[FortiDude]

It doesn't seem sensible to invest yourself so much into Mastodon without having thorougly explored it.

I too was fascinated with the fediverse, until I used it for more than a month and realized the people posting there were just as toxic and annoying as Twitters, not to mention the plenty of instances where the petty owners have made everything even worse

[DoItToMe81]

For Mastodon to 'work' in a way I'd enjoy, it would need a culture that it just does not have, and that has never emerged from any microblogging platform. The Fediverse as a whole is filled with enraged culture warriors, going out of their own way to be upset and exclude others.

I don't buy into the "Well, you can just grow YOUR OWN island!" spiel. I don't want to make an echo chamber, I want a healthy environment where people from disparate backgrounds can discuss a topic without "AS AN XYZ THIS IS BAD AND EVIL" being the key point of discussion. And I know for a fact that the large instances that operate in that way would immediately defederate for wrongthink.

[zozbot234]

> I want a healthy environment where people from disparate backgrounds can discuss a topic without "AS AN XYZ THIS IS BAD AND EVIL" being the key point of discussion.

I'm pretty sure that this qualifies as an "island" - one that you would need pretty harsh moderation to maintain too, not unlike HN itself. And of course you'd likely want to defederate from the largest instances, to get away from their toxic attitudes.

[firefoxkekw]

Just wait until people start realizing the privacy problems that Mastodon have unless you make your own instance.

You don't like the new twitter moderation? oh wellcome to Mastodon where a 12 year old can be a moderator of a instance. Global guidelines for moderation? No in Mastodon since each instance can have their own rules, 10/10 if you love being in echo chambers.

Created your account in a random instance? oh well maybe all your messages end in doxbin because the 14 year old who made the instance have access to all your messages.

[mcherm]

I just can't get myself to see this as a genuine disadvantage.

On Mastodon you can choose the server to use (and thus the moderation). Sure, this means you can choose a server run by a 12-year-old who moderates poorly. But if you don't want that... don't pick that server!

The problem (no, ONE of the many problems) with creating good moderation is that different people have different definitions of what constitutes "good" moderation so it's impossible to satisfy all of them. If Mastodon allows the user to choose, that seems inherently better.

[FortiDude]

So let's say a lot of people think in that way and avoid instances managed by nameless accounts. Where does that leave us?

Well, maybe people will flock to the few instances ran by transparent, accountable and competent people. Maybe some apolitical non-profit? Maybe a group of passionate engineers with spare change?

In any case those instances would become pretty massive and the costs would skyrocket and......

well, we're at square one: few instances will have total control over your data, they will either inject ads or require payment to keep the servers running and nothing will have changed

[glenstein]

.....or they would find an equilibrium that doesn't require massive centralization. Your analogy gets from point A to point be with a lot of empty speculation and hand waving.

[FortiDude]

My only assumption is that most people will choose an instance based on its reputation and that reputable instances will be far fewer than amateurish and unreliable ones. This is a very generous assumption and if we suppose people will choose even more randomly then the situation can only get bleaker.

On the other hand you hand waved everything I said without specifically refuting any points, so what does that make your reply?

[firefoxkekw]

It can totally not be a disadvantage for you, I'm not debating that, I even encourage others to explore Mastodon, there is probable a market for a product like Mastodon for a small subset of individuals. But that doesn't mean it isn't a disadvantage for most people.

In the context of this thread, the blog starts by justifying the authors choice by citing the laid off of the accessibility team, the alternative for the author is Mastodon which brings the complexity of selecting which instances you trust, even when you find a good instance, at some point the owners can shutdown it and you will need to migrate to another instance. If a rogue employee sent your messages to another person, they can be prosecuted, have fun trying to do that to the owner of the instance, yes, you can have your own instance which have a monetary/time cost. Using a commercial product? Oh I really hope you instance never angry the mob or they may go to your commercial provider to demand they drop you. Obviously this doesn't make the accessibility any worse /sarcasm.

Popular Mastodon instance?

* Moderation takes time, who is going to do that for free, everyday?

* Who is paying the infrastructure cost?

Mastodon

* Daily active users is 655k spread in multiples instances 1º * Private owned instances, self moderate.

* User base of the extremes of the gaussian distribution, the extreme privacy oriented and the politically motivated.

* User base is a subset that will split into another few subsets, high tendency to form echo chambers.

* Difficult to scale, closed system with rapidly increasing entropy (no accountability, highly susceptible to the instance owner desires (affected by time))

* Hard to attract people with a big following social media since the user base is small and the opportunity to grow is very small but the leak of followers to other users with small following base is high. (High cost/Low return)

I love that Mastodon exist, that it brings to the market different types of social media experiences, at the end, the market (people) will choose what is the more efficient version.

