I find there is little organic interaction here.

The big servers are all as fake as regular social media.

So we can enjoy posting into the void.

I actually used myspace way back and since one of the things I posted was music, it's still there. Doesn't seem to actually play though.

myspace.com/roadkilltaxidermy/…

The picture of my ass as I'm climbing into my jeep is also gone.

People used to post whole essays there. It was great. Had my life threatened for pointing out someone's blatant and superfluous plagiarism. Everyone wanted to be a twit though so it died.

Tom's doing great though I hear.

Algorithms and AI are worsening the political and cultural divides of all nations.

Republicans, and other far right voters, are stuck in an information bubble starting with Fox News and then Twitter and now Truth Social.

Algorithms & AI are deepening that divide with the help of Russian bots and Koch Network PR manipulation.

Mastodon actively supports a broader access to information.

It's like walking down the aisles of a wonderful book store or public library.

Living in another country has the whole internet confused because I'm Dutch, but my location is in Italy and my system language is English.

Americans run the internet and they just don't get the European experience, they don't get speaking multiple languages, they think a Dutch search query from my English language system is a typo.

In Mastodon, you get to labelize yourself. Which can be a bit of a headache too for instance selection: I live and breathe F/OSS so "that" instance would've been kinda obvious, but I don't want to categorize myself by that, or by music, or books or any other single thing which make up the whole that is me. That includes the choice of language - often I post in Finnish, but some other topics seem more natural in English.

So thank you @rolle for hosting this wonderful instance where I can be me.

On Twitter, I had over one million followers.

On Mastodon, I had 12,000 until I had to move, and the transfer did not go so well.

Upon another move, I had over 2,000 until I had to move, and the transfer did not go so well.

I can understand why some people choose Twitter or Blue Sky. The fragmentation, technical issues, and sometimes drama is the downside of the Fediverse many people do not want to put up with.

My post blew up, thanks to some high rollers follower-wise 😹

I always get a few nay-sayers sliding into my notifications, going on about "no interactions", "no traction", "not social", "no appeal" nonsense. How do you explain these comments and likes every other second then? You should follow more than 20 people here.

#Fediverse #Mastodon

@mhanson101 @Johns_priv @Npars01
this is true also. group tech vs what we have with AP which is very much like the web where we don't limit access by default.

trying to do what you want with auto federating FOSS tech seems a little silly to me. probably should be opt in. better to fork it imo.

All it takes is one weird trick:

Design it to not be a tool for monetization.

That's it. Nothing more.

@mhanson101 @Npars01
the web isn't supposed to be special and the biggest jerk only ruins things if we let them. the specialness comes from decentralization w/o algos but with moderation that lets everybody share a network but only see each other to the degree we choose to. that's why it has worked so well and what we could do better here IMO.

people import norms from big tech with algos over here, not realizing that the Nazi bar problem isn't an issue on the open web with nazi sites.

@mhanson101 @Npars01
I support going hard on all unwanted mentions, and fediblocking servers that don't police accounts that do that.

again, that's different than somebody who posts a conservative view without tagging anybody. today, that person might get a ton of mean replies here. vs a progressive view where such negative replies would be cause for moderating those replying.

both sets of replies should be dealt w carefully, trying to let the conversation happen but not be mean.

@mhanson101 @Npars01
I'm arguing for taking advantage of decentralization here to maximize everybody being able to see what they want here, including conservatives. that's possible because we don't have ads or algos, when we also moderate for unwanted mentions (including mean replies to conservatives, not just progressives).

this ability to mix how we choose is not possible on closed platforms with algos, but people should be able to have those with any rules they want also.

the replies on this have been rather interesting

I found the language telling, how you called it "lively" and at least one particularly active critic lamented the lack of "organic interactions". As opposed to synthetic interactions, famously worthless to advertisers? Huh!

And some are like "oh but we can't post whatever *we* want, we get defederated". Like they're looking for a platform where they can shove their content in other people's faces non consensually no matter what it is, like, uh… advertisers?…

Hold on, I think I'm starting to see a pattern here…

Bingo! (Well said.)

I joined social media for the same reason I used to join forums: as a way to socialize within the digital world. If I wanted to shout into the void without caring whether anyone heard me or not, I’d have a blog.

The Fediverse is exactly the place to look for people — because it's supposedly decentralized, and supposedly a place where no one can shut you down. Arguing otherwise, as @Okanogen said, is not the way to gain support for the Fediverse.

But if you feel otherwise, I’d be curious to know your motivation for being here.

"The most profound thing about it is the international coverage."

How many Africans living in Africa do you follow ?

@mhanson101 @Npars01
yes, don't do mean replies to anybody. but the policy here (and it's good) has never been to ask every user to block the mean people themselves every time. they get reported and stopped from bothering others. servers that host lots of assholes get fediblocked. I agree w that. just do that for harassing anybody.

as I said, on closed places like twitter with algos, the owner is doing propaganda. yeah, I'll tell Zuck not to push meta glasses too.

we have power here.

@mhanson101 @Npars01
or maybe we should instead take your approach and scour the web for every website with stuff we don't like and harass them until that's all taken down, no matter if you're the only person outside of the site owner that has ever seen it. /snark

I'm very concerned that we're all talking to each other civilly cause I think that's ultimately how knowledge and empathy expands and the moral arc bends toward justice in the most sustainable way. the fedi can help a lot.