Mastodon's founder has a vision to democratize social media(time.com)
time.com
Mastodon's founder has a vision to democratize social media
https://time.com/6229230/mastodon-eugen-rochko-interview/
288 comments
Two big, vanilla instances are https://mastodon.social and https://mas.to. Unfortunately they've both been struggling to keep up with demand lately. If you're paralyzed by choice, I'd say just go for one of those if / when they're accepting new users.
I think Mastodon would get more signups if interested people were just pointed at like ten working, non-specialized, non-tiny instances, rather than being confronted with hundreds of weird / non-working options. I realize this feels a bit contrary to the goals of federation, but the current situation seems to be causing a lot of potential users to retreat in annoyance and confusion.
I think Mastodon would get more signups if interested people were just pointed at like ten working, non-specialized, non-tiny instances, rather than being confronted with hundreds of weird / non-working options. I realize this feels a bit contrary to the goals of federation, but the current situation seems to be causing a lot of potential users to retreat in annoyance and confusion.
They're wasting a massive opportunity. Mastodon should have been built to scale from the start because huge viral growth is exactly how social networks like this make it big.
As it stands right now, I am struggling to join because every mastodon instance I've checked is struggling with scaling.
As it stands right now, I am struggling to join because every mastodon instance I've checked is struggling with scaling.
Mastodon isn't a commercial entity, so what's the opportunity that's being wasted? Its entire purpose is to provide an alternative model for social media on a non-profit basis. If that doesn't scale to Twitter or Meta levels so what? That's not the goal and it's certainly far beyond what those behind it could afford. Mastodon gGmbH has just two core developers.
Frankly, it's impressive that it's scaling as well as it has so far given the tiny size of the team and that all the servers are run on a volunteer basis.
Frankly, it's impressive that it's scaling as well as it has so far given the tiny size of the team and that all the servers are run on a volunteer basis.
Mastodon can scale, but it costs money. Most instances are hosted by people out of an interest to do good. Servers cost money... And for F/OSS project there aren't big pocket investors ... only funds, grants and hopefully donations.
Yes, when I say scalable, I mean ability to scale without having to spend bucketloads on new servers.
Many of the mastodon servers I am seeing pause new registration/break down are at a few thousand members, maybe 8k max. I dont know how Mastodon is implemented, but my intuition is that a well written C++, Rust, or even Java service should be able to handle that many users on a single instance.
Many of the mastodon servers I am seeing pause new registration/break down are at a few thousand members, maybe 8k max. I dont know how Mastodon is implemented, but my intuition is that a well written C++, Rust, or even Java service should be able to handle that many users on a single instance.
It's Ruby on Rails, which is the second slowest web framework I would consider reasonable for production use (after Django).
Ah, it is all beginning to make sense now.
Twitter makes -200m a year hosting their solution.
Mastodon by contrast spreads out this load to servers paid for by users, not by ads.
If you cannot join any servers, pay for a managed hosting provider to spin one up, or host yourself on a vps or a home server.
Mastodon by contrast spreads out this load to servers paid for by users, not by ads.
If you cannot join any servers, pay for a managed hosting provider to spin one up, or host yourself on a vps or a home server.
That may be well and true, but seems unrelated to the point i am making, which is that I would expect a single instance to be able to handle a few thousand users.
Sure one instance could support that if you pay amazon $2k/mo for a monster instance, but most do not have that kind of money to donate.
Most servers will be small, or you can host your own.
Most servers will be small, or you can host your own.
I think we are talking past each other.
I hear you.
It would be cool if someone rewrote it with a Crystal framework. Although there are limitations to this because it's faster than Ruby and similar to Ruby but not completely like Ruby.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33398253
It would be cool if someone rewrote it with a Crystal framework. Although there are limitations to this because it's faster than Ruby and similar to Ruby but not completely like Ruby.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33398253
[deleted]
Sure, 'ability to scale' (scalability) might be an issue, but if you are using it, you will see that the majority pf people are on other servers or communities, some not even using Mastodon. Mastodon itself is just one of the implementations of the federated protocol that uses ActivityPub. A lot of alternatives exists, like misskey, pleroma, etc.
Or go with the best tool for the job - Erlang/Elixir.
The other opportunity "they" are missing is that normally when a new social network struggles under the weight of new users, that's good publicity. Instead of going that route, people get offered a huge list of niche or unavailable options, or told they should run their own server. And unsurprisingly a lot of people are saying, fuck that.
It's frustrating to watch. I guess a lot of fediverse people don't actually want twitter normies on board though.
It's frustrating to watch. I guess a lot of fediverse people don't actually want twitter normies on board though.
The point of the fediverse was never to match the scale of Twitter on a single instance. In fact, that's something of an anti-pattern.
These are the inherent trade offs of a distributed social network.
These are the inherent trade offs of a distributed social network.
> The point of the fediverse was never to match the scale of Twitter on a single instance.
Of course. I don't understand why you are telling me this.
Of course. I don't understand why you are telling me this.
I want to try out Mastodont, and I also like to self host stuff.
Should I self host a mastodont instance and point friends and family to it when they want to create a mastodont account ?
Or would that be too much of a burden to manage ?
Or maybe it would be better to register on a specialized instance to already have an interesting local feed ?
Should I self host a mastodont instance and point friends and family to it when they want to create a mastodont account ?
Or would that be too much of a burden to manage ?
Or maybe it would be better to register on a specialized instance to already have an interesting local feed ?
In the category of large general instances, there's also https://mstdn.social and https://mastodon.online.
these large servers are being toasted right now beyond their capacity, which is giving the larger community a poor impression of this system.
I'd recommend joining smaller instances or like, just running your own. WordPress with the AP plugin is a nice alternative if you just want to feed your own thoughts out into the fedi-sphere.
I'd recommend joining smaller instances or like, just running your own. WordPress with the AP plugin is a nice alternative if you just want to feed your own thoughts out into the fedi-sphere.
Really surprised fosstodon.org doesn't get mentioned on HN more..
How is that different from email though? Email providers will block whole swaths of IPs without telling you but you don't really notice it because it's very likely those IPs are only being used maliciously.
We're in a weird time right now though. Most people choose an email provider based on word of mouth or what their friends use but not enough people know about Mastodon to make that possible. Maybe Mastodon itself isn't the right answer, but I hope that a federated/distributed system is.
We're in a weird time right now though. Most people choose an email provider based on word of mouth or what their friends use but not enough people know about Mastodon to make that possible. Maybe Mastodon itself isn't the right answer, but I hope that a federated/distributed system is.
>Email providers will block whole swaths of IPs without telling you but you don't really notice it because it's very likely those IPs are only being used maliciously.
Most blocked instances in Mastodon are typically not being blocked for being malicious instances, but instead because they don't like the kind of tweets that are from there. Email servers are typically much more neutral and block IPs mostly to prevent spam instead of because they disagree with the speech contained in the emails originating from that IP.
Most blocked instances in Mastodon are typically not being blocked for being malicious instances, but instead because they don't like the kind of tweets that are from there. Email servers are typically much more neutral and block IPs mostly to prevent spam instead of because they disagree with the speech contained in the emails originating from that IP.
Just a small note, you can't really choose wrong because you can participate across the fediverse, with other "servers", and even non-mastodon federated social media. However if it irks one to join a specific community, there does exist general purpose instances.
If I can’t choose wrong then why am I forced to choose at all? The user experience doesn’t add up.
The "not choosing" option is to run your own instance.
You are forced to chose because there is not a central blessed server that acts as a main hub.
You are forced to chose because there is not a central blessed server that acts as a main hub.
You chose an area code for your phone number. Often people choose area codes from a home state as a bit of nostalgia or affinity, but in the end you can use any number to talk to any number, so it really does not matter much.
In Mastodon you can choose a french server if you are french and agree with generally accepted french values of moderation, or you can choose a general purpose server, or host your own.
There are a lot of LGBT servers and special interest servers with strict moderation, and general purpose servers that moderate very little.
It is also a bit like choosing what city to live in... except it is -much- easier to move if you decide you do not like the vibe and wish to live somewhere else. Mastodon has built-in user forwarding to take your follows and followers with you.
In Mastodon you can choose a french server if you are french and agree with generally accepted french values of moderation, or you can choose a general purpose server, or host your own.
There are a lot of LGBT servers and special interest servers with strict moderation, and general purpose servers that moderate very little.
It is also a bit like choosing what city to live in... except it is -much- easier to move if you decide you do not like the vibe and wish to live somewhere else. Mastodon has built-in user forwarding to take your follows and followers with you.
Who should decide it for you then? Did someone mention blockchain already?
But seriously though, if you start to make it more distributed than it already is it will look even less like Twitter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tox_(protocol)
But seriously though, if you start to make it more distributed than it already is it will look even less like Twitter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tox_(protocol)
Most users don't care how distributed it is, or what it's architecture looks like.
They just want to sign up, and get an out-of-the box experience more or less like twitter.
They just want to sign up, and get an out-of-the box experience more or less like twitter.
If Mastodon was fully centralized like Twitter and offered that experience, it would need an immense source of funding, and need ads, and shareholders, and would be losing money rapidly until some billionare bought it out... like Twitter.
Mastodon is built so that there is no single point of failure, but that means users have no single point of signup. It is like email, or matrix. Host your own on your own domain for a few dollars a month or join a friendly server paying the bill for you.
It is really not that hard, but people are just not used to having choices on the internet anymore.
At some point someone you know picked Twitter and you did too. Maybe find some friends or public figures you like on Mastodon and see what server they are on.
Mastodon is built so that there is no single point of failure, but that means users have no single point of signup. It is like email, or matrix. Host your own on your own domain for a few dollars a month or join a friendly server paying the bill for you.
It is really not that hard, but people are just not used to having choices on the internet anymore.
At some point someone you know picked Twitter and you did too. Maybe find some friends or public figures you like on Mastodon and see what server they are on.
isn't the whole point of federated service that I don't have to be on the same server as people I'm following?
Of course. I only suggest that for people that cannot decide what server to choose.
If they don't care, then they should stay on Twitter. There isn't a better option right now than Mastodon/ActivityPub.
If there's no wrong answer between Gmail and Outlook, why must you choose one of them?
You have a good analogy attempt there, but you didn't quite nail it I think, because Outlook is also an email client.
It's more like if someone asked why they need to choose between [email protected] address or [email protected], but in reality email would work just fine regardless.