I personally doesn't use Twitter or Mastodon, I use rss with a CA instance of nitter in a RSS reader to check what a few people in the data science space tweet and my personal opinion is that the author is motivated by his political beliefs instead of the accessibility or quality of the product Twitter.

Sources:

1º https://nitter.ca/joinmastodon/status/1588168057893318657#m

[amatecha]

I mean, what instance did you register on? Because I've been using it for a couple years and uhh, the toxicity is nearly non-existent for me. I see some stupid crap once in a while in a response to some highly-followed user, but then I just mute the person's entire instance (if I find that similarly-toxic crap is a common sort of output from there).

Simultaneously, I've had more meaningful communication on Mastodon in the past week than I've had on twitter in the past year. I have just over 200 followers and Mastodon, and nearly 1400 on Twitter.

So yeah, I've thoroughly explored it, and I am definitely investing myself into it -- and have no intention of going back.

I have already stopped checking Twitter for weeks at a time or longer. I only open it to see if I have a message from a friend (since I turn off email notifications for basically everything), or maybe tweet at some brand whose service has made my day crappier.

[amatecha]

Since I made the above post (two days ago) I now have 243 followers. All people who I'm in contact with on other platforms - I'm not even sure how they found me, but either way. The momentum is honestly accelerating. Sorry, 244 followers - just got another follow request.

[sshine]

> or maybe tweet at some brand whose service has made my day crappier

It's like something must stink before it goes on Twitter.

[amatecha]

Twitter is usually the only reliable, direct way to ask a question of a faceless corporation because they happen to prioritize actually answering tweets. I don't know why, but it's become the only way I ask questions of some service that has millions of users, because I don't feel like signing up an account on a service portal or filing a ticket with a convoluted customer support system. Or even worse, "chatting" with a bot that will just funnel me to poorly-written FAQs that don't even remotely help me with the problem I'm encountering.

[TulliusCicero]

It's possible that it's just the broadcasting format that makes things suck, rather than Twitter's specific content/moderation policies. It's like handing a ton of people in a room all megaphones to talk to each other; the incentive is always going to be that you should be 'louder' to get more attention over everyone else.

[nathias]

people with megaphones are the point, the problem is when there are mechanisms of moderation to manipulate them and make them into groups, if there is no such mecanisms and moderation is up to the user completely(unfollow/block) things function very differently

[TulliusCicero]

Moderation that is solely user-based doesn't work well at scale. It means you expect every user to block every asshole they come across, and each time they have to endure some asshole first before blocking them.

[nathias]

for me that would be completely reasonable, but it isn't necessary, you can have many decentralized filters like automatically block people that are blocked by a % of people I follow and many similar mechanisms

[OscarCunningham]

Yeah but you don't have to follow them. I'm sure some terrible people use email, but email is still good.

[FortiDude]

I also don't need to follow toxic people on Twitter, so I really don't know why I would use a badly programmed and infinitely smaller social network

[croes]

To not support it's new owner

[FortiDude]

We know many things about Musk because he's a well known public figure which has attracted the attention of plenty of investigative journalists.

But what do you know about the owners of the Mastodon instance you registered your account with? Are they accountable? Are they sensible? Are they competent? Do they even have a real identity?

[Kudos]

You say this like he's quietly minding his own business and some pesky journalists are revealing what a dickhead he is. That is not the case, he is outspokenly a dickhead. He wants to broadcast what a dickhead he is _so_ badly, that he bought the worlds foremost social network to control the medium.

[FortiDude]

What Musk says publicly is basically useless. All the truly important information about him has been the result of deep investigations through papers and documents and third party accounts.

So yeah, Musk gets investigated very often so we know things that he would rather keep hidden. Now what about your Mastodon admin with an anime profile picture?

[croes]

They are at least less powerful and resourceful and you can simply switch your instance or make your own.

None of this is true for Twitter.

[FortiDude]

A Mastodon instance owner can read everything you've ever posted, log everything even if you deleted it, doxx your IP and your private messages, delete or modify everything about your account on a whim and block you even if you make an account elsewhere. Plus they can keep very quiet about it since they have zero accountability.

So yeah, you can go to another instance, but better keep some kind of backup because you could be gone without notice

[Herbstluft]

> I also don't need to follow toxic people on Twitter

I mean that is true in a sense, because Twitter invests a lot of work to bring the toxicity to you whether you want it or not.

[haunter]

Neither on Twitter? I enjoy Twitter, I’m highly selective and I don’t see politics at all

If someone moves to Mastodon because there are so much politics on Twitter then they are in for a surprise

[audessuscest]

same for Twitter...

[Tepix]

That's not been my experience, so far i have seen less toxicity.

[glenstein]

>until I used it for more than a month and realized the people posting there were just as toxic and annoying as Twitters,

Not even close to my experience as a Mastodon user and I've been on it for years. I guess this shows the limited predictive value of any single individuals experiences.