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

[nan@mastodon.green]

@taylorlorenz the most persuasive description I have heard is that, if you're not getting the support or moderation you need, you can just move without having to leave all your followers behind.

In that way it's more like phone providers or ISP in that because everything's connected but independent, you're not stuck with whoever you started with.

[zekovski@pouet.chapril.org]

@taylorlorenz
The network is built so it can't be controlled by one single entity.
Therefore this entity cannot impose a unique censorship to everyone.

[philpetree@mastodon.social]

@cholling @taylorlorenz User Agent Strings which id crawlers such as GPTBot.

[cholling@bytes.programming.dev]

@philpetree @taylorlorenz And can never be faked?

[lori@cambrian.social]

@Tamtam @taylorlorenz If it's not o̶p̶e̶n̶ ̶s̶o̶u̶r̶c̶e̶ free software it's a simulacrum and a panopticon.

[steve_lindsay@fediscience.org]

@taylorlorenz I'm no expert but I think the main advantage is that the fediverse is not designed to milk its users for profit.

[danbrotherston@types.pl]

@taylorlorenz Ultimately, you're not going to get everyone on board, no matter how you describe it. There are simply people, for whom a strongman authoritarian is the preferred form of governance (they believe it'll always be their strongman of course). These people will never prefer a distributed system.

But that's not such a helpful answer, hopefully there are good arguments for reading the remainder (majority) of people who prefer democratic governance and distributed power.

[philpetree@mastodon.social]

@cholling @taylorlorenz and no problem can ever be solved and no solution is ever complete... Dude, your schtick is as old as time. Find another target.

[abosio@fosstodon.org]

@taylorlorenz My main reason is no tech bro can buy it and even if my instance goes bad I can easily relocate to another.

[etam@im-in.space]

@taylorlorenz
1) The goal of any company is to make money. Baking bread or providing digital platforms are different means of achieveing it. They all have a product and customers. In case of twitter or facebook, the customers are advertisers and the product is time users spend on their platforms. So in order to maximize their profits, they use algorithms, that maximize the users engagement. It doesn't matter if it's more funny cat videos or more fake news and extremist propaganda, whatever gets you engaged, will get amplified. The fediverse does not do that.

[etam@im-in.space]

@taylorlorenz
2) A lot has been said about freedom of speech on online platforms. There's always a tension between freedom and moderation. The fediverse solves this, by allowing each server to have its own rules. Do you want to feel safe? There's a server for that. Do you want to have unlimited freedom? There's a server for that. In general accounts can see messages across servers. Be ware, that moderators of your servers, according to its rules, can block certain content or whole servers. If you don't like it, you can always migrate your account to another server with different rules.

[virtuous_sloth@cosocial.ca]

@taylorlorenz
No need for corporate overlords. No one is in charge. It's glorious.

[evan@cosocial.ca]

@taylorlorenz

1. Your company, university, or club can run a Mastodon server for itself, under its full control.
2. No one can tell you which apps to use or what kind of functionality it can have.
3. You don't have to chase friends or influencers from platform to platform. Set up a homebase on the Fediverse and follow them remotely wherever they go.
4. You own your contacts. No algorithm keeps you from seeing them, or them from seeing you.
5. Your server can be hosted in your country.

[tony@toot.hoyle.me.uk]

@taylorlorenz
Things like Twitter and Facebook are a high stress environment.. you're constantly worried you'll say something to upset someone.

Mastodon is chill. It's rare for anyone to take things you post as a personal insult (and if they do, the block button is really effective).

[evan@cosocial.ca]

@taylorlorenz also, this thread is massive. Much ️ to our friends at Mastodon who go the replies-fetching working. Such a better conversation experience.