EDIT: fixed
It's more like if someone asked why they need to choose between [email protected] address or [email protected], but in reality email would work just fine regardless.
EDIT: fixed
Except for all the people with outlook.com addresses.
Yup, you're right. I guess I was specifically referring to outlook.com, Microsoft's hosted email solution for consumers.
I haven't figured out this part. I joined the default server years ago. All of the other servers want a unique account, as I cannot login using my existing account.
How do I "participate across the fediverse" without creating one account per server? Is there a part of the UI I just haven't stumbled on yet?
How do I "participate across the fediverse" without creating one account per server? Is there a part of the UI I just haven't stumbled on yet?
You cannot use your gmail credentials to login to yahoo, but you can communicate with anyone from yahoo with your gmail account.
Similarly servers do not share credentials, but you can follow people no matter what server they are on.
Similarly servers do not share credentials, but you can follow people no matter what server they are on.
It's finding people to follow that are on different servers. That's the thing. A lot of servers have their content for users only, and if you don't have an account on those servers, you don't know who to follow.
there's a lot of chicken & egg issues still going on. I think it'll get better as more people put their info on their web pages, though.
there's a lot of chicken & egg issues still going on. I think it'll get better as more people put their info on their web pages, though.
The people come first, not the technology. I didn't really start using Twitter until I first knew some people I wanted to communicate with. It will be the same with Mastodon, or whatever. Then the choice of server will become much simpler. Until then, I'm not moving from Twitter. Sure I'm using Twitter less these days, due to the chaos, but I'm not joining anything else until I see where others are going.
Does that make me a sheeple? Yes, it does. Sue me.
Does that make me a sheeple? Yes, it does. Sue me.
Also, besides choosing a server, how do you figure out which other servers that server "federates" with or blocks entirely?
Live and learn? It astonishes me that people would get so worked up about the possibility that somebody somewhere is posting and you might not see it. Guess what? They're already posting today and you're not seeing their posts.
You have a point, but think about it from the newbies perspective. They have no idea how many posts they won't see. Everybody is used to centralized where they see everything and now they're being told to check out this alternative where you might not see everything. Okay, does that mean 50% of what gets posted won't be seen? 25%? 5%? Will I be able to see what my favorite celeb posts? There's zero context for a newbie to understand what they're missing out on. Much easier to say "too complicated" than to give it a try.
> Everybody is used to centralized where they see everything
You never see everything. There's way too much of it. Everything is going to be a selection. The question is who is going to do the selecting.
You never see everything. There's way too much of it. Everything is going to be a selection. The question is who is going to do the selecting.
Honestly, I think it's concern trolling. Newbies don't know federation is incomplete, so it's not a problem for them. It's only on the HN threads full of mastodon haters that the topic even gets mentioned, but these are not newbies. They're people looking for reasons to be unhappy.
Perhaps some are concern trolling, but I think it's still a legitimate problem if you want people to take up the technology. I use mastodon, but I know it's not the easiest thing to pick up. A lot of the complaining, to me, is just recognizing the common pattern of technically-minded creators not recognizing that the tech (and how it's presented) can get in the way of encouraging more users to join.
Oh, I have no intention or reason to move away from twitter. My interest ist purely theoretical.
You don't see the risk of outsourcing your reach to a rando admin, who may have started their instance out of protest reasons, in a highly contentious, politicized climate?
There are people right now having tantrums because they want their one-sided censorship back, and indeed, that's what's behind this latest drive to promote mastodon all over the place.
Nothing has actually changed on Twitter except the bluechecks' sense that they're no longer a privileged class.
There are people right now having tantrums because they want their one-sided censorship back, and indeed, that's what's behind this latest drive to promote mastodon all over the place.
Nothing has actually changed on Twitter except the bluechecks' sense that they're no longer a privileged class.
There are risks in trusting your instance admin, but you can move.
Tons has changed on Twitter, including the laying off of half the company including substantial numbers in the Trust & Safety team. I'm seeing people who couldn't have cared less about the US's culture wars talking about leaving Twitter and setting up Mastodon accounts because they're expecting the platform to become nastier, more spammy, less reliable, and overall less pleasant to be on. Perhaps they're wrong, but it's wrong to pretend they're all doing it because they're having 'tantrums' and want their 'one-sided censorship back'.
The major concern I've seen regarding the blue checks is that it's going from being a system of verification (this person really is who they claim to be) to one where it just represents having paid a subscription fee without any real identity verification at all.
Tons has changed on Twitter, including the laying off of half the company including substantial numbers in the Trust & Safety team. I'm seeing people who couldn't have cared less about the US's culture wars talking about leaving Twitter and setting up Mastodon accounts because they're expecting the platform to become nastier, more spammy, less reliable, and overall less pleasant to be on. Perhaps they're wrong, but it's wrong to pretend they're all doing it because they're having 'tantrums' and want their 'one-sided censorship back'.
The major concern I've seen regarding the blue checks is that it's going from being a system of verification (this person really is who they claim to be) to one where it just represents having paid a subscription fee without any real identity verification at all.
Bluechecks stopped being about verification a long time ago, when it became clear Twitter wouldn't verify people with the wrong kind of opinions, and when they vindictively started to deverify accounts as punishment. That proves it was not about identity verification at all but about the in-group.
I have no doubt there is some hysteria going around, but it is entirely unfounded. If anything, you can expect fanatic lefties to false flag abuse to create that impression because that's exactly their style.
I have no doubt there is some hysteria going around, but it is entirely unfounded. If anything, you can expect fanatic lefties to false flag abuse to create that impression because that's exactly their style.
Oh please, actually notable conservatives and right wingers with impersonation risk have never had much trouble getting verified. All journalists from Fox News, Newsmax, etc were verified as were all GOP politicians.
Those complaining about not being verified were invariably non-notable internet famous personalities, and I saw many of those complaints from people on the left too. Not everything was political bias, some people just were far less notable than they thought they were.
That you consider this to be about ‘fanatical lefties’ and ‘false flags’ shows you’re way too far down the rabbit hole and you’ve lost all perspective. Step back from the culture war nonsense and maybe spend a bit of time offline to touch grass.
Those complaining about not being verified were invariably non-notable internet famous personalities, and I saw many of those complaints from people on the left too. Not everything was political bias, some people just were far less notable than they thought they were.
That you consider this to be about ‘fanatical lefties’ and ‘false flags’ shows you’re way too far down the rabbit hole and you’ve lost all perspective. Step back from the culture war nonsense and maybe spend a bit of time offline to touch grass.
You're completely right, but you'll have a hard time finding common sense in HN. Go to 4chan if you want a real conversation.
Generally they seem to have lists of blocked servers (often with the full domain censored with ****) on the about page. I don't know if the list is generated or manually updated.
Most of the servers I've looked at today have that list hidden behind a signup wall. "The list is visible for logged-in members under the heading Unavailable content below."
and they aren't taking new signups. Soooo.... no idea.
and they aren't taking new signups. Soooo.... no idea.
Many Mastodon servers list which other instances they block or limit. Check out the "Moderated servers" list at the bottom of https://mastodon.social/about
You should join a server you think has a reasonable approach to moderating other servers. On any other service the administrator can also prevent you from seeing posts, this is not specific to Mastodon at all. For private messaging other standards exist, for example XMPP+OMEMO.
How do you find out if that is the case? Believe what they say? What happens if they die, or throw you out? Do you need to get another handle? Will this drop you from other people's contact lists?
These are things I worry about.
These are things I worry about.
If these are your concerns you may be well served by hosting an instance on a domain you own.
Am I the only one who doesn't get why chosing a server is necesary? I just don't get it at all from a user experience perspective.
Do we need to pick servers with Bittorrent? no. Just tell it what file you want (magnet link).
Do we need to pick servers with Tox? no. Just tell it what friend you want to talk to (contact ID).
Or to pick a centralized example: do we need to pick a server on Twitter? no. duh.
Then why is there any necesity or excuse ever to have to pick servers for "social" apps? Is this the 80's?!
How do these "decentralized" advocates think they can get away with a "harder to use app with more steps"? Especially when it's not a technical necesity?
Do we need to pick servers with Bittorrent? no. Just tell it what file you want (magnet link).
Do we need to pick servers with Tox? no. Just tell it what friend you want to talk to (contact ID).
Or to pick a centralized example: do we need to pick a server on Twitter? no. duh.
Then why is there any necesity or excuse ever to have to pick servers for "social" apps? Is this the 80's?!
How do these "decentralized" advocates think they can get away with a "harder to use app with more steps"? Especially when it's not a technical necesity?
You also have to pick a phone or email provider. Would you prefer if those had only a single option available?
You don't pick a server with Bittorrent because it runs locally, which you can also do with Mastodon or other distributed networks. Though if you want others to be able to reach you, you probably need to set up a domain name and leave your server on. The problem with using a Bittorrent-like setup is that you don't have a persistent identity there.
You don't need to pick a server for Twitter because there is only one. You have no choice. Mastodon and other distributed social networks offer choice. Imagine, if you didn't like how Twitter moderated their content, and you thought you could do that better, you could simply spin up your own Twitter server and still communicate with everybody on Twitter?
But you're right that being forced to make this choice on little information is still an extra step, and not a great one. Maybe there should be a single default choice? Maybe assign one randomly for those who don't know? Because it honestly doesn't matter that much which server you pick. You can still see and follow everything. The only difference is really the moderation/blocking policy. Just pick a big one and you're probably fine.
You don't pick a server with Bittorrent because it runs locally, which you can also do with Mastodon or other distributed networks. Though if you want others to be able to reach you, you probably need to set up a domain name and leave your server on. The problem with using a Bittorrent-like setup is that you don't have a persistent identity there.
You don't need to pick a server for Twitter because there is only one. You have no choice. Mastodon and other distributed social networks offer choice. Imagine, if you didn't like how Twitter moderated their content, and you thought you could do that better, you could simply spin up your own Twitter server and still communicate with everybody on Twitter?
But you're right that being forced to make this choice on little information is still an extra step, and not a great one. Maybe there should be a single default choice? Maybe assign one randomly for those who don't know? Because it honestly doesn't matter that much which server you pick. You can still see and follow everything. The only difference is really the moderation/blocking policy. Just pick a big one and you're probably fine.
You need to pick servers (providers) for emails. But we don't really think about it this much because we're used to it.
The fediverse is built on a very similar type of network: federated servers, similarly to how gmail talks to yahoo and hotmail.
