying "tear down twitter! tear down social media!", and I don't think that would be helpful. What I'm saying is that if we have these conversations about how things could be better, and we don't mention the things we're pretty sure won't happen, but wish would, we aren't doing our best.
Someone could build the ideal social network, and without a huge amount of luck as well as the financial backing of someone like Dorsey, it could never take off. Realistically. But crazier things have happened, and the only way they do is by the members of the movement acting irrationally. Dedicating themselves beyond all reason. Now, this is social media, it's not religion or anything, but that does mean that, on the off chance that the fediverse, or matrix, or any of the other smaller networks I try to promote, is close enough to that ideal, it's worth at least a strongly worded conversation. It's like buying a lottery share redeemable for bankrupting Meta. My talk of accountability was just a continuation of that promotion.
It may well be that a little bit of friction is actually preferred by the Mastodon user-base as a sort of cover charge to keep the unwashed masses out.
It may well be that a little bit of friction is actually preferred by the Mastodon user-base as a sort of cover charge to keep the unwashed masses out.
As a former Twitter user and current Mastodon user, I agree with this. I prefer that it's not as simple to use and that it has different instances, some with extremely strict moderation, and...
As a former Twitter user and current Mastodon user, I agree with this. I prefer that it's not as simple to use and that it has different instances, some with extremely strict moderation, and various other differences that make it unlike Twitter- the last thing I want it to become is just another Twitter. I like that I can be on a server that I know will not allow "brands", corporations, government accounts, marketing crap, etc. to join - it's nice to have a social media system whose federated design means you can stay away from all the BS.
That said, that same friction does prevent 80% of the people I connected with on Twitter from being able to or desiring to move along with me. So, in turning to Mastodon I just decided that I'll be a part of a different community, a different set of people, and those I used to connect with on Twitter I'll simply follow on other platforms or just leave behind.
I do wish there was a nice middle way between these two different types of platforms. A twitter alternative, even centralized, that is easy to use, but well-moderated in a way that protects marginalized groups, etc is something I could enjoy. I just don't know what that looks like and if it will ever exist and how tempting it will be for users to move away from Twitter. I refuse to use Twitter in its current state and ownership, even though it didn't do enough even before then. It was slightly bittersweet to leave but I'm still glad I did.
Any time a platform has existed that eventually reaches mass adoption and becomes a 'public square' of sorts- it always turns to crap, so I am not hopeful that a good massively-adopted social media platform is ever even possible
One thing I dislike about Mastodon is that you can only tweet in your own local server, so trying to use it like a general soapbox on say... a gaming server is going to make people upset. Also,...
One thing I dislike about Mastodon is that you can only tweet in your own local server, so trying to use it like a general soapbox on say... a gaming server is going to make people upset.
Also, discovering content from the greater fediverse is really bad. I checked my Federation feed and it's just full of bots posting Gonewild subreddit photos and hentai porn. The worst part is that you can't really filter out certain terms - I mean I don't want to see loli stuff on my feed, not only because it grosses me out but because it's also illegal where I live.
Yeah, my biggest problems with Mastodon were that they seem against doing much for discoverability (especially for anything cross-instance, which describes most possible user pairings) or...
Yeah, my biggest problems with Mastodon were that they seem against doing much for discoverability (especially for anything cross-instance, which describes most possible user pairings) or algorithmic timelines (that can let you see popular posts from someone you follow who posts when you're not on, without having to scroll past all the more recent posts by other people you follow first).
I never use the "local" or "explore" tabs on mastodon.social. The former is a firehose of random stuff, and I don't find the upvoted stuff in "explore" to be all that great. I read stuff by people...
I never use the "local" or "explore" tabs on mastodon.social. The former is a firehose of random stuff, and I don't find the upvoted stuff in "explore" to be all that great. I read stuff by people I follow and a few hashtags, and that's it. So, which server it is doesn't matter to me too much, as long as it keeps running well.
This is pretty much how I use Twitter too; I avoid posts from people I don't follow with the realtwitter.com redirect.
Discoverability is definitely a problem. There are a lot of ways to choose a bad server and you won't know you did right away.
If you're on Android, I suggest Tusky - it's (in my opinion) dramatically better than even the Twitter official app. It supports multiple accounts natively, including cross-opening things, and...
Mastodon doesn't seem to have an app that works for it well that I have found.
If you're on Android, I suggest Tusky - it's (in my opinion) dramatically better than even the Twitter official app. It supports multiple accounts natively, including cross-opening things, and lots of nice a11y features.
The sign up process was needlessly long.
I'm curious what you mean by this - unless things have changed a lot in a few months, you just put your email, desired username, and password in and you're golden.
