Is #mastodon becoming an echo chamber?
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@Mabande @corbden @isagalaev @scottjenson @devlord @carnage4life
Welp, carnage has taken their personal experience in a network where everybody curates their own experience, found it wanting, and instead of doing what it takes to get what you want, has decided to whine about it. And now we are talking about it.
Like, go follow people and hashtags you goof, get a grip
@TeflonTrout @Mabande @corbden @isagalaev @scottjenson @devlord. I’m not whining or complaining about engagement on Mastodon, I’m sharing the difference in what various social media communities care about in my personal experience.
Mastodon is full of anti-AI techies and BlueSky is full of anti-Trump leftists & liberals is essentially the observation.
Funny enough, I don’t even think most people on Mastodon would disagree so seeing rude responses like this is just weird.
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@scottjenson @Gargron There is nothing, absolutely nothing, stopping anyone from creating and cultivating an AI community on Mastodon. Start a server. Knock yourself out.
But expecting to *farm acceptance* from a group of people, one which most members vastly dislike AI, is quite the hubris.
But sure, the community at large is the problem.
Clean up your kitchen and maybe folks will join you for a meal.
@FeloniousPunk @scottjenson@social.coop @Gargron Scott's cognitive dissonance is on display. A photo at a "No Kings" rally while demanding we all kowtow to the same people creating that whole situation via donations and technology
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As this conversation is spiraling a bit I want to make a few things clear:
1. I'd like Mastodon to be MORE inclusive and bring in more voices
2. Some people don't seem to want that
3. This is core problem to solve: How do we let more in, but not "pollute" your feed?
4. The solution is NOT "gatekeeping", revelling in the fact that AI journalists aren't welcome
5. This is the same reason we lost "Black Twitter" when it came over in 2022Yes, a lot of you don't want AI posts in your feed (or pick any other topic) but the solution isn't to keep "AI People" from joining Mastodon, any more than it is keeping marginalized communities off of Mastodon.
@scottjenson What the heck is "AI journalists" or "AI people" to begin with?
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@scottjenson @Gargron it is. no one preventing anyone from running their own "ai friendly" servers, participating in being shunned by everyone with half a clue.
@jkmcnk @scottjenson @Gargron the Fediverse has a thriving community of straight up neonazis, but everyone fucking shuns them. AI can have that, sure.
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B britt@mstdn.games shared this topic
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As this conversation is spiraling a bit I want to make a few things clear:
1. I'd like Mastodon to be MORE inclusive and bring in more voices
2. Some people don't seem to want that
3. This is core problem to solve: How do we let more in, but not "pollute" your feed?
4. The solution is NOT "gatekeeping", revelling in the fact that AI journalists aren't welcome
5. This is the same reason we lost "Black Twitter" when it came over in 2022Yes, a lot of you don't want AI posts in your feed (or pick any other topic) but the solution isn't to keep "AI People" from joining Mastodon, any more than it is keeping marginalized communities off of Mastodon.
@scottjenson I fail to see the relationship between being welcoming to diversity and being welcoming to IA apologists.
The Fediverse is proving to be a good place for niche interests. Maybe that I'd a way for expansion: fit more niches, not more mainstream
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@Mabande @corbden @isagalaev @scottjenson @devlord @carnage4life
Welp, carnage has taken their personal experience in a network where everybody curates their own experience, found it wanting, and instead of doing what it takes to get what you want, has decided to whine about it. And now we are talking about it.
Like, go follow people and hashtags you goof, get a grip
@TeflonTrout @Mabande @corbden @isagalaev @scottjenson @devlord @carnage4life Is this the post I saw you subtooting about? I’ve seen people making the “echo chamber” argument before and they basically want to spew bigotry without consequences. I thought that was what you were subtooting about. But this isn’t that. I feel like one of us has misunderstood something and decided to get really mad over it.
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@Gargron That is a personal choice and one which I totally respect. But I do think Mastodon should be big enough, and open enough, to allow an "AI community" to form, even thrive.
Too many people in my replies don't seem to agree with that.
