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by eatonphil 1299 days ago
Even if Mastodon doesn't want to implement or play with "algorithms" (ignoring as is correctly pointed out that everything is/has an algorithm), all Mastodon content is ActivityPub content, right? So someone can put together a Mastodon alternative that supports pluggable algorithms, no? No need to convince the Mastodon devs who don't want this sort of thing.
1 comments
tensor 1299 days ago
Unfortunately every time I hear this sort of thing be suggested there is a rallying cry from the original mastodon crowd to block said thing. It's really unfortunate and why I don't see mastdodon as a truly viable alternative to twitter. Perhaps if a fork of it gains enough influence that isn't hostile to algorithms and indexing it would work better.
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fleddr 1299 days ago
Instance blocking will ultimately create the exact same dynamic as found at Twitter.

Aggressive online activism, regardless of your political direction, is here to stay. So it can and will be used to pressure other instances into blocking yet other instances.

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miloignis 1299 days ago
Small and single-user instances don't really fall prey to this - how is one even supposed to know what a single-user instance is blocking if you don't tell them?

Anyway, even for those that do what you'd have is a stratification into levels of instances with different tolerance levels of blocking. I think this is a very different dynamic than exists on Twitter, can you explain more about what the identical dynamic would be?

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fleddr 1299 days ago
The dynamic would be that the tolerance level you refer to would be as low as found on Twitter: people perpetually offended at the smallest of disagreements and aggressively silencing, blocking, canceling the supposed offender.

An example I saw on Mastodon. A mid-sized instance wanted to stop federation with another instance that is well known and large. Why? Because that instance is federating with yet another instance containing a user supposedly affiliated with some right wing movement. Said user had not posted anything yet.

So we're talking about a 3rd order blockage in this example. Now you might reason, the mod of the large instance is under no obligation to do anything, it's their instance. But that's not how the game is played. You wouldn't want to be called an enabler of fascism, would you? You'll comply or be labeled a monster. Or they could lobby to put your instance on a standard block list that is widely reused.

When you let this run unchecked, you'll end up with Twitter: bubbles and fighting "the other side".

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