I think most folks agree with me given the rapidly declining user stats for the site.
Curious if you have a source for this? AFAIK the first derivative is down but the MAU count is still growing.
For what it’s worth, the way I would find a discussion like that is to look for a hashtag, not an account. I just searched on mastodon.social and saw two usernames (which I ignored) and an...
For what it’s worth, the way I would find a discussion like that is to look for a hashtag, not an account.
I just searched on mastodon.social and saw two usernames (which I ignored) and an #armoredcore hashtag below it, and you can see the search results for that tag here.
It’s a deliberate limitation that this is the only way to do a subject search. If people don’t tag their posts with a hashtag, they don’t want to be found via that kind of search.
None of the posts I see there were written by people on mastodon.social, but I don’t know how far the search reaches. I’m guessing it’s just a partial view, based on posts that reached mastodon.social for some reason. I imagine that what you’d find would be less on a smaller server, unless it had a lot of gamers?
Ahhh, I see. Yes, I agree with you completely: mastodon.social, mastodon.online, and Mastodon gGmbH are really problematic for the ecosystem. Those two instances are effectively unmoderated and...
Ahhh, I see. Yes, I agree with you completely: mastodon.social, mastodon.online, and Mastodon gGmbH are really problematic for the ecosystem. Those two instances are effectively unmoderated and Eugen's insistence on being "CEO of Mastodon" is a travesty.
This is an accurate analysis. Only one prominent person wants the Fediverse to be a Twitter replacement - Eugen Rochko - and everyone I know thinks that's basically the worst possible outcome.
For me, it doesn't seem to want be a Twitter alternative and that's what I am really looking for.
This is an accurate analysis. Only one prominent person wants the Fediverse to be a Twitter replacement - Eugen Rochko - and everyone I know thinks that's basically the worst possible outcome.
Looks like monthly active users declined since last year's peak but has leveled off? I've seen worries that mastodon.social is growing to the point that, for many people, it will essentially...
Looks like monthly active users declined since last year's peak but has leveled off?
I've seen worries that mastodon.social is growing to the point that, for many people, it will essentially become the Fediverse.
It uses an open decentralized protocol that synchronizes messages between servers that has sometimes been compared to a blockchain and the general principles a cryptocurrency is designed for, but...
It uses an open decentralized protocol that synchronizes messages between servers that has sometimes been compared to a blockchain and the general principles a cryptocurrency is designed for, but it doesn't have anything specifically to do with cryptocurrency or the exact way blockchains in them are done.
I don't know if they have implemented this, or if they're planning to implement this but they have something called "composable moderation", where after they do their usual light moderation that's...
I don't know if they have implemented this, or if they're planning to implement this but they have something called "composable moderation", where after they do their usual light moderation that's legally required you subscribe to a moderator who filters stuff out for you. I'm not sure how useful a public blocklist would be, but we'll see how it turns out. It would be nice to have on top of a fairly strong moderation, but I don't know if I like the implication that hate speech will be allowed, just hidden from view if you want.
Yeah, I would guess that’s what they’re going for. Jurisdiction is a legal hack that lets you avoid taking responsibility for the entire world, just your turf. On the Internet, normally nobody...
Yeah, I would guess that’s what they’re going for.
Jurisdiction is a legal hack that lets you avoid taking responsibility for the entire world, just your turf. On the Internet, normally nobody holds you responsible for moderating someone else’s website, just your own. The awful people are still out there, but not actually your problem if you don’t link to them or interact in any way.
Federation is a way to try to get this “not my website” reduction in scope of what you need to do. For the Fediverse, the only way to really make another server not your problem is to block them entirely, though. Otherwise you have the moderators of two different servers having to work something out when there’s a complaint.
The trick is how to get this “not my website, not my problem” thing going while still allowing people to communicate? People tend to buy it only if it’s actually a separate website, you communicate only by linking to things, and you don’t link to the really bad things.
Might be totally anecdotal but I'm seeing a lot of buzz about this in my circles. I haven't been able to check it out myself as I haven't been able to find an invite, but I find it fascinating how popular some social services manage to create hype while others can't, despite having almost no discernible difference to the average user.
I think the biggest discernible difference the average user should care about is moderation and I have not been able to find or read anything about how Bluesky handles that. I realize Bluesky is not a platform but a name of a company that develops the protocol so it'd mostly be up to the platform owners to decide what's allowed and what's not, but I'm just surprised that after so many examples of social media companies mishandling, ignoring, or underestimating the importance of moderation (or lack thereof) that they'd be so willing to jump ship to an alternative that considers it an afterthought.