@scottjenson @Gargron They could even create their own server, and let people decide if they want to follow them, or not, or mute or block them.
I suspect the "problem" here is that people has power to decide what they want to see at their timeline...
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Is #mastodon becoming an echo chamber? This post from @carnage4life has me questioning our community. The Mastodon team is finally getting some traction, the product improvements are increasing, The #UX is improving, yet people posting on multiple platforms are making comments like this. It's confusing.
I *know* people here don't want this to be a classic social media-clone but we'd *like* journalists to be here right? They aren't coming with examples like this!
@scottjenson @carnage4life The assumption that we care if journalists are here or not is quite a large one. I couldn't care less if journalists are on here as a group - if someone is interesting, not an arsehole, and a journalist then sure, I'm happy to follow them and happy they're here.
The ones who don't match that description, I'll mute anyway and reconsider the follow that saw them in my feed
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@toddsundsted @dgodon Too many people thought I was *defending* the entire AI industry and worse, comparing it directly to Black Twitter. Hey it's social media, posts are short, it's easy to connect the dots the wrong way.
My poor writing skills aside, my point was what I think you both are saying: it's a slippery slope. It's no secret that black twitter was not made welcome here (it's a very complex topic but there is some truth to it).
My point wasn't that techbros needed support or coddling but the idea that we "allow" people to be here based on some type of ideological purity test is guaranteed to bite us in the ass. Too many people here get holier than thou and feel morally obligated to harass people. It's short sighted.
@scottjenson the most disappointing thing about the entire first layer of responses to the post was that so many people saw two letters ("AI") and ignored everything else about the poster the post and its content. they assumed a lot about the poster and their motivations, as well.
> the idea that we "allow" people to be here based on some type of ideological purity test is guaranteed to bite us in the ass
i very much agree with this. and, in fact, it is biting us. the concern i have is that a smaller, less inclusive, more ideologically constrained community is what many people actively want—thus their behavior.
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Is #mastodon becoming an echo chamber? This post from @carnage4life has me questioning our community. The Mastodon team is finally getting some traction, the product improvements are increasing, The #UX is improving, yet people posting on multiple platforms are making comments like this. It's confusing.
I *know* people here don't want this to be a classic social media-clone but we'd *like* journalists to be here right? They aren't coming with examples like this!
@scottjenson Mastodon (& the fediverse as a whole) is not an apolitical project; if we were happy with sycophants of big tech we'd still be using their platforms.
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@jkmcnk @scottjenson @Gargron the Fediverse has a thriving community of straight up neonazis, but everyone fucking shuns them. AI can have that, sure.
Just came here to say something most people in the USA seems unaware of: “Mastodon” isn't only people speaking in English.
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Is #mastodon becoming an echo chamber? This post from @carnage4life has me questioning our community. The Mastodon team is finally getting some traction, the product improvements are increasing, The #UX is improving, yet people posting on multiple platforms are making comments like this. It's confusing.
I *know* people here don't want this to be a classic social media-clone but we'd *like* journalists to be here right? They aren't coming with examples like this!
@scottjenson @carnage4life are we a monoculture, yes of course we are ? I follow Dare because he usually posts "against the grain" of many of the normal big Fediverse touch points. I will point out though that I interact with them exceedingly rarely so he may not realize this pattern; there are no "views" in Mastodon. I would bet he and others have a tail of followers like this.
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As this conversation is spiraling a bit I want to make a few things clear:
1. I'd like Mastodon to be MORE inclusive and bring in more voices
2. Some people don't seem to want that
3. This is core problem to solve: How do we let more in, but not "pollute" your feed?
4. The solution is NOT "gatekeeping", revelling in the fact that AI journalists aren't welcome
5. This is the same reason we lost "Black Twitter" when it came over in 2022Yes, a lot of you don't want AI posts in your feed (or pick any other topic) but the solution isn't to keep "AI People" from joining Mastodon, any more than it is keeping marginalized communities off of Mastodon.