The fediverse is built on a very similar type of network: federated servers, similarly to how gmail talks to yahoo and hotmail.
from @[email protected]
People treating cell phones like they treat Mastodon: "ok...so you're saying I get a phone number, but I have to pick a provider? wtf that sounds like work...but I can call you even if you're using a different one, because they all talk to each other? so f*ing confused rn"
> apparently my server's administrator would be able to silently prevent me from seeing other "enemy" servers' messages, and they could even read my DMs.
There's an interesting problem here - how do you know that your server's software and configuration hasn't been modified in a way that subtly lets these things happen?
I've always wanted a PaaS, operated by a too-big-to-make-exceptions security-hardened company (here's looking at you, Google!), that lets you deploy any image or set of images, but has a centrally managed ingress that ensures that the only access is over HTTPS (so no direct access to any requisitioned databases) and furthermore reports a hash of the image(s) as an HTTP response header with every single response, with no way to change or suppress this
You could then have, say, a Mastodon implementation that also reports all appropriate central configuration (say, blocklists, or disabling the ability of users to port out) at a public endpoint, and, importantly, is trusted to report that accurately, because you could validate what code it's running via the HTTP response. You could audit that security updates are being applied, that nobody is running a fork that gives them access to your DMs, and, if Mastodon gave visibility into this, you could also validate whether administrators all have 2FA enabled and how many of them there are (and hold your server admins to account socially).
Of course, you do have to trust the PaaS provider not to make exceptions to the rules, but no more so than we currently trust any certificate authority.
Does anyone know if anything like this exists right now?
There's an interesting problem here - how do you know that your server's software and configuration hasn't been modified in a way that subtly lets these things happen?
I've always wanted a PaaS, operated by a too-big-to-make-exceptions security-hardened company (here's looking at you, Google!), that lets you deploy any image or set of images, but has a centrally managed ingress that ensures that the only access is over HTTPS (so no direct access to any requisitioned databases) and furthermore reports a hash of the image(s) as an HTTP response header with every single response, with no way to change or suppress this
You could then have, say, a Mastodon implementation that also reports all appropriate central configuration (say, blocklists, or disabling the ability of users to port out) at a public endpoint, and, importantly, is trusted to report that accurately, because you could validate what code it's running via the HTTP response. You could audit that security updates are being applied, that nobody is running a fork that gives them access to your DMs, and, if Mastodon gave visibility into this, you could also validate whether administrators all have 2FA enabled and how many of them there are (and hold your server admins to account socially).
Of course, you do have to trust the PaaS provider not to make exceptions to the rules, but no more so than we currently trust any certificate authority.
Does anyone know if anything like this exists right now?
IMO, I should be directed to a federal-level or provincial-level provider for my primary id. And it should be easy to select a “better” one later, as I learn about the service.
Or better if I could buy a plug-n-play wall wart that would provide a secure server for friends and family, with some way to filter/receive the rest of the fediverse.
Maybe I’m the oddball but I care way more about twittering with/to friends and family, than following a celeb or journalist.
Or better if I could buy a plug-n-play wall wart that would provide a secure server for friends and family, with some way to filter/receive the rest of the fediverse.
Maybe I’m the oddball but I care way more about twittering with/to friends and family, than following a celeb or journalist.
> and they could even read my DMs.
Child patents are strangely completely ignoring this point for some reason. Some have added an absurd “but what about email” though. I never thought about it. This ought to be DoA for many in today’s world.
Child patents are strangely completely ignoring this point for some reason. Some have added an absurd “but what about email” though. I never thought about it. This ought to be DoA for many in today’s world.
It is a lot like email. There is no centralized email network either. Ultimately, people will realize that they are really looking for a specific community rather than joining "Mastodon" itself.
[deleted]
I think you're just putting way too much thought into it: Any server will do just fine (you can always move later, but only if you feel really attached to a given community), and any well-established server really just blocks servers full of Nazis and anime child porn.
Eugen is playing almost all roles singlehandedly and last said he was making around 35k a year. "I do software development, devops, accounting, customer support, project management, product design, public relations, and moderation for 36K per year..."
please help fund the project to ensure further stability.
https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/109260715240000670
please help fund the project to ensure further stability.
https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/109260715240000670
In theory federated social media seems like a great idea. You can hand-wave a lot of impossible moderation problems away just by not being so damn big. It seems like I could join for music and geeky history without being inundated with The Current Thing ragebait culture. I'd try that out!
In practice it's still a desert.
The problem isn't how to sign up, it's that with the exception of a few active communities, there's not much going on once you do.
In practice it's still a desert.
The problem isn't how to sign up, it's that with the exception of a few active communities, there's not much going on once you do.
I finally joined yesterday to a niche (academic) community that is moving from Twitter. 18k migrants in the 30 hours since it opened up with virtually linear growth. I can search other similar niche communities and they are seeing similar growth.
It's not seeming like much of a desert, and is just starting to benefit from network effects as some of the more known members of the community announce their moves.
It's not seeming like much of a desert, and is just starting to benefit from network effects as some of the more known members of the community announce their moves.
Right. I'm on the mathematics server https://mathstodon.xyz/ and it's already feeling like a big community.
How do you get invited?
Existing users can generate an invite link:
https://mathstodon.xyz/invite/5nKykTB6
If it doesn't work then check back in a day or two, many servers are struggling at the moment but the mathstodon admins are scaling up now.
Or you can join any other instance since any account can follow any other account regardless of instance. The main advantage of mathstodon is LaTeX support.
https://mathstodon.xyz/invite/5nKykTB6
If it doesn't work then check back in a day or two, many servers are struggling at the moment but the mathstodon admins are scaling up now.
Or you can join any other instance since any account can follow any other account regardless of instance. The main advantage of mathstodon is LaTeX support.
[deleted]
What's the community of academics? I haven't joined Twitter specifically because I think it's a horrible medium for communicating science or meeting with academics. Can you point me there?
Just from a quick look, no claim to completeness, intentionally including also small ones:
https://fediscience.org/
https://vis.social/
https://mstdn.science/
https://astrodon.social/
https://mapstodon.space/
currently not taking signups:
https://scholar.social/
https://scicomm.xyz/
https://fediscience.org/
https://vis.social/
https://mstdn.science/
https://astrodon.social/
https://mapstodon.space/
currently not taking signups:
https://scholar.social/
https://scicomm.xyz/
How do I follow a server with an account on a different server? I don’t want to register on multiple servers since it’s a hassle…
It's pretty straightforward: you either click on their profile or (if you know someone's username@server via some other medium), search for them on your 'home' server and you'll see their profile. Then just click the 'follow' button.
Under the covers this sets up the federated follow relationship, but the UX feels the same as following someone on twitter.
There is one slightly more complicated scenario; if for some reason you're exploring a different server and find someone there you want to follow. In that case you still click the follow button but have to provide _your_ username@server string which triggers the necessary back-and-forth to get the follow relationship set up.
Under the covers this sets up the federated follow relationship, but the UX feels the same as following someone on twitter.
There is one slightly more complicated scenario; if for some reason you're exploring a different server and find someone there you want to follow. In that case you still click the follow button but have to provide _your_ username@server string which triggers the necessary back-and-forth to get the follow relationship set up.
That makes sense, but my case is before I know who to follow. Is there any way to explore what’s going on on a server? Like browsing a news group on Usenet or checking a subreddit before subscribing?
> Like browsing a news group on Usenet or checking a subreddit before
How would you do that on Twitter? Follow the hashtags. Why do you insist on limiting it to a server? That's not really how it is supposed to work anyway, it's not those things you mentioned.
How would you do that on Twitter? Follow the hashtags. Why do you insist on limiting it to a server? That's not really how it is supposed to work anyway, it's not those things you mentioned.
But how do I know what hashtags are there? I don't know what to follow is my issue. I need to bootstrap my set of followed things and people and how do I do that?
If you're not a part of some clique that decides to move off Twitter together, then I doubt you'll be able to just recreate a similar environment.
Otherwise for someone who posts frequently and has a good following, then it's probably worth it to start posting on Twitter and Mastodon at the same time, that's the only way it happens. Big movers and shakers are either going to stay on Twitter or drag everyone else with them, basically unlikely to happen.
Otherwise for someone who posts frequently and has a good following, then it's probably worth it to start posting on Twitter and Mastodon at the same time, that's the only way it happens. Big movers and shakers are either going to stay on Twitter or drag everyone else with them, basically unlikely to happen.
not sure what you mean by "follow a server"? You can interact with/follow people on other servers from yours.
Each server has a local timeline. Some are visible to non-subscribers, some are not.
I’m on fosstodon which has this as the local timeline.
https://fosstodon.org/web/public/local
On many servers I can do the obvious substitution to see that server’s local timeline. I don’t think I’ve seen any servers that link that from their top level page.
I’m on fosstodon which has this as the local timeline.
https://fosstodon.org/web/public/local
On many servers I can do the obvious substitution to see that server’s local timeline. I don’t think I’ve seen any servers that link that from their top level page.
> https://fosstodon.org/web/public/local
This presents me with a log in form.
This presents me with a log in form.
Might be related to this message they have on their main page:
> Due to the massive influx of users from Twitter, we have had to temporarily close registrations. Please check back later if you wish to join Fosstodon.
> Due to the massive influx of users from Twitter, we have had to temporarily close registrations. Please check back later if you wish to join Fosstodon.
This asks for a login - but you can't use "your" login, you have to create a login for that server.
That’s the thing, I don’t really want to find people to follow, I guess? Not out of band at least. First I need to find a few of their posts. How do I do that?
Follow a hashtag. Posts from various different servers will show up in your feed, and you can follow people by just clicking “follow”.
It's federated, you don't need to register on multiple servers.
A notable recent addition, https://sigmoid.social/ for machine learning stuff. (Just a few days old, 3k users.)
https://qoto.org/ is another really nice instance oriented on STEM. It adds some features like LaTeX and Markdown support (not sure how well do those federate though).
Could you share the name of the server?
> In practice it's still a desert.
That's not true anymore: I am currently following over 100 academics and scientists who decided to migrate over the past week, they are very active and as a result my timeline is much more interesting and engaging than Twitter.
I have never seen such a big exodus in my 25+ years online, this is historic.
That's not true anymore: I am currently following over 100 academics and scientists who decided to migrate over the past week, they are very active and as a result my timeline is much more interesting and engaging than Twitter.
I have never seen such a big exodus in my 25+ years online, this is historic.
