5 ms·

Plenty of problems are solved. They may not be ones you care about, but they're not "really none". Anecdotally, the instances I know of take a much harder line

by kixiQu 6y ago

Plenty of problems are solved. They may not be ones you care about, but they're not "really none". Anecdotally, the instances I know of take a much harder line on moderation of transphobic content than does mainstream social media, which is something desired by some communities and made possible by heterogeneous moderation policies; "no ads" is a problem solved in of itself; no QTs gets rid of about 70% of the "dunking on this bad take" posts relative to Twitter; lower stakes discoverability means people express themselves differently; content warnings make your feed more manageable; etc. etc.

young_unixer 6y ago
What's a QT in this context? Are cuties getting banned from Mastodon?
- dljsjr 6y ago
  Quote Tweets.
- _-o-_ 6y ago
  Quote tweets. Basically retweeting someone's disagreeable tweet to you followers and adding some scalding commentary.
warkdarrior 6y ago
So this proves that much stricter regulation and censorship can be maintained effectively in a decentralized setting.
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  It proves that you can have community standards when you actually have a community. A big advantage of decentralization is that it doesn't try to impose a single worldview on everybody. If libertarians want to have an instance where they talk about how taxation is theft and communists want to have an instance where they talk about how capitalism sucks and moderates want to have an instance where all ideas are welcome but personal attacks are not, they can all do those things at the same time.
  - yborg 6y ago
    Exactly this. But there are a set of people who enjoy or feel the need to engage in combat with other schools of thought, either as validation or because of genuine desire to proselytize; and there is a subset of those people that believe that everyone should be forced into a single arena where the strongest ideas will prevail and thereby clearly delineate 'right' and 'wrong'. One of the major advantages of the Fediverse right now is that trying to do this is harder, plus there already are such arenas in the form of Twitter and Facebook. To me the complaint about 'bubbles' is usually from these believers in the school of trial by combat that are frustrated by their inability to impose this philosophy on the Fediverse. Which means it is working as designed...
    - Karrot_Kream 6y ago
      > One of the major advantages of the Fediverse right now is that trying to do this is harder Even in the Fediverse, I think these folks would just make their own instance. I wouldn't be surprised in the least if an instance was made to represent the "marketplace of discussion". I just wouldn't want to join it myself.
- kixiQu 6y ago
  Also much looser rules as well; sex workers, for instance, have a lot more freedoms to post their content in a lot of the Fediverse. Different instances have different rules.
  - warkdarrior 6y ago
    Sure, this supports better bubbles. Sex workers and evangelicals will be nicely separated from each other, so will be Nazis and Jews.
- sammorrowdrums 6y ago
  Like in real life, where you select friends and acquaintances, and do things that are interesting to you, and don't tolerate trolls in your physical life. I mean, that can actually foster higher quality debate and discussion. Like in a political discussion page, you would expect that users debate in good faith, and kick those who don't. Facebook and Twitter seem to just devolve. Hacker news is also largely the same with downvoting and significant moderation... And as a result it has higher quality discussion. Being open minded and thoughtful does not mean listening to just anyone... For me it's analogous to walking away from someone objectionable. If it was censorship they wouldn't be allowed to say it. But they still can, at least somewhere in the fediverse. Just not necessarily to me.
  - kstrauser 6y ago
    Exactly. I'm an instance admin and set moderation rules that appropriate for me and my users. If I do a bad job of it, those users are free to go to another instance with policies that they like better. As a result, I don't have to make some one-size-fits-all monster that pleases no one.
jl6 6y ago
> heterogeneous moderation Does this mean users sort themselves into filter bubbles rather than having algorithms do it for them?
- packetlost 6y ago
  Yes
- sammorrowdrums 6y ago
  There's a bit more interest in specific shared interest servers (like writing, being a Roman Catholic, being a furry, photography for example), so while yes they are bubbles, they aren't necessarily organised around holding specific political views. Also you can join multiple servers. Also there are benefits of the bubbles in this context as while you may not be being exposed to all content, nasty groups can't as easily spread content as they get blocked by most servers, so I think it does reduce radicalisation. Also, within servers that don't block each other, you can bring on federated content from any of them, and that can actually be horizon broadening too, but not in the frequently antagonistic way of Facebook or Twitter. At least in my personal experience.
- kixiQu 6y ago
  No. "Filter bubble" is a term with a particular meaning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_bubble https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_bubble Mastodon displays content only chronologically, so it's not a relevant term. Now, do people's choices of social association determine what they see? Of course, but... it's social media, so that's priced in, frankly.
  - kstrauser 6y ago
    That's a good point. Any social media that doesn't pair you up with random strangers is going to put you in a bit of a bubble because you choose who you're going to hang out with, both online and in real life.
    - akiselev 6y ago
bob29 6y ago
This and sibling comments make good points about improvements it has made. I edited my comment to be less universally judgemental. My experience is based on a pretty generic unknown low drama instance, that doesn't really block or get blocked, instead relying on users to mute/block/instance block themselves per-account. So initially I saw a lot of ugly things, the usual culture war topics discussed without nuance or compassion, bots and spam, etc.