Mastodon has many issues, mostly on the usability side, but at least it's got clear rules. (Not saying it's perfect.)
People care a lot about big names on projects.
I did not have the chance to check it out myself (no invite) but I read a reply from a dev I think that moderation is not at all an after thought and they are actively working on it but they wanted to get the very basics out first. What makes you think it's an after thought?
If anyone has a spare invite I would love to try it out myself.
Cheers
Because the AT Protocol Bluesky is built upon and develops mentions moderation only once in its docs, and only in the title. The rest of the section talks about speech and reach, which is your typical Silicon Valley bullshit du jour.
I mean, I realize this is only tangentially related to moderation, but Bluesky doesn't even have a block button yet. Their devs can talk about how moderation is not an afterthought all they want, but it clearly is. I'm not just talking about the lack of a button. I'm talking about the lack of thought for moderation when they designed the protocol.
They have a block button now! Your points are valid, but I think they are aware of the legacy they are inheriting, more than other platforms seem to be. The CEO has written cogently about their plan — and so far it is just a plan, not a reality: https://blueskyweb.xyz/blog/4-13-2023-moderation
I hope they are able to find a scalable approach to moderation. It’s not easy, and I’d argue no one has really done it without heavy community fragmentation and human intervention. Maybe those are ultimately necessary because of divergent normative views across communities, but there’s still a question of how large those individual communities can get.
ok fair enough. I haven't personally looked into the design/implementation details of the protocol. Is it already publicly available? Have you checked if it's really designed in a way that adding more moderation features is harder than it should be? I agree that you can design a protocol in a way that makes it hard to extend but if it's designed with extensibility and moderation in mind (which it should be), I would refrain from calling anything an after thought. I am not saying it's either way, I am just saying without looking at the implementation details you simply can't make a claim.
How is their policy on minority protection against stochastic terrorism and libel, and users who engage in said activity and the constant pushing of hate speech boundaries?
Also do they allow nudity?
The website you linked has nothing to do with Bluesky. It appears to be a similarly named Zoom add-on of sorts.
Well, that's at least encouraging. Hopefully there won't be a place for the Crowders, Walshes and Shapiros.
Here’s a blog post by the BlueSky CEO about how they plan to do moderation: Composable Moderation
It seems very abstract. Everything is going to depend on what services there are and how well they’re implemented in practice. It will take time to evaluate this after they launch.
It seems like there’s a possibility of abusive moderation. A system for labeling posts could be misused. I’m not sure it would be any worse than what could be done just by linking to posts, though?
In my memory - and bear in mind I'm old enough to have a 3-letter twitter handle which I created during the beta, which means I was there at the time but it also means I'm old enough that my memory is perhaps not so trustworthy - the journalists were on twitter first, the brands and politicians went there later because it let them reach the journalists easily (and therefore the public, ultimately).
Musk seems to be working quite hard at pissing off the press right now, if they jump then a lot of people will follow them.
I'd caveat that with tech-bloggers and the tech press were on there first. Then culture writers and comedians and other creatives. The political journalists came after (and, IMO, ruined it).
Really not sure why everybody's jumping on to this so quickly. It just looks like Twitter 2, and will in all likelihood inherit all of the problems that come with that. I mean, it's even run by the same guy who did Twitter to begin with, so I've got next to no hope that it won't just follow in Twitter's footsteps.
I would've hoped that everything that's happened to Twitter over the years might've helped disillusion people towards it and want something better, but I guess familiarity is stronger.
Honestly I think people are just jumping at the chance to hasten Twitter's decline.
That's fair, but there are better options available if that's what folks want. Mastodon and cohost, for example.
They just sent me an invite. It feels like a barebones Twitter clone. There are people already farming followers. I already have few followers (bot?) even though I haven't posted anything. Hopefully, it will get better.
Is there an invite you can pass on or does it not work like that? If so I’d be interested!
From what I have read, they send out invites every two weeks or so. I'll have to wait to receive extra invite codes.
Why would it? Twitter didn't.
Because people sometimes learn things from previous experience, sometimes people make different decisions and it matters (even if it they don’t understand the consequences right away), and so sometimes the way communities evolve is path-dependent rather than inevitably ending up in the same place.
We’ll find out eventually. In the meantime I default to assuming we don’t know what’s going to happen.
I'm a firm believer that the evils we deal with in the world today are a product of the systems we live in, not the people that make them up, and so the idea that this time around will be better because some individuals learned a couple lessons isn't very reassuring when the system that surrounds them has barely changed.
I'd like to be wrong, but from what I can see on Bluesky, I'm just not hopeful at all. I've seen far too much capitalism to be optimistic anymore.