Digg to Reddit comes to mind, but the quality of new material in Mastodon eclipses Twitter.
> You can hand-wave a lot of impossible moderation problems away just by not being so damn big
Instance admins can certainly be more decisive and just ban anyone they want without causing a media storm. Not sure if that's what people meant when they asked for a Twitter alternative.
Instance admins can certainly be more decisive and just ban anyone they want without causing a media storm. Not sure if that's what people meant when they asked for a Twitter alternative.
I have never cared to look at local server feeds. I follow dozens of people that interest me, and that is it.
Twitter is a great place for creatives to pitch their shows and get scooped up into a studio if you can put out some high-quality work. Mastodon doesn't seem like it has any solid use case to that end.
Craig McCracken, the creator of PPG and Fosters Home has consistently used his Twitter following to boost other creatives by retweeting their work and LaikaStudios has been a great place to see BTS work on their stop-motion projects.
These sites all seem to have some grandiose plan but at the end of the day, the long-standing use case is just a place to build a community, collaborate with like-minded people, and ultimately just take a break from real life for a few moments by scrolling down your feed to consume some content.
Craig McCracken, the creator of PPG and Fosters Home has consistently used his Twitter following to boost other creatives by retweeting their work and LaikaStudios has been a great place to see BTS work on their stop-motion projects.
These sites all seem to have some grandiose plan but at the end of the day, the long-standing use case is just a place to build a community, collaborate with like-minded people, and ultimately just take a break from real life for a few moments by scrolling down your feed to consume some content.
"Craig McCracken, the creator of PPG and Fosters Home has consistently used his Twitter following to boost other creatives by retweeting their work"
This is exactly how Mastodon works.
This is exactly how Mastodon works.
Mastodon is too fragmented to work... well. For example; this tweet: https://twitter.com/joinmastodon/status/1585756076305444864.
Would you really host your email on a server that some dude in rural Canada runs in his spare time? I don't think so. Not just for reliability reasons, but for privacy reasons as well.
Would you really host your email on a server that some dude in rural Canada runs in his spare time? I don't think so. Not just for reliability reasons, but for privacy reasons as well.
As with email hosting, what stops you to choose instance served by a company? Let's imagine Google Fedi+, MS Fedilook or Proton Fedi hosted from some bunker in Switzerland.
> what stops you to choose instance served by a company
That when the goodwill of said company runs out, there is very little incentive for them to maintain the service (other than trying to monetize it).
That when the goodwill of said company runs out, there is very little incentive for them to maintain the service (other than trying to monetize it).
There is no free lunch. Somebody has to pay electricity bills and spend resources (time) on administration.
But you have a choice: so you trust the dude in rural Canada who pays the server bills with his harvest earnings, or you agree with monetization T&C by giving up your privacy to ads corporation, or you pay a hosting company who manages your instance on VPS, or you setup your own instance, or you participate in coop scheme where you share instance with some common interest group, or you find some rich and trusted philanthropist. Otherwise the owner can't sustain the operations and may need to shut down one day (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33120136)
But you have a choice: so you trust the dude in rural Canada who pays the server bills with his harvest earnings, or you agree with monetization T&C by giving up your privacy to ads corporation, or you pay a hosting company who manages your instance on VPS, or you setup your own instance, or you participate in coop scheme where you share instance with some common interest group, or you find some rich and trusted philanthropist. Otherwise the owner can't sustain the operations and may need to shut down one day (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33120136)
I think I will trust/use/invest in the company whose business model depends on me using the platform.
I'm still trying to make up my mind about all this, but it's likely that the fact that many servers are running subject to the same set of rules may increase competition since servers are highly substitutable, so a paid server business model may actually be more customer oriented because of the "Mastodon market" pressure it faces, isn't it?
Handling it less like email and more like a “well if it blows up ah well” is part of the featureset in my opinion.
Social accounts are monetizable & part of peoples brands now - “well if it blows up ah well” might be fine for you or for me, but might not be for others.
Then don't use free instances? There's a bunch of companies that would run a dedicated instance for you for a couple dozen $/mo.
Less than that. Weingärtner is 4€/month for an instance they say is suitable for up to 5 users. Masto.host is $6 for the same. This is a major advantage over centralized social media in terms of platform risk.
Arguably we’re seeing the beginning of Twitter blowing up and if that falls to Digg-like irrelevance they face a similar issue.
It's actually much closer to the email system than this analogy.
Some dude in rural Canada can run a email server in their spare time and nobody thinks the email system is any worse for it.
Some dude in rural Canada can run a email server in their spare time and nobody thinks the email system is any worse for it.
[deleted]
I didn't think Mastodon would make sense for me as any kind of twiter alternative, but then I found someone created ruby.social and now it actually makes sense for me, and offers something twitter doesn't.
My anti-tech wife looked at this for 5 minutes and was horribly confused. Her friends all feel the same way - why can’t they just sign in and see all the people they want to see? What is an instance, why cant the instance be just one? Which one do they join? They all went back to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
> why cant the instance be just one
> They all went back to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram
Do they not have the same problem with those 3 instances, each with their separate networks and separate user handles?
> They all went back to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram
Do they not have the same problem with those 3 instances, each with their separate networks and separate user handles?
Instead of trying to sell them an alternative to Twitter, maybe try to sell them a prettier email provider.
I think most of us are missing where things are converging:
1. Easier to do ads as overlay on vid clips than 12 character content 2. User base is getting to trained to expect and WANT short vid clip content 3. Ease and reach of story telling via short vid clips 4. Move off of social graph to AI graph 5. Automated moderation but open where you can see what posts were moderated and why pertaining to the rules of the SM platform.
What we are seeing is the move to Social 2.0.
1. Mark Z has the problem of how to turn FB into instagram and AI graph @. Youtube has smaller problem of just adjusting their feed impl to AI graph 3. Twitter has the most work out of the three in that it's their full imp and infrastructure that has to change to get back to revelance.
True P2P has never ever won in the market of over almost 40 years. But people keep rehashing the same way of doing and structuring P2P both tech wise and business wise and losing.
1. Easier to do ads as overlay on vid clips than 12 character content 2. User base is getting to trained to expect and WANT short vid clip content 3. Ease and reach of story telling via short vid clips 4. Move off of social graph to AI graph 5. Automated moderation but open where you can see what posts were moderated and why pertaining to the rules of the SM platform.
What we are seeing is the move to Social 2.0.
1. Mark Z has the problem of how to turn FB into instagram and AI graph @. Youtube has smaller problem of just adjusting their feed impl to AI graph 3. Twitter has the most work out of the three in that it's their full imp and infrastructure that has to change to get back to revelance.
True P2P has never ever won in the market of over almost 40 years. But people keep rehashing the same way of doing and structuring P2P both tech wise and business wise and losing.
Who cares about "winning the market". Join a server and talk with your friends, colleagues, and like-minded people. Have a good time. Kick a few bucks at your instance for hosting costs maybe. Let the back-alley knife fight for the right to spy on & manipulate you happen somewhere else, never even crossing your mind.
I dont think Mastodon will gain mainstream adoption because of the naming, and they call messages "Toots". Normal people will baulk at the branding of it all.
I remember complaining the “iPad” sounded like a menstrual product. Seemed to do fine.
"pad" without the "i" was already accepted as a term for something you write on e.g., "pen and pad"
I'm pretty confident that you can ask someone for a pad for writing, without thinking at all about hygiene products, but you can't even hear the toot of a horn without thinking of a fart.
I'm pretty confident that you can ask someone for a pad for writing, without thinking at all about hygiene products, but you can't even hear the toot of a horn without thinking of a fart.
The Wii did fine too.
The i-line of products was already well known by the general public at the time to be synonymous with Apple. iTunes, iPod, iPhone ... those were normal english words prefixed with an "i". People wonder why Apple didn't call their watch the iWatch. This is a much different thing with "mastrodon". It's not a word people are familiar with, has enough syllables to sound funny, and gets combined with other nonsense words people aren't familiar with. Compare that with something like youtube subscribers, posters, tweets, etc. which are all basic words. Mastrodon's situation is that it reeks of being engineer designed. That's not a good thing if your goal is to reach a mainstream audience.
I think you're skipping past the word "pad" which is what people thought was weird, not the I.
Toot is as much a basic word as tweet, I think you are just reflecting your own bias towards words from products you already know.
Toot is as much a basic word as tweet, I think you are just reflecting your own bias towards words from products you already know.
This reminds me of the super old joke "iPod, iPad, iPaid"
Posts are just call 'posts' in the latest versions of the software.
So what? It doesn’t need to be mainstream. It’s not built for exploitation of the user base, so it doesn’t need to sell the idea that everyone needs to be there.
All the better; if the cool people can’t adopt a social network due its quirky names they’re not the kind of people I want I my timeline anyway.
I like the name Mastodon!
masto- : a combining form meaning “breast,” used in the formation of compound words: mastopathy.
It sounds like the sister site of Phallodon.
-Don
masto- : a combining form meaning “breast,” used in the formation of compound words: mastopathy.
It sounds like the sister site of Phallodon.
-Don
tweet it louder, bird!
Wasn't it the idea of Musk to give everyone on Twitter absolute freedom of (amplification of) speech?
He stated his true plans privately, these comms were unveiled by the discovery process from the Twitter lawsuit.
See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33475031 for more details and sources.
p.s. thanks to Dan Luu for putting it all online!
See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33475031 for more details and sources.
p.s. thanks to Dan Luu for putting it all online!
That actually seems… pretty reasonable and probably a net good? Why are people so mad about this? The Twitter status quo seems incredibly toxic.
Jack Dorsey seems to be describing Mastodon, unless I misunderstand.
Maybe, it's still too early to discern what the end state will be. I feel disdain for the dishonesty and poor treatment of / regard for human beings in his sphere, though.
So far it's a case study demonstration of poor and uninspiring leadership.
So far it's a case study demonstration of poor and uninspiring leadership.
There’s a lot of incredibly racist commentary now. The toxicity is at a whole other level at this point.
The content moderation policy hasn’t changed. I mean, I guess some far right folk think Elon’s their man. They’re sorely mistaken (as can be seen by the outrage/despair of Nazis when Elon said he’s talking with ADL representatives).
Hopefully. Elon never felt like a racist to me plus he’s been my hero for a very long time so I hope I don’t have to start disliking him.
Heroes don't generally make libelous pedo accusations against people who are trying to do good things.
