Discussion
It used to amuse me to see all these self-congratulatory Mastodon posts talking about how great Mastodon is and how much better it is than Facebook, X and Bluesky.
It's only great if you're a "certain type of person".
It used to amuse me to see these posts. Now I see this self-congratulation as mastobation.
I guess it's also important for me to talk about other algorithmic choices- because they're invisible to most users.
On Reddit you can upvote and downvote. Mastodon doesn't support downvoting. That's an algorithmic choice. It's one I agree with.
On Mastodon, if I choose to Block someone, my server tells the other server that I've blocked them. That's an algorithm too...
I know what you mean when you say algorithm, but I think when we reduce these complex concepts to simple words, it's like if I call copyright infringement "stealing"- it's not a fair thing to be so reductive.
Can you imagine if everyone involved in Napster or Napster-like programs had been in jail for stealing or "aiding and abetting"...
YouTube
@serge I read your post the other day and thought it's quite sad that you (and others) feel the need to create a separate space instead of being included in the community here. But I don't really have a solution to that right now either if you can't even rely on the support of moderators when you report antisemitism because they don't want to or can't see the problem. Which probably highlights your point that some people enjoy the experience here more than others.
On a daily basis I see hate speech against Jews on the fediverse. Daily.
On a ~weekly basis that hate is directed at one of my users.
Every month or so, it's directed at me specifically.
Every 2-3 months there's a reputational attack where people on the Fediverse make up a bunch of lies about me and try to spread it.
And more often than not, moderators of other instances are involved. It happened just this week that someone on Babka was posting about antisemitism and specifically the Kristallnacht protests, where a bunch of antisemites were using the anniversary of Kristallnacht to boycott Jewish businesses, and was using that as an opportunity to accuse Jews accuse the Babkan of being an agent of a foreign government, and then scream "Free Palestine" at him.
The admin of the instance that user was on Favoried the post and then suspended the Jewish person for complaining.
@serge I'm sorry to hear that. It's definitely a big issue if the people who are supposed to help you are part of the problem. And I heard that a few times, and not just with one instance.
@serge @DzoniMango
Oof. 😞 That sucks.
It does. This is why I question why there's value in the Fediverse.
If the bad behavior and safety controls are no better than X or Bluesky then the only real difference is what? Less people to connect with?
@serge waitwaitwait - I know, every contradicting answer might be a "told you so" and "mastorbation" ist too good not to use it, but aren't there more layers to this?
and I don't think of "neonazis better stay on x" - though they should - it's not mixing up the existing community and the technical possibilities for other communities.
technical privileges for greater reach account and difficulty of hosting an instance are hard boundaries, "too much nerds here" and "not hosted by a company" not.
I'm basically discussing how racist the Fediverse is and how my experience on it largely mirrors my experience as a Jew on the Fediverse, even when I run my own instance is very similar to those on other platforms like X, like Facebook, etc, only worse.
It's so much worse that I felt the need to build my own instance and when that didn't help, to build an entirely different social media experience.
@serge frell :(
I'd really hoped, that building such intances would be the key.
I still don't quite understand. "worse" as other instances have lower standards than commercial socialmedia? or worse as the kind of people in the majority-fediverse are more certain being right?
As in it's basically the same experience as X or Bluesky. Babka Social, the instance I run, is largely made up of Jews who were kicked off other instances for being Jewish.
But at least on X there are tens of thousands of other Jews. On the Fediverse, it's a few hundred.
@Odradek There are certain attack vectors in the fediverse that don't really exist in centralized social media, e.g. spinning up new instances to harass people from after your old instance has been defederated. That would be a giant game of whackamole, but many admins don't even play because most of the time, the harassment comes in dms or followers-only posts, so the bullshit isn't seen by the majority of users and doesn't get reported widely.
@serge I still think that in many ways it is better than platforms with algorithms that strengthen outrage.
But there’s something missing: humans who aren’t synthetically driven to outrage are still prone to group think and forming lynch mobs.
There’s a big difference between not intentionally making humans *worse* than in a saloon bar debate (Mastodon succeeds at that) and building a place for constructive discussion (I don’t know any social network that achieves that).
I know what you're talking about, but it's a tricky situation.
The goal is any social media product is engagement. Engagement because of anger is a strong motivator.
I have a lot of thoughts on this but I'd rather try them out than talk about them.
@serge @ArneBab Many repeat the talking points that Mastodon would not have any algorithms, but that claim mostly only applies to the time sorted Home timeline. Explore view https://mastodon.social/explore of Mastodon is very similar to how larger commercial social media platforms function, even if it is not personalised as rest of platforms.
Explore view is visible every time people try to find the Search functionality, and there is no way to disable it without modifying Mastodon source code. Explore view is very often the primary way outrage and hate spreads on Mastodon, regardless of who/what is the target of the day. Platform would be a lot more peaceful without that algorithmic boosting functionality.
Yes and...
Try running an instance and you get bombarded with the platform wanting you to engage in "Most popular users", "Popular posts", "Trending hashtags", and promoting news sources that are popular across instances.
It's a complete fiction that this system doesn't have algorithms. Popularity *is* an algorithm and here it's a damn toxic one.
As for "Mastodon caved in"- no @ArneBab it didn't "cave in". It was built like this.
If you run an instance, it has been years of Mastodon pushing its instances to act like franchises, rather than like independent servers.
Ever wonder why so many instances don't even have their own logos or visual branding? Mastodon makes it challenging to remove and customize.
@serge lol mastobation i''ll use that too