Yes, it’s a systems problem, but they’re building a system. I don’t see it as being particularly hopeful, just not pre-judging whatever they come up with sight unseen.
It’s reasonable to ignore it for now.
I'm less concerned with the system they're building and moreso the social environment they're in, as that's the primary factor that will influence what they create, and that environment has not changed for the better in the intervening time.
Besides, I'd be fine with ignoring it, but it doesn't seem like people are doing that. They're getting excited and pining for invites to a platform that has every reason to be just as bad as the last. It bothers me, especially when better alternatives exist already.
I’m not sure that briefly seeming popular when invites are hard to get means much. Clubhouse was like that for a while but it faded.
I can’t remember the name, but I remember joining another social networking site that was briefly popular enough that several friends joined, and then we chatted a bit for a few weeks, but then we got bored and left. So if that’s how it goes then people have bad or just mediocre experiences and after the novelty wears off, the problem takes care of itself.
I remember begging for invites to Google Buzz and Google+ on reddit, getting on them and then having nothing to do on them because obviously everyone was on Twitter and Facebook. Ultimately this does seem to have more potential, since influencers are getting invited to this website before everyone else.
On the subject of the fediverse, Lemmy is a pretty interesting attempt at creating a federated Reddit clone. What it needs are a few good servers. Literally the only two major ones are a communist community and the main Lemmy server.
First impression: what an awful name for a social media site!
Maybe it's time to revisit hooking up Tildes with ActivityPub compatibilities?
If you want to share a Tildes post with the Fediverse, you can link to it. The replies will be separate and I think that’s for the best, given differences in moderation.
That ended up going in the opposite direction I expected. Maybe I'm just not familiar with the well moderated internet because I thought tildes was an example of good moderation (as far as what ends up being removed goes).
There's also advantages to not posting in a bubble that's in cultural lock-step. I get why some people desire that, and we probably all desire it to some degree but not everybody does nor to the same level.
Well you did lead with this:
I guess you could argue 'cultural lock-step' might not apply, but relative to here it sounds like it would.
But probably not diversity of opinions.
I hear what you're saying and largely agree with your intent, I think we just disagree on semantics and execution.
I'm not a 'free-speech' person whatsoever, and I don't think any non-self-loathing user of Tildes is. I'm not looking for an extreme amount of breadth in my internet discussions, but some amount of range is nice. Tildes is a big-tent and largely left-aligned space that appears to run the gamut from anarchist to neoliberal and everything in-between.
As @Cyclonblaze pointed out, this might not be explicitly spelled out for you but there are established norms here and they tend to be mostly enforced.
Do you have an example of this? Because I'm struggling to see a material difference in your description from Tildes.
I think it might be that Tildes groups aren’t separate communities? They were meant to be (I assume) but it didn’t happen. There are only a few people here and we mostly read (or skim) everything. When you post a new topic, you can assume everyone will see it no matter which group it is.
You can get diversity of opinion from having a lot of communities (like subreddits or blogs or fediverse servers) even though each community has less diversity. But there would need to be better boundaries, somehow, for separate communities to form.
I don’t think we’ve seen separate communities form within a subreddit, either, even if the number of active users is far more than Tildes?
The original design for tildes (I think - cfabbro or deimos might disagree) outlined a kind of hierarchical structure of communities. It never really materialized much beyond the subgroups of health, creative and games, and I think it doesn't really have much of an effect on visibility of posts due to the mentioned "monolithic" community on here. But in a larger network, I think that makes a lot of sense.
(Pet theory: Because topics are a graph and not a tree, including a subcommunity of another community makes sense. On a case by case basis. The people of programming.gamedev might decide to accept games.gamedesign as a honorary subcommunity of their own, making the topic graph a proper graph. Distant future kinda stuff though.)
Fundamentally, yea. Tagging has kinda taken over the details of that hierarchy in practice, and thus avoiding many of those mesh vs hierarchy problems.
If it's not too much trouble, do you still have a link to that discussion?
Sure there is. It's not as overt, but it's definitely there, and there's definitely a lot of resistance if you go against it.
I don't know if federation is the best idea for something like reddit. Unlike Twitter, where you want a chronological timeline of posts, a lot of sketchy stuff can come from voting, for example, a rogue instance upvoting certain posts to get it to the top of the federated frontpage, servers selectively not counting votes from other servers, certain frontpages down weighting other instances' posts, etc. Basically think every reddit moderator drama but now they have admin powers over their subreddit.
There is/was a social agregator built on nostr called nvote, unfortunately not active.
