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I don't think it's reasonable to describe literally everybody who is leaving Twitter as some they that want only one kind of moderation and control over digital

I don't think it's reasonable to describe literally everybody who is leaving Twitter as some they that want only one kind of moderation and control over digital square. I think that some people want what they understand to be misinformation off the platform because the misinformation is used in a hurtful way. E.g. gay people are pedophiles, so fill the feeds of gay people on Twitter with vitriol. I think that some people want misinformation off the platform because of the natural knee-jerk "someone is WRONG on the internet!". I don't think there's some nebulous they who consciously considers the narrative of social media as something to control. I think it's just very hard to remove bad actors in a non-centralized-tyrannical way. And I think leaving to a decentralized platform isn't a hurdle because of some weird nebulous they who want power over everything. I think it's just less intuitive. I'm a mastodon user and I think "twitter but with decentralized spaces" can be super confusing to someone who is familiar with the centralized space. Many friends who have tried to move to mastodon to enter a community I'm in have accidentally signed up on other servers by accident.

stale2002 4y ago
> to describe literally everybody Fortunately I am not doing that, and obviously instead describing general trends. Does that clear everything up, not that I have clarified that I am not making the stupid argument of describing literally every person, with no exceptions, and I am instead making the much more reasonable argument, of generally describing overall trends? > because the misinformation is used in a hurtful way. But they still want it removed regardless. So everything I said still applies, because the motivation for why they want it removed, does not change the fact that they do want it removed. And because they do want it removed, moving to a decentralized platform undermines this goal, because it is no longer possible for a centralized platform to remove it from the users who choose to keep watching it. > there's some nebulous they Well the "they" in this case would describe everyone who wants "misinformation", or "bad" content removed from the internet. For those people, my point applies. > I think it's just very hard to remove bad actors in a non-centralized-tyrannical way. So then you agree with me all along that decentralized platforms are harder to have content removed from. Yeah thats what I said. > they who want power over everything. I didn't say they wanted power. I said that they wanted content removed. So yes, to those people, who want content removed, a decentralized platform is a hurdle, because decentralization makes it more difficult to have content removed, which you already agreed is the case.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  I suspect the reason why they think that leaving censored platforms is useful for them is that everybody apes the black civil rights struggle in the US whenever they have any political disagreement, and it feels like a boycott. They just don't remember that the reason boycotts work is because they do economic damage, and instead think that there's some other magical effect that will cause Twitter et. al. to shut up shop after they leave (the most commonly cited is that "it will turn into 4chan and everybody else will leave.") But not only would social networks not turn into 4chan if they reverted to pre-2020 moderation policies, but 4chan has been around for 20 years. If you want to keep people from talking to each other, starving them of your presence is not going to be the way to do it.
  - pixl97 4y ago
    I think you're really confused here... People that run Twitter don't want to keep people from talking to each other, they want to keep a particular crowd that is worth a lot of money talking so they can make billions doing it. 4chan is mostly worthless unless you're willing to take on very questionable advertisers.
- PuppyTailWags 4y ago
  I think you're describing and conflating two different things is what I'm pointing out. There are people who want things they see as harmful to remove off platforms they're on. There are also people who don't want to move to a decentralized system. But generally I think the same person who wants to remove bad people and not move to Mastodon are doing it for two different reasons, neither of which has to do with some kind of conspiratoral power that you're describing. One, I think people generally want their personal experience with the centralized platform to be better. It just so happens it's very difficult to do this without removing people they don't like. That's it. I'm pretty sure if there was some magic woo-waa that let people only be engaged with by others who aren't mean at them, it doesn't really matter if mean people exist elsewhere. Two, decentralized platforms are simply less intuitive than centralized ones to use and has nothing to do with content removal. I think you're hyper-focused on censorship in some way that doesn't actually reflect casual users. People generally just want to sign up on a platform and talk with their friends, and Mastodon makes it hard to sign up and talk to your friends.

stale2002 4y ago

> to describe literally everybody Fortunately I am not doing that, and obviously instead describing general trends. Does that clear everything up, not that I have clarified that I am not making the stupid argument of describing literally every person, with no exceptions, and I am instead making the much more reasonable argument, of generally describing overall trends? > because the misinformation is used in a hurtful way. But they still want it removed regardless. So everything I said still applies, because the motivation for why they want it removed, does not change the fact that they do want it removed. And because they do want it removed, moving to a decentralized platform undermines this goal, because it is no longer possible for a centralized platform to remove it from the users who choose to keep watching it. > there's some nebulous they Well the "they" in this case would describe everyone who wants "misinformation", or "bad" content removed from the internet. For those people, my point applies. > I think it's just very hard to remove bad actors in a non-centralized-tyrannical way. So then you agree with me all along that decentralized platforms are harder to have content removed from. Yeah thats what I said. > they who want power over everything. I didn't say they wanted power. I said that they wanted content removed. So yes, to those people, who want content removed, a decentralized platform is a hurdle, because decentralization makes it more difficult to have content removed, which you already agreed is the case.

pessimizer 4y ago
I suspect the reason why they think that leaving censored platforms is useful for them is that everybody apes the black civil rights struggle in the US whenever they have any political disagreement, and it feels like a boycott. They just don't remember that the reason boycotts work is because they do economic damage, and instead think that there's some other magical effect that will cause Twitter et. al. to shut up shop after they leave (the most commonly cited is that "it will turn into 4chan and everybody else will leave.") But not only would social networks not turn into 4chan if they reverted to pre-2020 moderation policies, but 4chan has been around for 20 years. If you want to keep people from talking to each other, starving them of your presence is not going to be the way to do it.
- pixl97 4y ago
  I think you're really confused here... People that run Twitter don't want to keep people from talking to each other, they want to keep a particular crowd that is worth a lot of money talking so they can make billions doing it. 4chan is mostly worthless unless you're willing to take on very questionable advertisers.
PuppyTailWags 4y ago
I think you're describing and conflating two different things is what I'm pointing out. There are people who want things they see as harmful to remove off platforms they're on. There are also people who don't want to move to a decentralized system. But generally I think the same person who wants to remove bad people and not move to Mastodon are doing it for two different reasons, neither of which has to do with some kind of conspiratoral power that you're describing. One, I think people generally want their personal experience with the centralized platform to be better. It just so happens it's very difficult to do this without removing people they don't like. That's it. I'm pretty sure if there was some magic woo-waa that let people only be engaged with by others who aren't mean at them, it doesn't really matter if mean people exist elsewhere. Two, decentralized platforms are simply less intuitive than centralized ones to use and has nothing to do with content removal. I think you're hyper-focused on censorship in some way that doesn't actually reflect casual users. People generally just want to sign up on a platform and talk with their friends, and Mastodon makes it hard to sign up and talk to your friends.