[jug]

They haven't even launched yet and are already talking of The Personalized News Feed and the old discussion about a chronological feed is already going in the comments.

No thanks. I already see where this one is going. Chronology and non-personalizing has become a good litmus test over the last decade of social.

I'll get my news, viral and not, on Mastodon instead. It's such a relief to be there. Like being able to breathe fresh air, not a stale echo chamber that is built for me.

[mccorrinall]

In all honesty, Mastodon feels like a bigger echo chamber than Twitter. At least for me.

The people on the server are somehow all like minded people. There is rarely any disagreeing going on. The missing exposure to diverse perspective makes mastodon boring to me, and is the reason why I stopped using it.

Maybe I used it wrong ¯\(°_°)/¯

[CaptainFever]

That’s what I found too[0]. Made me realise that algorithms aren’t to blame for echo chambers and outrage; it is us humans that are at fault with this.

Examples of echo chamber behaviour on Mastodon: all differing replies are labelled as “replyguys”, but agreeing replies are allowed. Defederation is common due to drama between administrators. Debates are discouraged and free speech is commonly villianised.

Examples of outrage behaviour on Mastodon: Check out the Fediblock hashtag (don’t), which has a big “outrage of the week” tone, everything from Hive to Raspberry Pi to journalists.

I’ll try to add a bit of value to my comment. The way I’m resolving this is to recognise this and filter them out actively. This is one place where algorithms do indeed make it harder (because it can “sneak back in”). Particularly, I filter out all political posts and any anger posts, especially anger posts about an out-group (“us vs them”).

Is this creating an echo chamber as well? Maybe. But I can try rationalising this by saying that an echo chamber of neutrality is better than an echo chamber of a particular side, political or otherwise.

[0] https://mastodon.social/explore

[nindalf]

The penalty for wrongthink on mastodon is banning. This ensures ideological homogeneity within each instance. For many people, this is a feature not a bug.

[shanebellone]

Literally defined an echochamber.

[nindalf]

Thing about an echo chamber is that it feels amazing to be in one. Everyone agreeing with me, slapping my back when I say something to reinforce the groupthink. I feel so smart! Love it!

The negatives of the echo chamber are felt by people not in it, not me and my group.

[shanebellone]

Unfortunately for everyone else, feeling smart does not translate to being smart.