Bluesky appears to be trending in my circles on twitter. What are people's thoughts on it/is there much discussion of it on the mastodon side of things?
As someone who's been on Mastodon since 2018, can I ask what is confusing about it? I've seen the broad complaints, but I guess I'm looking for the experience of someone with at least some tech-savvy (evidenced by your presence here) who still felt rebuffed by the fediverse.
I thought that was by design - i.e. Mastodon does its absolute best to hide retweet/like counts until you click on the post itself. I'm pretty sure this was done to stop the issue of ratio'ing folks and whatnot, and trying to enable a more civil conversation around things.
A lot of Twitter/social media gamification is super hard when coming to Mastodon, but then once you get used to it, it feels weird coming back to Twitter and seeing people go nuts over random numbers under tweets. Reminds me when caring about karma was all the rage on Reddit to the point where folks who had massive amounts of karma would act like dicks because they had so much karma they could "afford" to burn some of the karma. In reality, it was a loser who was obsessed with numbers being played by algorithms to interact with the machine more than he would've done.
It's an intentional decision, not a consequence of federation; the idea is to disincentive dogpiles and reduce the addictiveness of social media. https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/420
For the average user the very notion of subscribing to a node that's administrated by an independent entity, each with highly customized layouts that are not exactly the same everywhere (I can't stress enough how important consistency is for the non-techie...) is too much to handle. Additionally, nodes may or may not remain in existence, and manage a complex relationship to other nodes that is difficult to comprehend.
The very fact that one must choose an instance is too much friction.
In most cases, anyone saying Mastodon is simple is being like my friend who's a professional cook when he tells me Beef Wellington is easy to make. Or someone from Germany who can't understand why Americans can't speak German. The highly competent overestimate the competence of others.
I feel lazy just thinking about using Mastodon, and I used it before. Besides the above, the fact that each node is essentially its own community with its own cliques and group dynamics makes me uneasy. Feels hard to navigate.
I mean...if that's too hard for everyone, we should not have any large social network with frictionless messaging, because we cannot trust each other or the administrators of any such network. Not if the users aren't willing to invest that energy into responsible communication. This is not some baroque system, it is almost exactly as hard as email. Friction is good sometimes, convenience is killing us all.
Ever wondered why nobody uses email any more?
I'm sorry but what the heck are you talking about? 99% of B2B communication happens via email; I have my own domain identity for that and pay a provider, and it works just fine.
Almost literally everyone uses email. It's a core part of the infrastructure of our society at this point.
I'm talking about how nobody uses email for personal and social stuff. The use cases where Twitter and Discord and Facebook and Whatsapp and Instagram and so on have become so dominant. Part of the reason those things are so successful is that they're easier to use than email, not to mention that they're just better for that kind of communication.
I thought it was obvious that I wasn't talking about corporate/business stuff - but only a tiny fraction of people are using Twitter for that so it isn't really relevant in the context of this discussion. My apologies if I didn't provide enough clarity on that.
Fwiw I barely use email for work. Most of my business is done via other messaging channels. But then I tend to deal with customers directly.
That's fascinating to me - most of my family uses email primarily, and I'm only a few years too old to be Gen Z. Lots of my friends, too, in addition to other things of course.
I don't really know what all the American generational age boundaries are but even my parents - who are both in their seventies - prefer whatsapp to email. I very occasionally get a personal email from my dad but I don't recall seeing one from anyone else for many, many years. To all intents and purposes, zero of my friends use email any more and we did used to, a lot. But it's so clunky and everything else is so much easier and faster.
Email nowadays is a glorified authentication repository.
I would say that is rather uncommon outside some specific technical, academic, or corporate environments. I can't remember the last time I sent or received a personal email, or any human-made email message at all. Not even my roughly 70-year-old parents use email for messaging. I use it almost exclusively for authentication purposes.
My experience is similar. Family who have gmail accounts use gmail chat almost always instead of email and most other people connect on SMS or Facebook. Sending an email to someone when I haven’t in years feels a little weird since I don’t know if the email works anymore, but still occasionally happens.
I just get email from businesses. Email newsletters are still supposed to be big, though, at least compared to RSS.
Email seems pretty attractive for a number of uses still, with the notable exception of exchanging messages that are both written and read by humans.
Email newsletters are written and read by people. I think the difference is that it's a publication that goes out to subscribers, not a personal message.
Similarly for a comment notifications sent by email. A comment is written and read by people, but it's not really "native" in the sense that a person didn't write it in an email client and decide which email addresses to send it to.