@scottjenson make your own AI journalism instance and let people decide
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The core culture value here is equal access and freedom of expression. Everything after that is self-governing. Including segmentation of interests. No one is owed an audience. No one. (2/2)
@scottjenson@mattwilcox @scottjenson in case it matters, I used to work at NVIDIA, now am CEO of a tech startup, and of course I “do AI”. I haven’t felt unsafe here but I also am not looking for the boosts. My goal is to engage whenever I actually do have the time to post here. In fact it is the only platform I actually do personally post to. I want to have real conversations (and not just about what I do). All this to say, I feel I can express my opinions safely, and am happy to be here. And a disagreement with my choice of career or work does not make it unsafe for me.
Now if someone threatened me or my family just because I am who I am—would be very different. So would like to understand what we’re actually talking about here; people being in danger because of their affiliation with AI or just words being exchanged?
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@scottjenson @carnage4life are we a monoculture, yes of course we are ? I follow Dare because he usually posts "against the grain" of many of the normal big Fediverse touch points. I will point out though that I interact with them exceedingly rarely so he may not realize this pattern; there are no "views" in Mastodon. I would bet he and others have a tail of followers like this.
@scottjenson I think the real question here is how is the Mastodon team defining success? Are you chasing usage metrics? Because we know from the last decade plus how that experience goes.
Or are you looking at some other sort of metric and using THAT as the goal. I vaguely remember something about launching some new number of instances as a goal. Perhaps that's a better metric. We know people select the Fediverse to get away from Big Social. What does the team think is important to focus on?
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Is #mastodon becoming an echo chamber? This post from @carnage4life has me questioning our community. The Mastodon team is finally getting some traction, the product improvements are increasing, The #UX is improving, yet people posting on multiple platforms are making comments like this. It's confusing.
I *know* people here don't want this to be a classic social media-clone but we'd *like* journalists to be here right? They aren't coming with examples like this!
@scottjenson @carnage4life Mastodon is lukewarm to politics? That hasn't been my experience at all.
In fact, that rejection of AI is very political in its roots.
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@cratermoon @evan should everyone who joins mastodon be forced to pass that gauntlet? Who are the gate keepers? There shouldn't be a purity test. Catch the scammers of course, but passing judgement on the quality of someone's thoughts is very dubious
@scottjenson @cratermoon @evan I am the gatekeeper of MY timeline. So if I don't want some content, I don't follow it or I can even block it. And you have all the tools to create your own instance about AI things... that I won't follow.
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As this conversation is spiraling a bit I want to make a few things clear:
1. I'd like Mastodon to be MORE inclusive and bring in more voices
2. Some people don't seem to want that
3. This is core problem to solve: How do we let more in, but not "pollute" your feed?
4. The solution is NOT "gatekeeping", revelling in the fact that AI journalists aren't welcome
5. This is the same reason we lost "Black Twitter" when it came over in 2022Yes, a lot of you don't want AI posts in your feed (or pick any other topic) but the solution isn't to keep "AI People" from joining Mastodon, any more than it is keeping marginalized communities off of Mastodon.
@scottjenson LLMs are dehumanizing technologies. Most people here value community, connection, and authenticity. What exactly do you expect?
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Is #mastodon becoming an echo chamber? This post from @carnage4life has me questioning our community. The Mastodon team is finally getting some traction, the product improvements are increasing, The #UX is improving, yet people posting on multiple platforms are making comments like this. It's confusing.
I *know* people here don't want this to be a classic social media-clone but we'd *like* journalists to be here right? They aren't coming with examples like this!
@scottjenson @carnage4life I think the issue is that the fediverse has issues with the engagement-farming business models of the other platforms.
I think any niche can fly here, it just needs to be genuine. I see plenty of politics, but also plenty of music and the arts.
Tech also thrives on here, but from a retro/maker/open source perspective, not a big tech one.
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@scottjenson @Gargron They could even create their own server, and let people decide if they want to follow them, or not, or mute or block them.
I suspect the "problem" here is that people has power to decide what they want to see at their timeline...
@andrewblasco @scottjenson @Gargron Oh no! If Mastodon doesn’t grow at all costs, how will it generate value for the shareholders and investors?
At this rate, Mastodon will never IPO…
/s
