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Mastodon and other Fediverse microblogging platforms aren't trying to recreate these abusive systems. They don't show boost/favourite counts, don't offer paid p

Mastodon and other Fediverse microblogging platforms aren't trying to recreate these abusive systems. They don't show boost/favourite counts, don't offer paid promotion or adverts, don't have the manipulation of the timelines or the other abusive dark patterns used to keep people hooked on the toxic pipes. I feel that being able to show appreciation for a post, or send it to the people who are interested in you, are both important ways to interact and can be implemented without the unhealthy byproducts of the corporate social media orgs.

vidarh 4y ago
It does show boost/favourite counts once you open a toot, and just like on Twitter you can also click to see the list of people who have boosted/favourited The other parts are true, but the "manipulation of timelines" is just a question of time because it's useful if you follow lots of people. As long as it remains opt-in and a setting it's a good thing. I'm planning an ActivityPub implementation for myself and "manipulation of timelines" is one of the features I want to add the most for my own use. Point being that deviating from a strictly chronological timeline isn't the problem. Doing so in a non-transparent way the user has little control over is.
- johnchristopher 4y ago
  I also believe character limits is a problem and that it ultimately leads to polarization.
  - vidarh 4y ago
    That too is easily modified. Mastodon hardcodes the value a few places, or at least used to. Pleroma has config settings to separately enforce a local limit on how much you're allowed to write, and a hard limit above which it will drop remote posts. Problem is the latter - any instances which increases the post length too much will need to consider that they'll effectively make federation unreliable for their users because most other instances will have a hard limit above which they'll drop or truncate posts. But overall it's easy to iterate on this, and you can try things on your own instance or your own "corner" of likeminded instances while still be able to interoperate on most things.
    - johnchristopher 4y ago
      Thanks.

vidarh 4y ago

It does show boost/favourite counts once you open a toot, and just like on Twitter you can also click to see the list of people who have boosted/favourited The other parts are true, but the "manipulation of timelines" is just a question of time because it's useful if you follow lots of people. As long as it remains opt-in and a setting it's a good thing. I'm planning an ActivityPub implementation for myself and "manipulation of timelines" is one of the features I want to add the most for my own use. Point being that deviating from a strictly chronological timeline isn't the problem. Doing so in a non-transparent way the user has little control over is.

johnchristopher 4y ago
I also believe character limits is a problem and that it ultimately leads to polarization.
- vidarh 4y ago
  That too is easily modified. Mastodon hardcodes the value a few places, or at least used to. Pleroma has config settings to separately enforce a local limit on how much you're allowed to write, and a hard limit above which it will drop remote posts. Problem is the latter - any instances which increases the post length too much will need to consider that they'll effectively make federation unreliable for their users because most other instances will have a hard limit above which they'll drop or truncate posts. But overall it's easy to iterate on this, and you can try things on your own instance or your own "corner" of likeminded instances while still be able to interoperate on most things.
  - johnchristopher 4y ago
    Thanks.