Is #mastodon becoming an echo chamber?
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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@social.coop @carnage4life@mas.to Well, there is more to the fediverse than Mastodon. Not engaging with something is not gatekeeping.
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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
Which gauntlet?Nobody is stopping you posting. Nobody is stopping you firing up an instance on a $30 second hand rpi on your home internet, or a vps. There is very minimal oversight on creating an account on most instances. Moderation is manual, minimal and usually only reacts to reports.
If you're posting with hash tags your readers will look for and you're getting nowhere it's because there's just no "organic" audience for what you're doing. Maybe check out an instance you share more interests with? Find your people.
I'm on this thing, at least in part, because I do not want a "for you", I don't want a "people like you wanted" or a "trending" or a "most heart upvoted by gold users" algo feed. I definitely don't want a "somebody paid me to show you this post" feed. What I want is to see posts from the people on whom I clicked the "show me this persons posts" button
If users don't want to read/interact with the content you'll find "Boosting" it by changing the machinery of the platform is just going to piss people off. They'll just block you, or defederate
I don't see how "people wanting to read your posts" is too high of a bar — in the context of a posts by/about AI there's a good chance the poster didn't even care enough to sit down and write the post. Why in the world would anybody be ok having that "boosted" in their faces. More importantly, would they be happy about it?
Maybe post something appealing, like cat pics or lockpicking or xcom shitposts or some gay shit or a skirt go spinny? That ikea shårk is pretty popular on here, maybe that's something?
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@evan @cratermoon Exactly, even asking that question "What value do they bring" is kind of scary.
It's a fine line, I get it. We draw the line at nazis and scammers but let's not cross the line into "intellectual purity" tests
@scottjenson @evan @cratermoon why is "what value do they bring" scary to you? no-one is saying that Mastodon Central Authority will block them if they don't bring value! there's no such thing!
if they don't bring value, no-one will follow or boost them. that's it. folks are almost certainly talking about these things on a fediverse server now, and i'm not seeing them.
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@scottjenson @cratermoon @evan
Which gauntlet?Nobody is stopping you posting. Nobody is stopping you firing up an instance on a $30 second hand rpi on your home internet, or a vps. There is very minimal oversight on creating an account on most instances. Moderation is manual, minimal and usually only reacts to reports.
If you're posting with hash tags your readers will look for and you're getting nowhere it's because there's just no "organic" audience for what you're doing. Maybe check out an instance you share more interests with? Find your people.
I'm on this thing, at least in part, because I do not want a "for you", I don't want a "people like you wanted" or a "trending" or a "most heart upvoted by gold users" algo feed. I definitely don't want a "somebody paid me to show you this post" feed. What I want is to see posts from the people on whom I clicked the "show me this persons posts" button
If users don't want to read/interact with the content you'll find "Boosting" it by changing the machinery of the platform is just going to piss people off. They'll just block you, or defederate
I don't see how "people wanting to read your posts" is too high of a bar — in the context of a posts by/about AI there's a good chance the poster didn't even care enough to sit down and write the post. Why in the world would anybody be ok having that "boosted" in their faces. More importantly, would they be happy about it?
Maybe post something appealing, like cat pics or lockpicking or xcom shitposts or some gay shit or a skirt go spinny? That ikea shårk is pretty popular on here, maybe that's something?
@scottjenson @cratermoon @evan
Also for a "why am i being excluded" post it seems a bit odd to name Mastodon explicitly when there's a whole universe of activitypub software -
@SharpCheddarGoblin @scottjenson @mattwilcox Hi, I may disagree with Scott on this but he’s a coworker of mine, I know he means well, probably not getting his point across in writing in quite the right way, and I would ask you to please remain civil. Thank you!
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@patrick_h_lauke The metrics are clear, people are leaving mastodon, our daily actives are going down. I agree that pursing follower count is not what Mastodon should be about, we likely agree on many points here. I'm just trying to say 'being more welcoming of other points of view' shouldn't be controvertial. Yet so many replies have been "we don't want them here!" which feels very head-in-the-sand to me.
"people are leaving mastodon, our daily actives are going down"
Same thing has been happening to Bluesky over the past year.
Bluesky User Growth and Active Users
See how activity and usage of Bluesky has been growing over time. How many users are currently active? How many posts are posted daily on Bluesky?
(bluefacts.app)
From some of the anecdotes I've seen, it sounds like at least part of this is the same reason people don't stick around here: not enough activity and/or diversity (you might know Bluesky is very US-centric).
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"people are leaving mastodon, our daily actives are going down"
Same thing has been happening to Bluesky over the past year.
Bluesky User Growth and Active Users
See how activity and usage of Bluesky has been growing over time. How many users are currently active? How many posts are posted daily on Bluesky?
(bluefacts.app)
From some of the anecdotes I've seen, it sounds like at least part of this is the same reason people don't stick around here: not enough activity and/or diversity (you might know Bluesky is very US-centric).
@scottjenson But of course, the fediverse does have some unique challenges, such as the federated bits poking out too much, confusing people, and, well, random people enforcing unwritten, sometimes contradictory rules across different communities.
The only way I see out of that is to stop gatekeeping the fediverse, and focusing on communities. Anyone should be able to join the fediverse, just like anyone can go on the internet.
