I’ve been asked on TV hits and interviews lately to explain why decentralized social media is better, especially re: Mastodon.

[zumbador@mefi.social]

@taylorlorenz decentralised social media is just the online equivalent of how people socialised offline.
It's like chatting with friends without being constantly interrupted by a salesperson trying to sell you something.

It's like being able to hang out a a party and choose who you spend time with, instead of the host constantly grabbing you by the arm, dragging you away from the person you were talking to and saying "here's a person you should be speaking to". And introducing you to some random person who immediately starts telling you everything that's wrong with your eating habits, your relationships, and your pets.

[nikatjef@mastodon.acm.org]

@krupo
I don't recall the names of the servers where I saw the advertisements, but IIRC, I only ever saw them in the local timelines.

Please remember that there are three different timelines you can watch, by default: your home timeline (which is defined by your choices), the federated timeline (which is inter-server toots), and the local timeline (which is toots by people on your server)

@RowinSpeez @taylorlorenz

[leavex@mastodon.social]

The Fediverse, and Mastodon in particular, showcases what social media can be when designed for democratic dialogue rather than profit.

It’s open source, so its rules and algorithms are transparent and accountable.

No single company owns it, so no billionaire can unilaterally shape speech.

It’s also interoperable, meaning people can move freely instead of being trapped in walled gardens.

Because it doesn't depend on outrage for ad revenue, it fosters healthier, more civil conversations.

[joemcl@theforkiverse.com]

@taylorlorenz
Mastodon etc. are like a bulletin board on campus, or at work,
or City Hall, or a public library, and you don't need permission from your employer, school administration, government etc. to post on it, and they can't take your posted stuff down. A friendly volunteer makes sure that there's not really nasty stuff posted. If you don't agree with what the volunteer might remove, you can always post your stuff to a different bulletin board.

[elborro@mastodon.social]

@taylorlorenz No "blue checks" are needed to prove account authenticity when the server instance is self-managed by a government/organisation/private-person. It's opt-in; you'll only see messages from those you follow, or what they boost, or from those on the same server. There's no single organization behind it with absolute power over the servers and it's data (no addictive algorithms), or that can suddenly change the rules after it becomes very successful.

[ignacyy@mastodon.social]

@LShashaty @taylorlorenz That is the way, that is the only path to internet for good.

That is also why internet is, overall, huge net negative given user base of platforms like Instagram et al.

[elborro@mastodon.social]

@taylorlorenz I'm glad and happy to read what the people I follow are working on, dealing with, what thoughts and ideas they have, etc. That's what social media should be about. It's so much better than a timeline contaminated with ads and influencers you don't follow. It feels healthier, more natural.

[tokensane@mastodon.me.uk]

@taylorlorenz For me, "not owned by billionaires" is the key. I can use social media without an algorithm designed by a billionaire chum of Epstein shoving *his* favoured opinions into my feed, or shadowbanning me or closing my account for saying something that *he* disagrees with.

[parker@dsmc.space]

@thedansimonson @taylorlorenz I'm betting that with a 44 billion buy in Elon could do whatever he wanted to fedi, flood anything server with so much traffic, takedown requests, legal threats, etc., to make running an instance unviable.

Like with most things, I think the audience that fedi has attracted, who tend to filter out other audiences, matters more than the tech it's built on.

It's the same with Nostr. Nostr isn't uniquely a Bitcoin thing, but it's filled with all the Bitcoin people cause that's what they went with.

[bumblefudge@activitypub.space]

@taylorlorenz@mastodon.social fancy meeting you here! big fan, read the book and everything.

this isn't at all what you asked for, but i wrote an essay once that might be useful in more of a bigpicture/media-industry context.

you might also find to check out (or interview) elena, who is kind of our resident fedifluencer <img class="not-responsive emoji" src="https://activitypub.space/assets/plugins/nodebb-plugin-emoji/emoji/android/1f49e.png?v=0b03a81bb1f" title="" />

[thedansimonson@lingo.lol]

@parker @taylorlorenz you’re still talking about trying to capture hundreds of independent servers, which would only grow as efforts to take out the bigger servers started

[cholling@bytes.programming.dev]

@philpetree @taylorlorenz How does that stop crawlers (and not other traffic)?

[lori@cambrian.social]

@aesthr @haubles I see instance/account as analogous to a landlord/tenant relationship. The single-user instances, I suppose are the homeowners. Self hosting costs money. It's small money, but it's money. I think the emerging wireless mesh networks have the right network topology but unfortunately have various proprietary softwares and firmwares in the stack, but it seems exciting, possibly more exciting than the fediverse.

[robotistry@mstdn.ca]

@WolvericCatkin @weezmgk I crashed just after I found out my instance was shutting down, and by the time I was well enough to come back it was gone and I couldn't migrate anything. Thanks, #LongCovid.

[lori@cambrian.social]

@benroyce @davew And the most alt-text-encouraging culture in cyberspace.

[lori@cambrian.social]

@taylorlorenz @ben Certainly non-adversarial data export was a distant memory before I found the fediverse.

[robotistry@mstdn.ca]

@taylorlorenz

Twitter was like being stuck on a cable news panel of people shouting at each other. Every interaction was fraught and involved people obsessed with correcting or reinforcing each other's opinions.

Mastodon is like a coffee break at a conference. Like walking through a constant stream of interesting conversations that I can drift in and out of without fuss or pressure.

I don't have to surf an emotional high as I scroll. People here read posts all the way through and engage intellectually and emotionally instead of only emotionally.

And I curate my timeline, so I can manage how much emotional exhaustion I'm willing to incur and I mostly don't get random crap that infuriates me or is designed to upset me.

There are still microbloggers, and there are moderation problems, but Mastodon doesn't track "influence" so I don't get many influencers in my feed.

It's restful.

[lori@cambrian.social]

@_elena @Tamtam @n_dimension @taylorlorenz C44 appears to be #ytdlp compatible and therefore works for me. It's on my playlist for tonite.

[leavex@mastodon.social]

The Fediverse, and Mastodon in particular, showcases what social media can be when designed for democratic dialogue rather than profit.
It’s open source, so its rules and algorithms are transparent and accountable.
No single company owns it, so no billionaire can unilaterally shape speech.
It’s also interoperable, meaning people can move freely instead of being trapped in walled gardens.
Because it doesn't depend on outrage for ad revenue, it fosters healthier, more civil conversations.
#LeaveX

[htaggert@mstdn.social]

@taylorlorenz for me- I enjoy posting without anyone trying to monetize me or my data