Lots of people seem to want to see Elon (or any famous person) as either a hero or a villain, but the reality is that most people are a bit of both. They do both good and bad. I appreciate Musk for making electric cars sexy, making space flight cheaper and less wasteful, and making lots of solar panels. I don't like him picking stupid internet fights or occasionally going mad with power. It's a mix.
90% of the stupid stuff that Elon has done (that we know about) comes from his interactions on the toxic social media platform, Twitter. He’d be better off deleting his Twitter account and moving to Mastodon. Or just off social media altogether.
I’m willing to overlook all that. My worldview gives self made successful men a LOT of leeway before I care.
That's a pretty broken philosophy.
Who is that "Jason C"?
Also, further down in the chat log there's this:
> [redacted]: Hey Elon -my name is Jake Sherman. I'm a reporter with Punchbowl News in Washington I cover Congress. Wonder if you're game to talk about how Twitter would change for politics if you were at the helm?
What's with the [redacted]? Does Musk give journalists insulting names in his contact list?
Also, further down in the chat log there's this:
> [redacted]: Hey Elon -my name is Jake Sherman. I'm a reporter with Punchbowl News in Washington I cover Congress. Wonder if you're game to talk about how Twitter would change for politics if you were at the helm?
What's with the [redacted]? Does Musk give journalists insulting names in his contact list?
If he wasn’t in the contact list, perhaps that is his phone number.
Jason Calacanis, a wealthy VC friend to elon.
Check out the clickable link sources, it's interesting to see how cavalier billionaires are in their private life, the "hard work" consists of mostly just scheming. Not even data-driven in this case, only napkin math:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33475152
Check out the clickable link sources, it's interesting to see how cavalier billionaires are in their private life, the "hard work" consists of mostly just scheming. Not even data-driven in this case, only napkin math:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33475152
I didn't read the whole thing, but my favorite part was:
> Jason: Day zero
> Jason: Sharpen your blades boys [dagger emoji]
> Jason: 2 day a week Office requirement= 20% voluntary departures
> Jason: Day zero
> Jason: Sharpen your blades boys [dagger emoji]
> Jason: 2 day a week Office requirement= 20% voluntary departures
Jason Calcanis always had the worst ideas. Classic example of failing upwards.
I remember Jason's mahalo which was supposedly a "human powered" search engine which would out compete flawed algorithmic search of Google. Mahalo eventually became a spam content generator for SEO.
I think he was a tech journalist who failed upwards into becoming a VC. Which reminds me- what is parislemon up to?
I remember Jason's mahalo which was supposedly a "human powered" search engine which would out compete flawed algorithmic search of Google. Mahalo eventually became a spam content generator for SEO.
I think he was a tech journalist who failed upwards into becoming a VC. Which reminds me- what is parislemon up to?
Nothing even remotely objectionable there? It's no secret that twitter has been a money-losing toxic cesspit for years. Making the moderation fair and transparent will go miles all on its own.
Elon’s improved blue checkmark is basically a shadow ban system for the average person that doesn’t pay $8. If the average person is talking to a wall and the influencers are getting all the engagement why would they stick around?
I also feel like all these discussions are a distraction from the real issue. The average person doesn’t like using Twitter and never will.
I also feel like all these discussions are a distraction from the real issue. The average person doesn’t like using Twitter and never will.
> If the average person is talking to a wall and the influencers are getting all the engagement why would they stick around?
Aren't most people on Twitter exactly to follow those influencers? I don't think most people would ever expect global engagement from any of their tweets.
The real issue here is not average people, but people with something important to say who are not rich, like scientists and activists. They (and their followers) are the ones who might be hurt by the expensive checkmarks.
Aren't most people on Twitter exactly to follow those influencers? I don't think most people would ever expect global engagement from any of their tweets.
The real issue here is not average people, but people with something important to say who are not rich, like scientists and activists. They (and their followers) are the ones who might be hurt by the expensive checkmarks.
How was the moderation unfair?
Allowed to tweet things that are objectively against the rules if they politically lean a certain way.
Outsized attention given to harmless shitposting at Hollywood actors while Iranian terrorists are allowed to post propaganda unchecked despite reports.
Selective application of rules against things like "hacked content" used against certain politicians and organizations with certain political leanings but not others (in one case leading to the censorship of a .gov domain even over direct messages).
Verification badges issued to nobody journalists and sometimes for monetary compensation in contravention of their stated policy.
The existence of shadow banning which was lied about in Congress before leaked screenshots of the backend tools showed that multiple kinds of shadow bans exist.
Manual manipulation of the ostensibly algorithmic trending list.
It is hard for me to even imagine a way in which Twitter's moderation could possibly be any less fair or transparent.
Outsized attention given to harmless shitposting at Hollywood actors while Iranian terrorists are allowed to post propaganda unchecked despite reports.
Selective application of rules against things like "hacked content" used against certain politicians and organizations with certain political leanings but not others (in one case leading to the censorship of a .gov domain even over direct messages).
Verification badges issued to nobody journalists and sometimes for monetary compensation in contravention of their stated policy.
The existence of shadow banning which was lied about in Congress before leaked screenshots of the backend tools showed that multiple kinds of shadow bans exist.
Manual manipulation of the ostensibly algorithmic trending list.
It is hard for me to even imagine a way in which Twitter's moderation could possibly be any less fair or transparent.
Do you have proof of this?
I sure do. One day I might write up a full article on it, but this is the summary you asked for.
In the meantime I would ask you to remember that HN is not a journal, a debate stage, or an encyclopedia article, instead it is an informal discussion on the internet. As such, participants are allowed to recount things from memory.
In the meantime I would ask you to remember that HN is not a journal, a debate stage, or an encyclopedia article, instead it is an informal discussion on the internet. As such, participants are allowed to recount things from memory.
In an informal discussion citing sources for disputed information is normal. I also don't need a longer version of your claims, I want credible sources to back up them up.
How do I know you're not lying?
I think you've been lied to so many times about this that you think it's true. A common tactic with right wing media.
See hunter biden crimes in china, election fraud, etc
How do I know you're not lying?
I think you've been lied to so many times about this that you think it's true. A common tactic with right wing media.
See hunter biden crimes in china, election fraud, etc
>How do I know you're not lying?
Assumption of good faith and an understanding of the obvious fact that not everything that happened on the Internet gets written about by a "credible source" (which often is a synonym for "the media", and given your unwarranted partisan swipe there, likely a synonym for "the media that agrees with me"). At least one of the things I mentioned above, namely fruitless reporting of terrorist content (where I specifically was the person clicking on the report button) while the CEO got involved with a Hollywood star's gripes, is something I was involved in. What source would even possibly exist?
You can either take my word for it as someone that's been here for over 10 years and isn't in the habit of making shit up, or you can not.
Assumption of good faith and an understanding of the obvious fact that not everything that happened on the Internet gets written about by a "credible source" (which often is a synonym for "the media", and given your unwarranted partisan swipe there, likely a synonym for "the media that agrees with me"). At least one of the things I mentioned above, namely fruitless reporting of terrorist content (where I specifically was the person clicking on the report button) while the CEO got involved with a Hollywood star's gripes, is something I was involved in. What source would even possibly exist?
You can either take my word for it as someone that's been here for over 10 years and isn't in the habit of making shit up, or you can not.
Having no sources makes it difficult or impossible to move the conversation forward in a meaningful way. What is the point of sharing stories with no credible backing or linkage back to reality? "Ah, I hear what you're saying. That's interesting."
It's not that I doubt your honesty, it's an issue of not enough information or context to figure out anything substantial at all.
It's not that I doubt your honesty, it's an issue of not enough information or context to figure out anything substantial at all.
The root question is “How was the moderation unfair?”
Examples were provided. If you do not doubt their honesty, then you agree that unfair moderation took place.
Examples were provided. If you do not doubt their honesty, then you agree that unfair moderation took place.
Yes that sounds unfair. I'd like to be able to review the cases to see it with my own eyes, so we have the proof to say unequivocally "they are lying to us".
They could think they are telling the truth but are being manipulayed.
I'm also interested in any concrete examples you can link us to.
Yeah, that's the point. Mastodon was created because its developers thought Twitter didn't have enough censorship.
I don't mean to trivialize their achievement, but I thought that was pretty funny.
I don't mean to trivialize their achievement, but I thought that was pretty funny.
>Mastodon was created because its developers thought Twitter didn't have enough censorship
You got it backwards. Mastodon was created back in 2016 when Twitter censorship was starting to get way out of hand. Its description was "A decentralized solution to commercial platforms, it avoids the risks of a single company monopolizing your communication."
You got it backwards. Mastodon was created back in 2016 when Twitter censorship was starting to get way out of hand. Its description was "A decentralized solution to commercial platforms, it avoids the risks of a single company monopolizing your communication."
The thing is, Mastodon isn't adding censorship: Anyone has numerous servers to choose from that will let them say whatever they want, but other people have the choice to go to servers which don't federate with the other one.
Free speech is the right to speak, not the right to force everyone to listen. The federation model codifies this.
Free speech is the right to speak, not the right to force everyone to listen. The federation model codifies this.
>Anyone has numerous servers to choose from that will let them say whatever they want, but other people have the choice to go to servers which don't federate with the other one.
And then people who are unhappy with the mere existence of other servers hosting speech they dislike will launch coordinated attacks on the upstream infrastructure and revenue streams of those servers, as we've seen time and time and time again. And of course this will just be justified as giant corporations merely engaging in their free expression by ensuring that certain narratives cannot be easily communicated between willing parties via a digital medium.
And then people who are unhappy with the mere existence of other servers hosting speech they dislike will launch coordinated attacks on the upstream infrastructure and revenue streams of those servers, as we've seen time and time and time again. And of course this will just be justified as giant corporations merely engaging in their free expression by ensuring that certain narratives cannot be easily communicated between willing parties via a digital medium.
That’s a strange take. If another server hosts content I, as a Mastodon admin, dislike, then I can simply choose not to talk to them. I do not owe them a platform. I’m not preventing my users from creating a second account on that server so that they can interact with it. That server has perfect freedom to host whatever they see fit, and I have perfect freedom not to see it.
And if I’m too quick to block servers, my users will leave for less restrictive alternatives. Same if I’m too slow to block bad actors: people being harassed by users on those servers will leave for somewhere more moderated. In short, there’s a feedback loop that tends to optimize a community’s moderation to follow that community’s preferences. What more could you possibly ask for?