I think e-mail and ActivityPub are alike in that way: they started out as ways for people to directly communicate, but they are also messaging substrates for other applications. For instance, see this WordPress plugin that turns ActivityPub into a comment substrate, or Darius Kazemi's RSS to ActivityPub server.
It's probably worth noting that email is the old and popular. It had no competition when it arrived. If the email had been created in 2016 (like Mastodon), it might never achieve its immense userbase.
The same goes for other old tech, such as IRC for example, or even something way more recent like Facebook.
Are email and mastodon more complicated than learning to drive a car? Apply for a loan? Purchase insurance? Graduating high school? These are things viewed as inevitable for everyday life in North America, and most in Europe as well. Are all these systems too baroque for the average person to manage? Can the average person not learn to cook and clean and build and think? Or is it that people feel entitled to an easy soapbox and feed which delivers digestible content that conforms to their worldview?
Global communication is a privilege, something humanity has had to work towards for, effectively, thousands of years. I'm not implying any sort of "internet license", but maybe we should stop pretending that the privilege of having our messages signalboosted to the feeds of millions around the world should come before we've put in a modicum of effort.
Yes, they can be, for some people. Depends on your base skillset.
Have you even met people?
But seriously, every person who doesn't have the time or inclination or - let's be honest - intellectual ability to learn how to use Mastodon or figure out how to run an email list, can do something you can't. Because instead they put the time in learning to applique or do all the voices reading Funnybones or tie flies or any of millions of other skills you didn't learn. That's sort of how we have an advanced culture, people learning different things and all working together.
If we can make things easier and better to use, why shouldn't we? That's literally all human progress has ever been about. I don't see why technology in particular needs to be kept behind a gate. I really don't see why we should keep the ability to communicate away from people when there is no reason to. Email was great, game-changingly so, when it first came along but then so were wax cylinder audio recordings and steam engines. The world has moved on from those things for good reason and the same for email. It was good, now it's less useful compared to other options, so it's slowly falling into disuse. No big deal.
I don't think the vast majority of people feel entitled to this, and I think that's a very unfair assumption to make about our fellow humans. Presented with an easy (or at least easier) way to keep in touch with the people they care about, why would you expect people to not take that opportunity? Of course they're going to, they're people. Caring about other people (for better or worse) is what people do.
Sorry, but it does seem you're doing something very much like that. Your comment seems to suggest that you think people should have a certain level of technical knowledge and intellectual ability in order to be allowed to participate. Maybe not a paper license, but still.
Yes. Most of them have been taught not to learn. That doesn't make the lesson right.
I'm essentially arguing that we need to enforce some degree of responsibility on one another when posting on a public forum that's globally accessible. Not that some people don't deserve to be able to, but that if they don't take it seriously, then we get the cesspits we have today.
Oh, is this what people use twitter, tiktok, etc. for? Most of the use I see is people shouting opinions into the void and dogpiling strangers. A system for keeping up with friends and family would focus on direct messaging, or ad hoc group communication, and not trending topics, a feed populated with strangers' opinions, and its own culture.
When somebody makes a social network, that isn't based on venture capital, that doesn't rely on incentivizing self-destructive habituation, that doesn't instigate shallow argumentation over considered conversation, and that gets popular, I'll believe that we don't need to make instant, global, universal communication slightly more difficult to access in order to prevent things like incel forum-driven violence, the mess that has been western politics since 2014, and further empowerment to the already-ruling people.
I'm not talking about the internet, I'm not talking about using it to send messages and look things up, I'm talking about being able to say something mean about your least favorite actor and have a 1/1000000 chance for them to see it, or make a political statement that gets shoved in front of thousands of other's faces, both essentially cost-free. Those aren't good for us, and they often seem like the ulterior motives in these conversations, when people who have broad knowledge across many subjects complain that they don't understand the idea of choosing a server based on moderation policies.
You're absolutely right that a lot of what gets channeled through social media is bad for society. I say channeled because of course technology doesn't create the problems inherent to human nature, it just amplifies them.
And that's the thing, human nature. People, speaking of the masses, will ultimately end up using low friction solutions. First, because adoption rates are far higher, and then because of network effect.
So, while it's no doubt true that a slightly higher intellectual (or motivational) barrier to entry would create better online spaces, it just doesn't matter. It's not what's going to happen, at least not when we're talking Twitter (or IG, or TikTok) scale.
Any solutions to our mass social media problems are going to have to be low friction, otherwise they'll remain niche (which is a sort of solution for some).
Look, if you want to be fatalistic, that's your prerogative. But I have more faith in humanity than assuming that this local minimum is indicative of our capacity for being better. I'm not surrendering to a narrative that only seems to benefit the status quo, and I'll keep complaining about people insisting on limiting others because they don't believe in themselves.