by kixiQu 6y ago

young_unixer 6y ago

What's a QT in this context? Are cuties getting banned from Mastodon?

dljsjr 6y ago
Quote Tweets.
_-o-_ 6y ago
Quote tweets. Basically retweeting someone's disagreeable tweet to you followers and adding some scalding commentary.

warkdarrior 6y ago

So this proves that much stricter regulation and censorship can be maintained effectively in a decentralized setting.

AnthonyMouse 6y ago
It proves that you can have community standards when you actually have a community. A big advantage of decentralization is that it doesn't try to impose a single worldview on everybody. If libertarians want to have an instance where they talk about how taxation is theft and communists want to have an instance where they talk about how capitalism sucks and moderates want to have an instance where all ideas are welcome but personal attacks are not, they can all do those things at the same time.
- yborg 6y ago
  Exactly this. But there are a set of people who enjoy or feel the need to engage in combat with other schools of thought, either as validation or because of genuine desire to proselytize; and there is a subset of those people that believe that everyone should be forced into a single arena where the strongest ideas will prevail and thereby clearly delineate 'right' and 'wrong'. One of the major advantages of the Fediverse right now is that trying to do this is harder, plus there already are such arenas in the form of Twitter and Facebook. To me the complaint about 'bubbles' is usually from these believers in the school of trial by combat that are frustrated by their inability to impose this philosophy on the Fediverse. Which means it is working as designed...
  - Karrot_Kream 6y ago
    > One of the major advantages of the Fediverse right now is that trying to do this is harder Even in the Fediverse, I think these folks would just make their own instance. I wouldn't be surprised in the least if an instance was made to represent the "marketplace of discussion". I just wouldn't want to join it myself.
kixiQu 6y ago
Also much looser rules as well; sex workers, for instance, have a lot more freedoms to post their content in a lot of the Fediverse. Different instances have different rules.
- warkdarrior 6y ago
  Sure, this supports better bubbles. Sex workers and evangelicals will be nicely separated from each other, so will be Nazis and Jews.
sammorrowdrums 6y ago
Like in real life, where you select friends and acquaintances, and do things that are interesting to you, and don't tolerate trolls in your physical life. I mean, that can actually foster higher quality debate and discussion. Like in a political discussion page, you would expect that users debate in good faith, and kick those who don't. Facebook and Twitter seem to just devolve. Hacker news is also largely the same with downvoting and significant moderation... And as a result it has higher quality discussion. Being open minded and thoughtful does not mean listening to just anyone... For me it's analogous to walking away from someone objectionable. If it was censorship they wouldn't be allowed to say it. But they still can, at least somewhere in the fediverse. Just not necessarily to me.
- kstrauser 6y ago
  Exactly. I'm an instance admin and set moderation rules that appropriate for me and my users. If I do a bad job of it, those users are free to go to another instance with policies that they like better. As a result, I don't have to make some one-size-fits-all monster that pleases no one.

jl6 6y ago

> heterogeneous moderation Does this mean users sort themselves into filter bubbles rather than having algorithms do it for them?

packetlost 6y ago
Yes
sammorrowdrums 6y ago
There's a bit more interest in specific shared interest servers (like writing, being a Roman Catholic, being a furry, photography for example), so while yes they are bubbles, they aren't necessarily organised around holding specific political views. Also you can join multiple servers. Also there are benefits of the bubbles in this context as while you may not be being exposed to all content, nasty groups can't as easily spread content as they get blocked by most servers, so I think it does reduce radicalisation. Also, within servers that don't block each other, you can bring on federated content from any of them, and that can actually be horizon broadening too, but not in the frequently antagonistic way of Facebook or Twitter. At least in my personal experience.
kixiQu 6y ago
No. "Filter bubble" is a term with a particular meaning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_bubble https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_bubble Mastodon displays content only chronologically, so it's not a relevant term. Now, do people's choices of social association determine what they see? Of course, but... it's social media, so that's priced in, frankly.
- kstrauser 6y ago
  That's a good point. Any social media that doesn't pair you up with random strangers is going to put you in a bit of a bubble because you choose who you're going to hang out with, both online and in real life.
  - akiselev 6y ago

bob29 6y ago

This and sibling comments make good points about improvements it has made. I edited my comment to be less universally judgemental. My experience is based on a pretty generic unknown low drama instance, that doesn't really block or get blocked, instead relying on users to mute/block/instance block themselves per-account. So initially I saw a lot of ugly things, the usual culture war topics discussed without nuance or compassion, bots and spam, etc.