I don't care that Meta is part of the fediverse through Threads, we can all just block them and move on.
Or if Truth Social decided to turn federation back on. Them federating means nothing. We'll block them, and move on.
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@scottjenson But of course, the fediverse does have some unique challenges, such as the federated bits poking out too much, confusing people, and, well, random people enforcing unwritten, sometimes contradictory rules across different communities.
The only way I see out of that is to stop gatekeeping the fediverse, and focusing on communities. Anyone should be able to join the fediverse, just like anyone can go on the internet.
I don't care that Meta is part of the fediverse through Threads, we can all just block them and move on.
Or if Truth Social decided to turn federation back on. Them federating means nothing. We'll block them, and move on.
@scottjenson I guess I'm just not as attached to the idea of the fediverse as being one community that needs to follow the same rules and discuss the same topics in approved ways?
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@scottjenson @Gargron I just came back to my Mastodon account and one of the first things I see is people who have an interest in something being compared to puppy-killers by the "head" of Mastodon.
<turns it back off again>
@bogosian @scottjenson @Gargron
Nice of you to ignore that that “something” is destroying environment and people’s lives. -
@evan @cratermoon Exactly, even asking that question "What value do they bring" is kind of scary.
It's a fine line, I get it. We draw the line at nazis and scammers but let's not cross the line into "intellectual purity" tests
@scottjenson @evan @cratermoon
I don't see whats holding the "AI" people back from creating their own instances on the fediverse.
If someone will federate is another question but this "buh huh we're not allowed here" sounds pretty fake tbh.
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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 I can’t speak for everyone, but I’d like to think we on Mastodon see LLMs for what they are —a cancer.
There is no AI ‘community’. Just a group of people who hate other people and their contributions to society.
It is the only reason I can think of why they seem to want to drown us out with worthless slop.
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@codinghorror You're absolutely correct. Part of my method (which I'm fairly transparent about) is that I make these provocations just to test the waters, see what people say, and how the conversation flows. It's basically research for the blog post.
I've gotten some extremely thoughtful comments that have made me rethink several of my original points.
I've even been accused of "baiting" some people which isn't entirely unfair either. It's helpful to 'poke the bear' occassionally
@scottjenson @codinghorror "lol i was only trolling" ok m8
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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!
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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 oh you can come but be prepared to be blocked... right now
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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 equating AI Boosters to black twitter is, for a lack of a more polite way to say it, disingenuous or just a lie upfront.
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@cratermoon @scottjenson @Gargron This is a very rich ethics question hidden in a specific example.
Would you permit or allow any community with which you disagree to participate on a platform, even if you’re not forced to participate?
A shortlist of thought experiments, to broaden the perspective, some of which are already here, some not…
- The oil & gas community
- Forestry workers (logging)
- The cryptocurrency community
- Workers at a chick rendering plant
- The finance industry
- Adult content creators
- Religious communitiesIs there a litmus test for topics that you can or can’t discuss on the fediverse? Specific servers sure, but the whole fediverse?
Does that align with the values put forth by mastodon or the fediverse in general?
I don’t have the answers.
@trisweb @cratermoon @scottjenson @Gargron fedi is like a big restaurant (https://www.esdin.net/post/the-restaurant-analogy-mastodon-the-fediverse)
and anyone can have their own community. That having been said, nobody is forced to be an audience for things they aren't interested in. Fedi has a culture, pretty diverse and inclusive of all who aren't obnoxious. Some people don't understand fedi culture when they come over from other more "obnoxiousness normalized" places, and can't handle the culture shift. Fedizens tend to be hostile to influencers and the ragebait that tends to be promoted on obnoxious networks. Fedi skews very anticapitalist and hostile as fuck to capitalist argument amplification and the "social networks must keep growing or lose relevance" mentality. Fedi is too big already, actually... The big instances are too big to moderate. People have said that for years. Fedi is like making real life friends. Remember that? Corp platforms try to make us forget human connection in favor of parasocial bs that keeps people from making real friends. -
@bogosian @scottjenson I’m not head of Mastodon! Have a good day.
@Gargron @bogosian @scottjenson they must've mistaken you for John. easy mistake to make.
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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.
1/2
I really have a problem with putting groups of marginalized humans in one group with tech-people who love Ai.
The one thing is a core human thing, not an interest or a hobby, while being a fan of Ai stuff is a choice and an interest and the fact that the fediverse, albeit filled to the brim with tech and It Nerds, seems to have not much interest in this, is not gatekeeping. I
t simply shows that most people here are interested in other stuff. -
@scottjenson @carnage4life There's nothing keeping the Twitter journalist class off here as long as they want to come here and follow the basic rules about consent, abuse, and hate speech (something some of them seem rather poor at though, for example treating transphobic hate speech as "just asking questions").
But we sure as hell don't have to kiss AI bros' asses trying to convince them to come here. Much less nazis'.
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@dalias @scottjenson All social media apps are filter bubbles either based on who you choose to follow or what content is recommended to you.
The apps themselves are filter bubbles. X and Truth Social are right wing. Bluesky and Mastodon lean left. Threads leans left as it’s also a Twitter/X refugee app but less so than the latter two.