We could also get rid of mass social media. That is an option.
Not fatalistic, pragmatic. Humanity is both noble and apathetic at once. The best way to make the world better is to first accept humanity for what it is, rather than imagining replacing it, in some magical way, with a new version.
I wouldn't be opposed... but how, realistically, would that happen? By realistically I mean, not in an ideal world, but in the one we occupy.
Fatalistic. Humans prefer comfort to responsibility, but that doesn't mean we're doomed to always be as bad as we are in systems where we are raised to objectify ourselves for the ease of manipulation of others and surrender our powers of reason in order to thrive in corruption. Certainly not as bad as those abused people act in the ultimate accelerators of polarization and alienation that modern web culture is.
No clue, but I'd rather die frustrated for having tried than ensure the future we're currently hurtling toward by giving up.
Somewhere in the middle ground between giving up and unrealistic asks is where change actually happens, usually much more slowly than we'd like, but it happens nevertheless.
Okay, and? If everyone stops bringing up the flaws in our system, they'll get better by themselves? We shouldn't discuss how far we are from meeting our own supposed principles? It really seems like popular discourse on this matter has collapsed into "we tried the free and open web, and it didn't work, so we need to support thought policing via corporations" vs "free speech is the only meaningful standard, as long as it is only used to spread hate and decry democracy", should I just pick a camp and seethe at the other?
My ask is that people hold themselves accountable, and, failing that, they hold each other accountable. How can people who refuse to learn about a website be trusted to do that, or to be engaged in global discourse? It's hardly news to me that tech-savvy people have an easier time learning about novel technology than the layman, but if you contrast the mental models required to navigate Twitter or Facebook against Mastodon, the difference in complexity is small.
How did you manage to interpret what I'm saying as "we should stop holding each other accountable"?
I can't speak for the popular discourse, my point is that we should look for solutions that will have an impact on the world we live in, and the people we live in it with. I'll be amazed if Mastodon is that.
But don't feel like that means you should defend mastodon, I'd love it if the old school web for the tech inclined and intellectually curious came back.
I didn't, really. I was clarifying: I'm not sitting around here saying "tear down twitter! tear down social media!", and I don't think that would be helpful. What I'm saying is that if we have these conversations about how things could be better, and we don't mention the things we're pretty sure won't happen, but wish would, we aren't doing our best.
Someone could build the ideal social network, and without a huge amount of luck as well as the financial backing of someone like Dorsey, it could never take off. Realistically. But crazier things have happened, and the only way they do is by the members of the movement acting irrationally. Dedicating themselves beyond all reason. Now, this is social media, it's not religion or anything, but that does mean that, on the off chance that the fediverse, or matrix, or any of the other smaller networks I try to promote, is close enough to that ideal, it's worth at least a strongly worded conversation. It's like buying a lottery share redeemable for bankrupting Meta. My talk of accountability was just a continuation of that promotion.
It may well be that a little bit of friction is actually preferred by the Mastodon user-base as a sort of cover charge to keep the unwashed masses out.
As a former Twitter user and current Mastodon user, I agree with this. I prefer that it's not as simple to use and that it has different instances, some with extremely strict moderation, and various other differences that make it unlike Twitter- the last thing I want it to become is just another Twitter. I like that I can be on a server that I know will not allow "brands", corporations, government accounts, marketing crap, etc. to join - it's nice to have a social media system whose federated design means you can stay away from all the BS.
That said, that same friction does prevent 80% of the people I connected with on Twitter from being able to or desiring to move along with me. So, in turning to Mastodon I just decided that I'll be a part of a different community, a different set of people, and those I used to connect with on Twitter I'll simply follow on other platforms or just leave behind.
I do wish there was a nice middle way between these two different types of platforms. A twitter alternative, even centralized, that is easy to use, but well-moderated in a way that protects marginalized groups, etc is something I could enjoy. I just don't know what that looks like and if it will ever exist and how tempting it will be for users to move away from Twitter. I refuse to use Twitter in its current state and ownership, even though it didn't do enough even before then. It was slightly bittersweet to leave but I'm still glad I did.
Any time a platform has existed that eventually reaches mass adoption and becomes a 'public square' of sorts- it always turns to crap, so I am not hopeful that a good massively-adopted social media platform is ever even possible
That makes a lot of sense.
Mastodon is complicated, but only because it's made of people. It's really not amenable to a technical solution.
Fair enough!
One thing I dislike about Mastodon is that you can only tweet in your own local server, so trying to use it like a general soapbox on say... a gaming server is going to make people upset.