And if I’m too quick to block servers, my users will leave for less restrictive alternatives. Same if I’m too slow to block bad actors: people being harassed by users on those servers will leave for somewhere more moderated. In short, there’s a feedback loop that tends to optimize a community’s moderation to follow that community’s preferences. What more could you possibly ask for?
I'm not saying that it's a Mastadon technology problem. I'm saying it's a social problem, that the "federation model" only truly works down to the layer of the tech stack which is not federated, which is still most layers. Activists will not be content to merely defederate, they will coordinate to have disfavored Mastadon instances brought down by their hosts and funders.
You could replace "Mastodon instances" with "websites" and see the same effect. Several sites used by hate groups and similar have gone offline indefinitely after Cloudflare refused to provide them DDoS protection.
Yes, that's what I have in mind. It's unclear if just having the various sides of the culture war creating their own social networks is actually a stable equilibrium.
Having a culture war probably isn't a stable equilibrium.
Hard to do with an ad-driven platform.
You should read the article and how that very topic and what "free speech" even means is discussed
I honestly can't tell if your comment is sarcasm. Are you attributing the idea of free speech in social media to Musk? Like you think he came up with the idea?
Imagine you need to choose a server every time you wanted to surf the net and some server you may not see certain things
It's called your ISP, the only difference is you don't get a choice.
>Imagine you need to choose a server every time you wanted to surf the net
??? I don't have to imagine. That's exactly what happens when you enter a URL.
??? I don't have to imagine. That's exactly what happens when you enter a URL.
That url is the actual content, I meant an intermediary say a proxy
Like your ISP?
I've been thinking that, just like your ISP provides you with an email address (do they all still do that? Mine does), maybe they should also automatically provide you with a social network account.
It's a bit odd how everything today still links back to email, which many consider dated, but we still don't have a good replacement for it. This might be ready for a new universal distributed communication system.
I've been thinking that, just like your ISP provides you with an email address (do they all still do that? Mine does), maybe they should also automatically provide you with a social network account.
It's a bit odd how everything today still links back to email, which many consider dated, but we still don't have a good replacement for it. This might be ready for a new universal distributed communication system.
Imagine you need to choose a server every time you want to email your someone, and that server may have spam filters.
[deleted]
Or having to pick the best option from a million different mail providers.
Is there any space nowadays for tech that is essentially free of politicized rhetoric? I really don't care about democracy or decentralization on my social media platform. When I first discovered Tumblr, MySpace, LiveJournal, Xanga, AIM, and Twitter I didn't care about any of their techno-political underpinnings.
Some servers enforce a rule where political messages are hidden behind a content warning. Check the CoC before you sign up.
That rule itself implies the sort of underpinnings that repel me from certain alternative social networks.
Predictions: Mastodon becomes platform for technically minded center left. Tribel Social becomes lower brow left version of Parler.
Twitter loses customers to aforementioned platforms but survives.
Prediction: masses get into Mastodon, governments mandate protocol tapping to filter out some ActivityPub traffic, for "kids good" or to "stop terrorism". Hosting companies and ISPs start to disallow hosting social networks in their T&C, kind like torrent or crypto mining.
That won’t happen unless Mastodon becomes a hub for socialists and communists. The average Twitter user switching to Mastodon isn’t radical enough for that. Western governments won’t censor ideas within their overton windows, so they won’t censor anything from centre left to centre right.
You won’t see censorship of Mastodon until anarchists and communists use it to coordinate protests at scale.
You won’t see censorship of Mastodon until anarchists and communists use it to coordinate protests at scale.
For years it already has been a haven for antifa, communists, socialists and other authoritarians to communicate and organize.
I feel like most people I know on the left have essentially abandoned social media as inherently unproductive and instead gather in local group chats which can only be found by being active in a community. So the only people who will really be hanging around are probably techno optimists
That’s pretty much what their opposition wants. Previously they controlled what was allowed to be said on the mainstream platforms and that was influential. Scattering off to 1000 different Balkanized ghettos puts them back on the margins. This was what happened to the far right already.
[deleted]
Ben Thompson put well why “Twitter, more than any social network, is sui generis:
First, the service emerged at a time and place where a text-based network was cutting edge…
Second, Twitter grew up in an environment where it was normal to publicly broadcast whatever it was you had to say…
Third, because Twitter was first, it became ground zero for everyone who was textual and had something to say, even if those folks had diametrically opposing viewpoints on everything from Donald Trump to LeBron James.”
https://stratechery.com/2022/musks-twitter-blue-a-twitter-su...
First, the service emerged at a time and place where a text-based network was cutting edge…
Second, Twitter grew up in an environment where it was normal to publicly broadcast whatever it was you had to say…
Third, because Twitter was first, it became ground zero for everyone who was textual and had something to say, even if those folks had diametrically opposing viewpoints on everything from Donald Trump to LeBron James.”
https://stratechery.com/2022/musks-twitter-blue-a-twitter-su...
It would probably help Mastodon a lot if they contacted some of the smarter celebrities and set them up with their own personal server. You’d subscribe to Stephen King or Ryan Reynolds by subscribing to their server. They can afford to run popular servers, and there are enough of them that they can absorb a lot of the load.
For those not sure who to follow on Mastodon, I have been curating my follow list for years. Mostly people into tech, security, privacy, and digital sovereignty.
https://mastodon.social/@lrvick/following
https://mastodon.social/@lrvick/following
Things we are currently seeing going on is social debt, not technical debt. Therefore another technical solution won't fix the issue. It will just relay the social issues to a new platform which will start over again very soon.
You can't fix people by giving them new software.
You can't fix people by giving them new software.
Who do Mastodon's boosters believe is going to be installing and running Mastodon servers?
Who is running current 5k servers? Same kind of people.
http://demo.fedilist.com/instance?q=&ip=&software=mastodon&r...
http://demo.fedilist.com/instance?q=&ip=&software=mastodon&r...
And most of those servers stopped registrations when the exodus from Twitter began.
One reason, so that communities wouldn't get diluted. The other, it's expensive to run this.
One reason, so that communities wouldn't get diluted. The other, it's expensive to run this.
I wouldn't say "most". According to that site, of the 4880 instances list, 1909 are close and another ~300 are invite-only.
> it's expensive to run this
As the hype about Mastodon spiked after Musk bought twitter, I looked at it to see if I could set up an instance, just to experiment. I'm an experienced programmer and systems administrator. After perusing the requirements and installation process, I decided that it was too much work for a little one-person experiment. This is why I ask about who is running instances. Yes, I had a strong hunch it would be all nerds, but I didn't expect it to be require so much sophistication and outlay. One very dedicated person could certainly set up and run an instance, but most likely any instance of moderate popularity is going to require a team.
> it's expensive to run this
As the hype about Mastodon spiked after Musk bought twitter, I looked at it to see if I could set up an instance, just to experiment. I'm an experienced programmer and systems administrator. After perusing the requirements and installation process, I decided that it was too much work for a little one-person experiment. This is why I ask about who is running instances. Yes, I had a strong hunch it would be all nerds, but I didn't expect it to be require so much sophistication and outlay. One very dedicated person could certainly set up and run an instance, but most likely any instance of moderate popularity is going to require a team.
> After perusing the requirements and installation process
Was that the original Mastodon? That does have a reputation of being faffy to install and resource-hungry. Pleroma is much easier and less resource-hungry. Even I managed to spin up a Pleroma server without any trouble.
> most likely any instance of moderate popularity is going to require a team.
It'll need a team for coverage of moderation, support, perhaps 24/7 ops - but then anything with a lot of users will, surely?
Was that the original Mastodon? That does have a reputation of being faffy to install and resource-hungry. Pleroma is much easier and less resource-hungry. Even I managed to spin up a Pleroma server without any trouble.
> most likely any instance of moderate popularity is going to require a team.
It'll need a team for coverage of moderation, support, perhaps 24/7 ops - but then anything with a lot of users will, surely?
> Was that the original Mastodon?
Likely. I didn't investigate alternative implementations.
> It'll need a team for coverage of moderation, support, perhaps 24/7 ops - but then anything with a lot of users will, surely?
I'm under the impression that the claims of Mastodon include "self-moderation" and, because of its supposed decentralization, 24/7 uptime is not needed for any one instance. I have been imagining it like torrents, where no single node matters. Once the initial seeding is complete, the content lives across many instances. If it's not like that, then claims for its decentralization are highly overblown.
Likely. I didn't investigate alternative implementations.
> It'll need a team for coverage of moderation, support, perhaps 24/7 ops - but then anything with a lot of users will, surely?
I'm under the impression that the claims of Mastodon include "self-moderation" and, because of its supposed decentralization, 24/7 uptime is not needed for any one instance. I have been imagining it like torrents, where no single node matters. Once the initial seeding is complete, the content lives across many instances. If it's not like that, then claims for its decentralization are highly overblown.
> I'm under the impression that the claims of Mastodon include "self-moderation"
That's "the instances moderate themselves", really, not "the users moderate themselves". With large numbers of users, you'll need assigned moderators.
> because of its supposed decentralization, 24/7 uptime is not needed for any one instance
Not sure where you've got that idea - decentralisation just means that I can talk to other instances from mine. But if mine is down, I can't log into another one with my account details and carry on Just Like That.
> If it's not like that, then claims for its decentralization are highly overblown.
If you're understanding "decentralised" to mean "seeded like a torrent", yeah, it'll seem highly overblown but at the same time it'd be very wrong.
That's "the instances moderate themselves", really, not "the users moderate themselves". With large numbers of users, you'll need assigned moderators.
> because of its supposed decentralization, 24/7 uptime is not needed for any one instance
Not sure where you've got that idea - decentralisation just means that I can talk to other instances from mine. But if mine is down, I can't log into another one with my account details and carry on Just Like That.
> If it's not like that, then claims for its decentralization are highly overblown.
If you're understanding "decentralised" to mean "seeded like a torrent", yeah, it'll seem highly overblown but at the same time it'd be very wrong.
That's not really "decentralized", that's "distributed". Those are two different topologies.
On the topic of costs I saw this today in my Mastodon feed:
>The costs were already ~$35/month even with reserved instances; back-of-the-envelope is that the new costs would be in the ballpark of ~$50/month.
https://toot.cafe/@nolan/109295574721909717
toot.cafe is #216 (by MAU) in the list above, MAU=315 - there's a data point.
