3 ms·

They are not structurally equivalent though. Social networks are whitelist-based (i.e. follows). A spammer has to somehow make people follow them to send them s

by spion 4y ago

They are not structurally equivalent though. Social networks are whitelist-based (i.e. follows). A spammer has to somehow make people follow them to send them spam.

TeMPOraL 4y ago
It doesn't; most (all?) social networking sites allow unsolicited messages, and if they have a feed, it tends to accumulate second-hand spam. The issue here isn't spam, though, it's about who sets the rules. Spam is just one of the strongest drivers that make a federated network evolve into an oligopoly. It was the driver in case of e-mail, but e.g. for Mastodon, I'd say political extremism is the primary force. The result ends up being the same, because the dynamics are content-agnostic: users migrate to nodes that offer most reliable communication, and as those nodes grow in usercount, it makes it easier for them to fight undesired communication with blunt tools (e.g. instance or IP blocklists). It's a positive feedback loop.
- UncleEntity 4y ago
  That’s what people want though, a twitter replacement with all the filters and whatnot Musk is talking about dismantling. And they show up on mastodon, because everyone is talking about it, and find it isn’t the safe space they carefully curated with their twitter blocklists and write a blogpost (because they can’t complain on twitter anymore) about how it’ll never work. I don’t understand why these tech-savvy folks can’t give positive criticism to maybe fix the problem instead of “it’ll never work, can’t we just have our twitter back, pretty please?”
  - TeMPOraL 4y ago
    > a twitter replacement with all the filters and whatnot Musk is talking about dismantling. All the filters and whatnot people talk about people talking about Musk dismantling. There's a mass hysteria happening. Pretty much nothing of consequence has happened on Twitter on user side, except for what people make it in their heads, or talk about to show off in front of the group, one-upping each other in their newly discovered deep hatred for Musk. They check out Mastodon and are disappointed, because despite the fact it does give you more control and tools to "carefully curate your safe space", it's not the "Twitter but without Musk" they hoped it to be. It's not, and can't be, because the userbase isn't there, and the culture isn't there. Fediverse is still driven by political extremists crafting their own safe space to stew in their own vitriol, and the very identity is still defined as "we're not Twitter". Fediverse won't grow until it develops its own identity, that's not just negative space between commercial social media (and until it insulates the federation against political crazies). Federation is hard. E-mail and Mastodon are both, simultaneously, large successes and huge failures. There's a lot to learn from it, there's a potential to do better - but now is not the time, not when the topic is covered by the wannabe Internet stars doing performative anti-Musk dances. > “(...) can’t we just have our twitter back, pretty please?” They still have it, and guess what, they're still on it - because all this whining is just for show.
    - spion 4y ago
      > Pretty much nothing of consequence has happened on Twitter on user side, except for what people make it in their heads, or talk about to show off in front of the group, one-upping each other in their newly discovered deep hatred for Musk. You mean the pay to verify thing never happened?
    - fragmede 4y ago
      There's definitely some hysteria, but that's because it's hugely entertaining. That doesn't mean there aren't underlying proceedings that are material. Particularly, on the back end, 80% of the contractors were let go. Y'know, the ones that do account/content moderation. That, along with various shenanigans with the verification system, means we now have profiles like [0][1][2] with an official gray check. The new boss has a different opinion of free speech than the old boss, (and who he's allowed to cancel) and is starting to make changes effecting that point of view. Downplay that all you want, but that's something of consequence for a social media site. If Twitter were a car company, it would be difficult but not impossible to ignore all the talk and focus on the product, the cars. However, seeing as how Twitter is "only" good for talking on, the tone of that conversation changing is quite important to the people in that conversation, and they are liable to have gasp conversations about that change. [0] https://twitter.com/amymek https://twitter.com/amymek - banned in Germany for Nazi shit [1] https://twitter.com/realadolphhitle https://twitter.com/realadolphhitle [2] https://twitter.com/funnymonkey9876 https://twitter.com/funnymonkey9876 - "dead tw*tter employee hanging from a tree groyper" Their pinned tweet is especially lovely. It's been up for almost 6 hours. (cw: boringly uncreative use of the n-word) https://twitter.com/FunnyMonkey9876/status/1573524991794085888 https://twitter.com/FunnyMonkey9876/status/15735249917940858... [3] https://twitter.com/richardbspencer https://twitter.com/richardbspencer - Nazi that previously lost verification for throwing Nazi rallies. Your politics and their relation to the above, and whatever you believe of free speech; it's uncontrovertible that it's no longer their Twitter, it's Elon's Twitter now, and not everybody is going to like that.
      - fragmede 4y ago
        Following up, [0] and [3] are still up, but [1] and [2] have been removed.
- spion 4y ago
  > tends to accumulate second-hand spam The second hand also has to follow spammers. Most humans just don't do that, do they? > It was the driver in case of e-mail, but e.g. for Mastodon, I'd say political extremism is the primary force. The result ends up being the same, because the dynamics are content-agnostic: users migrate to nodes that offer most reliable communication, and as those nodes grow in usercount, it makes it easier for them to fight undesired communication with blunt tools (e.g. instance or IP blocklists). I agree with this bit. But I think there is an opportunity to avoid it this time. We're much more aware of the potential pitfalls than when email was conceptualized as a protocol, and we have some quite amazing tools to tackle some of these challenges differently. I predict we'll see some innovation on this front, and I'm honestly pondering participating in that effort. The fruits of that would be very much worth it.