Also, discovering content from the greater fediverse is really bad. I checked my Federation feed and it's just full of bots posting Gonewild subreddit photos and hentai porn. The worst part is that you can't really filter out certain terms - I mean I don't want to see loli stuff on my feed, not only because it grosses me out but because it's also illegal where I live.
Yeah, my biggest problems with Mastodon were that they seem against doing much for discoverability (especially for anything cross-instance, which describes most possible user pairings) or algorithmic timelines (that can let you see popular posts from someone you follow who posts when you're not on, without having to scroll past all the more recent posts by other people you follow first).
I never use the "local" or "explore" tabs on mastodon.social. The former is a firehose of random stuff, and I don't find the upvoted stuff in "explore" to be all that great. I read stuff by people I follow and a few hashtags, and that's it. So, which server it is doesn't matter to me too much, as long as it keeps running well.
This is pretty much how I use Twitter too; I avoid posts from people I don't follow with the realtwitter.com redirect.
Discoverability is definitely a problem. There are a lot of ways to choose a bad server and you won't know you did right away.
The server I joined is shutting down soon, and I'm debating whether I even want to try finding another.
If you're on Android, I suggest Tusky - it's (in my opinion) dramatically better than even the Twitter official app. It supports multiple accounts natively, including cross-opening things, and lots of nice a11y features.
I'm curious what you mean by this - unless things have changed a lot in a few months, you just put your email, desired username, and password in and you're golden.
Curious if you have a source for this? AFAIK the first derivative is down but the MAU count is still growing.
For what it’s worth, the way I would find a discussion like that is to look for a hashtag, not an account.
I just searched on mastodon.social and saw two usernames (which I ignored) and an #armoredcore hashtag below it, and you can see the search results for that tag here.
It’s a deliberate limitation that this is the only way to do a subject search. If people don’t tag their posts with a hashtag, they don’t want to be found via that kind of search.
None of the posts I see there were written by people on mastodon.social, but I don’t know how far the search reaches. I’m guessing it’s just a partial view, based on posts that reached mastodon.social for some reason. I imagine that what you’d find would be less on a smaller server, unless it had a lot of gamers?
Ahhh, I see. Yes, I agree with you completely: mastodon.social, mastodon.online, and Mastodon gGmbH are really problematic for the ecosystem. Those two instances are effectively unmoderated and Eugen's insistence on being "CEO of Mastodon" is a travesty.
The rest of the network is delightful, though.
This is an accurate analysis. Only one prominent person wants the Fediverse to be a Twitter replacement - Eugen Rochko - and everyone I know thinks that's basically the worst possible outcome.
Looks like monthly active users declined since last year's peak but has leveled off?
I've seen worries that mastodon.social is growing to the point that, for many people, it will essentially become the Fediverse.
Okay, thanks for the answer.
Wasn’t this originally supposed to be using the blockchain or something? Seems like it’s not now, lol.
It uses an open decentralized protocol that synchronizes messages between servers that has sometimes been compared to a blockchain and the general principles a cryptocurrency is designed for, but it doesn't have anything specifically to do with cryptocurrency or the exact way blockchains in them are done.
Archived.
Interested how it handles moderation.
I don't know if they have implemented this, or if they're planning to implement this but they have something called "composable moderation", where after they do their usual light moderation that's legally required you subscribe to a moderator who filters stuff out for you. I'm not sure how useful a public blocklist would be, but we'll see how it turns out. It would be nice to have on top of a fairly strong moderation, but I don't know if I like the implication that hate speech will be allowed, just hidden from view if you want.
Hate speech allowed but hidden from view sounds like the internet as a whole on the isolated islands of moderation
Yeah, I would guess that’s what they’re going for.
Jurisdiction is a legal hack that lets you avoid taking responsibility for the entire world, just your turf. On the Internet, normally nobody holds you responsible for moderating someone else’s website, just your own. The awful people are still out there, but not actually your problem if you don’t link to them or interact in any way.
Federation is a way to try to get this “not my website” reduction in scope of what you need to do. For the Fediverse, the only way to really make another server not your problem is to block them entirely, though. Otherwise you have the moderators of two different servers having to work something out when there’s a complaint.
The trick is how to get this “not my website, not my problem” thing going while still allowing people to communicate? People tend to buy it only if it’s actually a separate website, you communicate only by linking to things, and you don’t link to the really bad things.
I’ve been meaning to check it out. Does anyone have invites?
Hey, did you get an invite yet? If so, would appreciate if you pay it forward and send one over. :)
Nope, I haven’t gotten one yet :(
ok me neither. I will send on over if I get one. Unlikely tho