>The costs were already ~$35/month even with reserved instances; back-of-the-envelope is that the new costs would be in the ballpark of ~$50/month.
https://toot.cafe/@nolan/109295574721909717
toot.cafe is #216 (by MAU) in the list above, MAU=315 - there's a data point.
They should migrate to Pleroma and reduce their monthly costs.
It's much more than running the service, the instance owner is the moderator of that instance basically, if nobody else fills that role. Lack of moderation will eventually kill an instance (other instances will blacklist it, if it is seen as a safe haven for whatever they don't want to see).
It took me about 45 minutes last night to install a pleroma server and get it set up. Also as 'just an experiment'. This was on a server that had nginx running on it but not much else.
In contrast, I set up IPFS[1] in less than half that time.
1 https://ipfs.tech/
1 https://ipfs.tech/
Visited link. Not exactly sure what it is. An OS, a protocol, a file share network?
Instances will be run by small groups of people motivated by personal or political reasons.
They stopped to throttle, but that's not necessarily permanent. Also for which instances will survive and how they will operate and how they will finance will play out. In the moment there is a lot wild west of people figuring things out and experimenting.
Similar to email - for a long time somebody in a university basement had been running those and now it's google, Microsoft and a bunch of smallers or selfhosted where you can pick the offering you like.
Similar to email - for a long time somebody in a university basement had been running those and now it's google, Microsoft and a bunch of smallers or selfhosted where you can pick the offering you like.
Well, the scale of exodus was unanticipated? I mean Paul Krugman who has 4.6M Twitter followers just announced his Mastodon account. I think things will stabilize in a couple of days/weeks.
A list of the servers is data, but where does one go to find out about the people or organizations running them? How do we know that that a couple of thousand of them aren't all run by one group?
Mastadon provides a way for servers to have an “about” page, which often has more details about who runs the server. In some cases they prefer to be pseudonymous, but in some it’s possible to attach the instance to a human.
Some are on managed hosting from companies like https://masto.host/
I am a scientist and I've setup a mastodon instance on my own server, with remote file hosting on S3. It was pretty painless and in a few days 200 non tech-savvy people have joined and started contributed. Some migrating from twitter, some joining social media for the first time.
It is great.
It is great.
Yeah, it's a major issue (to some at least).
Lots of fly by night servers, stood up by (probably well meaning) people that have no idea if how hard it is to run and administer a server like that. Point in fact the "Mastodon.technology"(MT) server
If you read the heartfelt post from the MT owners/op on why it had to be shutdown. How much it took of his life to run it, and the choices he made. It doesn't matter that a new "like that" MT server is being stood up as a replacement. The MT server admins post shows the burden of running a server like that. For free (unless Patreon'ed I guess).
Activity Pub is a well designed protocol, but to my eye it has some major warts(). Add in it's decentralized nature and it shows how hard it will be to institute major changes, even if the community supported it.
I'd like to find a nice, professionally run Mastodon server, with clear rules and a believable investment in infrastructure and people. Absent that, I certainly can't see myself advocating for it, it recommending it to others. Shame too.
() Lack of encryption, lack of non-server discovery, lack of consistent, user controled server migration.p
Lots of fly by night servers, stood up by (probably well meaning) people that have no idea if how hard it is to run and administer a server like that. Point in fact the "Mastodon.technology"(MT) server
If you read the heartfelt post from the MT owners/op on why it had to be shutdown. How much it took of his life to run it, and the choices he made. It doesn't matter that a new "like that" MT server is being stood up as a replacement. The MT server admins post shows the burden of running a server like that. For free (unless Patreon'ed I guess).
Activity Pub is a well designed protocol, but to my eye it has some major warts(). Add in it's decentralized nature and it shows how hard it will be to institute major changes, even if the community supported it.
I'd like to find a nice, professionally run Mastodon server, with clear rules and a believable investment in infrastructure and people. Absent that, I certainly can't see myself advocating for it, it recommending it to others. Shame too.
() Lack of encryption, lack of non-server discovery, lack of consistent, user controled server migration.p
The same sort of people who decided it'd be interesting and/or fun to snag an extra phone line and set up a BBS back in the day, I suspect.
Nerds
Before they are bought by bigwigs with cash.
Then we'll move to Yddgrasil.
https://yggdrasil-network.github.io
https://letsdecentralize.org
https://yggdrasil-network.github.io
https://letsdecentralize.org
This appears to be a transport layer... It is not a social network, and would still require people to run always-on "instances" of software to be usable as one.
Someone is. Instance count is growing in proportion to user count.
I tried looking for people today and it was so slow, nothing worked. Can they really scale?
If anything the last few days have shown that people aren't willing to pay even 8$ for twitter. How mastodon will think it will make without users or investors willing to pay for hosting is beyond me.
Mastodon feels like if discord and twitter were going through a web3 phase and had a child
Centralized systems are very dangerous, moderation is a huge problem and has a massive chilling effect.
I support civil discourse and disagreements, I actively want to see both sides and not just an echo chamber.
We all have different beliefs and the only way to move forward as society is to foster open and honest conversation.
This is especially applicable to politically correct language and culture. Some things are uncomfortable and that’s ok. It should be.
I support civil discourse and disagreements, I actively want to see both sides and not just an echo chamber.
We all have different beliefs and the only way to move forward as society is to foster open and honest conversation.
This is especially applicable to politically correct language and culture. Some things are uncomfortable and that’s ok. It should be.
> We all have different beliefs and the only way to move forward as society is to foster open and honest conversation.
This presupposes every "belief" and discussion is in good faith. It also presupposes that there's no second order effects from the amplification of "beliefs". A bigot is not interested in learning about whatever it is they're bigoted against. They just want to amplify their message. Trolls and shit posters just want to troll and shit post.
If you eliminate moderation then all you'll get is people using your platform to scream at everyone else. Assuming everyone is interested in actual conversation is childishly naïve.
This presupposes every "belief" and discussion is in good faith. It also presupposes that there's no second order effects from the amplification of "beliefs". A bigot is not interested in learning about whatever it is they're bigoted against. They just want to amplify their message. Trolls and shit posters just want to troll and shit post.
If you eliminate moderation then all you'll get is people using your platform to scream at everyone else. Assuming everyone is interested in actual conversation is childishly naïve.
[deleted]
Mastodon is not a platform and does have moderation.
Individual instances do which is what the GP was talking about. Also individual instances are where an outside link is going to point at.
Just wait until the journalists find out Trumps Truth Social is the biggest Mastodon server out there.
The uptick of interest in Mastodon due to Musk buying Twitter doesn’t make sense. Only the left is angry about the acquisition. The right is gleeful. What the left is angry and the right is gleeful about is the idea that Musk is a “free speech absolutist” and might unban Donald Trump and other right wing / fascist media personalities.
Guess what: in the fediverse, it would never have been possible to ban Trump in the first place. Sure, leftist servers could have stop syndicating his posts, but this would not have had much more of an effect than individuals blocking him on Twitter if he had never been banned there.
Further, Musk hasn’t actually unbanned him yet. If this mastodon push was somehow successful, and everyone switched over, then Trump would be truly unbannable. He would run his own instance, and it would syndicated to all his fans. The people who are mad about Musk might not syndicate Trump’s posts but this wouldn’t matter.
Guess what: in the fediverse, it would never have been possible to ban Trump in the first place. Sure, leftist servers could have stop syndicating his posts, but this would not have had much more of an effect than individuals blocking him on Twitter if he had never been banned there.
Further, Musk hasn’t actually unbanned him yet. If this mastodon push was somehow successful, and everyone switched over, then Trump would be truly unbannable. He would run his own instance, and it would syndicated to all his fans. The people who are mad about Musk might not syndicate Trump’s posts but this wouldn’t matter.
I think you’re underestimating the number of people hedging their bets on twitter not for ideological reasons, but because a company left with a billion dollars in annual interest is going to have to squeeze that out of whichever users remain. Whether it is through ads or fees, the dynamic on the site will change substantially.
[deleted]
> He would run his own instance, and it would syndicated to all his fans.
He technically does, doesn't he? Truth Social is a Mastodon instance, IIRC.
He technically does, doesn't he? Truth Social is a Mastodon instance, IIRC.
It doesn't federate though.
It's not god that Elon can see ones DMs.
I'm on the left and it's also just a fine time to promote things like federation that are otherwise hard to get non-technical people to care about, regardless of what Twitter ends up doing. Never let a crisis go to waste!
I'm on the left and it's also just a fine time to promote things like federation that are otherwise hard to get non-technical people to care about, regardless of what Twitter ends up doing. Never let a crisis go to waste!
It might be good for everyone to know that "DMs" on mastodon are not even secret, anyone can sniff them if they read the traffic between two instances.
That's not true. The two instances (and potentially their admins, though there isn't a UI for it) see the DMs, but the connection between instances is HTTPS.
"Guess what: in the fediverse, it would never have been possible to ban Trump in the first place. Sure, leftist servers could have stop syndicating his posts, but this would not have had much more of an effect than individuals blocking him on Twitter if he had never been banned there."
My observation is that the modern right wing social media user only thrives when there are 'liberal snowflakes' around that they can piss off. Hence Gab, Truth, Parler, etc. being largely failures. They all miss the key ingredient that the right wingers need to really get their endorphin hit: people to offend.
My observation is that the modern right wing social media user only thrives when there are 'liberal snowflakes' around that they can piss off. Hence Gab, Truth, Parler, etc. being largely failures. They all miss the key ingredient that the right wingers need to really get their endorphin hit: people to offend.
My observation is that the modern leftt wing social media user only thrives when there are 'conservative Nazis' around that they can piss off. Hence Lemmy, Tumblr, Mastodon, etc. being largely failures. They all miss the key ingredient that the left wingers need to really get their endorphin hit: people to virtue signal over.
We can both play this game but I don't think it's particularly helpful. One could say Elon is bringing ideological equality to the platform. For leftists/liberals, this equality feels like oppression after years of dominance and privilege on Twitter.
We can both play this game but I don't think it's particularly helpful. One could say Elon is bringing ideological equality to the platform. For leftists/liberals, this equality feels like oppression after years of dominance and privilege on Twitter.
I think you're only half wrong here. The difference is that you can virtue signal to people inside of your own crowd without much consequence, but if you seek to offend them, they kick you out. There's definitely (a lot of) virtue signaling going on in the fediverse, for what it's worth. And I really don't see people on the left getting the same sort of kicks out of pissing people off that people on the right seem to enjoy. As you sort of pointed out, they're annoying in different ways. ;)
I’m just grabbing my popcorn and can’t wait to watch the inevitable splits. Each of the communities will split into 2, will split into 2, etc. They just can’t help themselves.
