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What I'm about to say you may already know, but for the benefit of other readers: > groups who frankly almost nobody wants to have associations with I'd cauti

by kixiQu 7y ago

What I'm about to say you may already know, but for the benefit of other readers: > groups who frankly almost nobody wants to have associations with I'd caution you about this claim; Gab, Spinster, Glindr, some of the less savory Japanese instances probably fit what you're saying. If you want to be less charitable about most people's broadmindedness, toss in the furries. But from what I've seen, a large chunk of Mastodon users tend to just be LGBTQ. For this group, the control/independence is a lot about knowing what you can expect your moderators to take seriously (both in terms of allowed content and protection against harassment). I'd question the term "fringe" for this group. There's also been a movement away from Twitter onto Mastodon of Indian users upset by Twitter's acquiescence with Indian government demands. In that case, it's not so much about privacy as making legal demands a game of whack-a-mole. Otherwise I totally agree with what you're saying.

Udo 7y ago
I think this probably doesn't need to be said but LGBTQ people on Mastodon are not an example of what I meant. To make it extra clear, I also didn't mean to imply that just any group with a strong presence on such networks is automatically "fringe" or worse... It's just by my (admittedly subjective) impression large-scale, community-wide adoption of decentralized networks has been mostly by radicals or militants, because they have increasingly been banned from mainstream social nets. They had an easier time taking the hit from jumping to a new network, because they had been ostracized.
- kixiQu 7y ago
  Valid, valid. I think it's interesting to think about how groups that are in between the "mainstream" and the "fringe"--not banned necessarily, but those with more variant needs from their networks--can serve as an "indicator community" (https://www.britannica.com/science/indicator-species https://www.britannica.com/science/indicator-species) of social ecosystems' function.

by kixiQu 7y ago

Udo 7y ago

I think this probably doesn't need to be said but LGBTQ people on Mastodon are not an example of what I meant. To make it extra clear, I also didn't mean to imply that just any group with a strong presence on such networks is automatically "fringe" or worse... It's just by my (admittedly subjective) impression large-scale, community-wide adoption of decentralized networks has been mostly by radicals or militants, because they have increasingly been banned from mainstream social nets. They had an easier time taking the hit from jumping to a new network, because they had been ostracized.

kixiQu 7y ago
Valid, valid. I think it's interesting to think about how groups that are in between the "mainstream" and the "fringe"--not banned necessarily, but those with more variant needs from their networks--can serve as an "indicator community" (https://www.britannica.com/science/indicator-species https://www.britannica.com/science/indicator-species) of social ecosystems' function.