I think you're only half wrong here. The difference is that you can piss off people outside of your own crowd without much consequence, but if you seek to offend them, they kick you out. There's definitely (a lot of) pissing off lefties going on in Parler, Truth Social, etc. for what it's worth. And I really don't see people on the right getting the same sort of kicks out of virtue signaling (AKA pissing right wing people off) that people on the left seem to enjoy. As you sort of pointed out, they're annoying in different ways. ;)
Again, we can both play these games. You original presumption:
>My observation is that the modern right wing social media user only thrives when there are 'liberal snowflakes' around that they can piss off.
Remember, one of the major reasons behind Truth Social, Parler, etc. failing to gain user share is the fact that their respective apps were banned from Google/Apple stores.
At the end if the day, both extremes, left and right, need an enemy to point at and rally over. They are different sides of the same coin.
Again, we can both play these games. You original presumption:
>My observation is that the modern right wing social media user only thrives when there are 'liberal snowflakes' around that they can piss off.
Remember, one of the major reasons behind Truth Social, Parler, etc. failing to gain user share is the fact that their respective apps were banned from Google/Apple stores.
At the end if the day, both extremes, left and right, need an enemy to point at and rally over. They are different sides of the same coin.
Just to not forget the “past”: Trump was banned from twitter due to inciting violence, see https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/suspensio...
There is an objective truth out there, no reason to return to our echo chambers. Some people are angry at Elon buying twitter because a subjectively good platform might just die in a short time, because everyone who had even an ounce of try at managing a platform knows that “unmoderated free speech” is just shitposting.
Also, I don’t see how death threats, n-words and the like would contribute to any discussion.
There is an objective truth out there, no reason to return to our echo chambers. Some people are angry at Elon buying twitter because a subjectively good platform might just die in a short time, because everyone who had even an ounce of try at managing a platform knows that “unmoderated free speech” is just shitposting.
Also, I don’t see how death threats, n-words and the like would contribute to any discussion.
The point of the person you are responding to wasn't to really defend whether the idea of unbanning Trump was good or not: it was to demonstrate how ridiculous it is to explicitly move to a decentralized solution like Mastadon if that's your concern.
But mastodon is not without moderation on a per instance basis.
Also as I said in my comment, the people who want Trump banned do not want to prevent themselves from seeing his tweets, they want to prevent other people from seeing his tweets. This is what Mastodon prevents. If they just didn’t want to see the tweets themselves, they can block him.
Well, maybe because it is the best for everyone to not see posts which has the potential of armed resurgence against the democratically elected officials against the country, also known as a coup, especially not from a traitor with connections to Saudi Arabia and Russia? And I’m not even from the US, but the country’s fate with the biggest military is insanely important to anyone who shares this planet.
Again... The point of the person you are responding to wasn't to really defend whether the idea of unbanning Trump was good or not: it was to demonstrate how ridiculous it is to explicitly move to a decentralized solution like Mastadon if that's your concern.
The objective truth is that states are founded on violence — both punishment for crimes and warfare — so every politician spends their entire career inciting violence. "Either you're with us or you're with the terrorists" is inciting violence against whatever country refuses to fall in line. "Three strikes and you're out" is inciting violence against junkies, hundreds of thousands of whom are imprisoned in the US today as a result.
The press in the US had unmoderated free speech for over a century until the FCC was established, and print publishing still does. That's why the New York Times bought the first Gatling guns: they were inciting violence (specifically, the Civil War) and justifiably feared that rioters would try to lynch them. Though you're probably too young to remember it, Usenet had unmoderated free speech for about 25 years. Freenet still does.
It's not a bullshit idea. Just an unpopular one.
The press in the US had unmoderated free speech for over a century until the FCC was established, and print publishing still does. That's why the New York Times bought the first Gatling guns: they were inciting violence (specifically, the Civil War) and justifiably feared that rioters would try to lynch them. Though you're probably too young to remember it, Usenet had unmoderated free speech for about 25 years. Freenet still does.
It's not a bullshit idea. Just an unpopular one.
> Though you're probably too young to remember it, Usenet had unmoderated free speech for about 25 years.
To the point that it became dangerous to use a Usenet browser that would automatically download & display attachments because extremely illegal content would be displayed. God forbid you were running a server, because that was getting pretty close to “possessing” that shit in your data storage. Unmoderated Usenet became a hell hole.
Regulation is, IMO, preferable to seeing unsolicited illegal pornography in one’s social media firehouse.
I will argue that no civil society has ever had a truly free press. To my knowledge, there has never been legal press publication of the images Usenet propagated.
To the point that it became dangerous to use a Usenet browser that would automatically download & display attachments because extremely illegal content would be displayed. God forbid you were running a server, because that was getting pretty close to “possessing” that shit in your data storage. Unmoderated Usenet became a hell hole.
Regulation is, IMO, preferable to seeing unsolicited illegal pornography in one’s social media firehouse.
I will argue that no civil society has ever had a truly free press. To my knowledge, there has never been legal press publication of the images Usenet propagated.
maybe the problem is that you live in a place where 'extremely illegal content' is a phrase that makes sense to you. if you live somewhere that criminalizes possession of certain information of course you are not going to want access to free speech; at any moment you could come into accidental possession of photos of tiananmen square. but that's a problem created by your local laws, not by unmoderated free speech
Are you telling me that you live where it is legal to possess, let alone publish/distribute/“free speech”, photographs of children being raped?
Because that is literally what happened circa I’m going to say 1992ish on Usenet, and not in overly obscure newsgroups, but also the ordinary default newsgroups.
There is no unmoderated free speech because sick freaks will always do horrible things with their speech if they think they can get away with it.
This is as factual as gravity: unmoderated free speech will never be legal speech.
Further, you don’t want unmoderated free speech. You cannot unsee those photos.
Because that is literally what happened circa I’m going to say 1992ish on Usenet, and not in overly obscure newsgroups, but also the ordinary default newsgroups.
There is no unmoderated free speech because sick freaks will always do horrible things with their speech if they think they can get away with it.
This is as factual as gravity: unmoderated free speech will never be legal speech.
Further, you don’t want unmoderated free speech. You cannot unsee those photos.
Let's not be abstract here. The content in question was child sexual abuse photographs. Those are illegal almost everywhere (I do not know of any exceptions).
Most people think those should be illegal to distribute or intentionally possess. I think that; there is a victim who suffered real harm, which is compounded by distribution of images of their abuse. Perhaps you do not, but you'll probably find that opinion falls under PG's "What You Can't Say".
Most people think those should be illegal to distribute or intentionally possess. I think that; there is a victim who suffered real harm, which is compounded by distribution of images of their abuse. Perhaps you do not, but you'll probably find that opinion falls under PG's "What You Can't Say".
Left wing people would live in their silo and Trump people would live in theirs. It's not a terrible idea until you have to ban or unban 5,000 instances depending on their social point of view on ever changing issues and than you realize it is like outdated docs
Just wait for the Anti Defamation League or another partisan organization to release a dynamic blocklist of Mastodon servers to allow leftist admins to outsource all their moderation decisions. Leave it to the Twitter secessionists/expats to build a whole layer of centralization and control on top of a decentralized, federated system.
> The right is gleeful. What the left is angry and the right is gleeful about is the idea that Musk is a “free speech absolutist” and might unban Donald Trump and other right wing / fascist media personalities.
I think this represents what's really going on. Firstly, Musk is not a "free speech absolutist". The issue is moderation policies. Every single platform moderates. Even 4chan. Any platform that doesn't, gets overrun by spam. If not spam, then by bots, or trolls, or something else that makes normal conversations impossible. Moderation is about sign-to-noise ratios. Everybody, both left and right, wants a good signal-to-noise ratio, but they disagree about what they consider signal and what they consider noise.
The problem with Musk's takeover is that he sounds like he doesn't have the first clue about how moderation works and what all the concerns are. The things he says about Twitter keep contradicting each other. It undermines a lot of people's faith in his leadership, and therefore the future direction of Twitter.
And that's the attraction of the fediverse: it offers real freedom of speech, and you get more control over moderation. Everybody wins.
> Trump would be truly unbannable. He would run his own instance
He already does that. Truth Social is Mastodon. So is Gab. It's just that Truth Social blocks every other instance, and everybody blocks Gab.
I think this represents what's really going on. Firstly, Musk is not a "free speech absolutist". The issue is moderation policies. Every single platform moderates. Even 4chan. Any platform that doesn't, gets overrun by spam. If not spam, then by bots, or trolls, or something else that makes normal conversations impossible. Moderation is about sign-to-noise ratios. Everybody, both left and right, wants a good signal-to-noise ratio, but they disagree about what they consider signal and what they consider noise.
The problem with Musk's takeover is that he sounds like he doesn't have the first clue about how moderation works and what all the concerns are. The things he says about Twitter keep contradicting each other. It undermines a lot of people's faith in his leadership, and therefore the future direction of Twitter.
And that's the attraction of the fediverse: it offers real freedom of speech, and you get more control over moderation. Everybody wins.
> Trump would be truly unbannable. He would run his own instance
He already does that. Truth Social is Mastodon. So is Gab. It's just that Truth Social blocks every other instance, and everybody blocks Gab.
You might want to look at what happened when Gab switched to Mastodon, and/or when Trump basically made a Mastodon server called "Truth Social", which was some years ago...
(Note also that you are not much of a (societal) liberal if you don't value freedom of speech. But therefore this isn't so much of a left vs right than a top vs bottom issue...)
(Note also that you are not much of a (societal) liberal if you don't value freedom of speech. But therefore this isn't so much of a left vs right than a top vs bottom issue...)
Reddit should just clone Twitter and solve everyone’s problems.
They have most of the basics required to do so already. Just have a tab that is a feed of the u/ you follow.
chatterhead(1)
And even if I really joined, then apparently my server's administrator would be able to silently prevent me from seeing other "enemy" servers' messages, and they could even read my DMs.
I think I see the point of Mastodon, and I think it can be really advantageous for certain uses (e.g. for relatively tight communities, that want to have bonds within the community but also connections to the outside) but I just don't see its fit for the average user and especially as a replacement for the generalistic, unstructured network that is Twitter.