by spion 4y ago

They are not structurally equivalent though. Social networks are whitelist-based (i.e. follows). A spammer has to somehow make people follow them to send them spam.

TeMPOraL 4y ago

It doesn't; most (all?) social networking sites allow unsolicited messages, and if they have a feed, it tends to accumulate second-hand spam. The issue here isn't spam, though, it's about who sets the rules. Spam is just one of the strongest drivers that make a federated network evolve into an oligopoly. It was the driver in case of e-mail, but e.g. for Mastodon, I'd say political extremism is the primary force. The result ends up being the same, because the dynamics are content-agnostic: users migrate to nodes that offer most reliable communication, and as those nodes grow in usercount, it makes it easier for them to fight undesired communication with blunt tools (e.g. instance or IP blocklists). It's a positive feedback loop.

UncleEntity 4y ago
That’s what people want though, a twitter replacement with all the filters and whatnot Musk is talking about dismantling. And they show up on mastodon, because everyone is talking about it, and find it isn’t the safe space they carefully curated with their twitter blocklists and write a blogpost (because they can’t complain on twitter anymore) about how it’ll never work. I don’t understand why these tech-savvy folks can’t give positive criticism to maybe fix the problem instead of “it’ll never work, can’t we just have our twitter back, pretty please?”
- TeMPOraL 4y ago
  > a twitter replacement with all the filters and whatnot Musk is talking about dismantling. All the filters and whatnot people talk about people talking about Musk dismantling. There's a mass hysteria happening. Pretty much nothing of consequence has happened on Twitter on user side, except for what people make it in their heads, or talk about to show off in front of the group, one-upping each other in their newly discovered deep hatred for Musk. They check out Mastodon and are disappointed, because despite the fact it does give you more control and tools to "carefully curate your safe space", it's not the "Twitter but without Musk" they hoped it to be. It's not, and can't be, because the userbase isn't there, and the culture isn't there. Fediverse is still driven by political extremists crafting their own safe space to stew in their own vitriol, and the very identity is still defined as "we're not Twitter". Fediverse won't grow until it develops its own identity, that's not just negative space between commercial social media (and until it insulates the federation against political crazies). Federation is hard. E-mail and Mastodon are both, simultaneously, large successes and huge failures. There's a lot to learn from it, there's a potential to do better - but now is not the time, not when the topic is covered by the wannabe Internet stars doing performative anti-Musk dances. > “(...) can’t we just have our twitter back, pretty please?” They still have it, and guess what, they're still on it - because all this whining is just for show.
  - spion 4y ago
    > Pretty much nothing of consequence has happened on Twitter on user side, except for what people make it in their heads, or talk about to show off in front of the group, one-upping each other in their newly discovered deep hatred for Musk. You mean the pay to verify thing never happened?
  - fragmede 4y ago
    There's definitely some hysteria, but that's because it's hugely entertaining. That doesn't mean there aren't underlying proceedings that are material. Particularly, on the back end, 80% of the contractors were let go. Y'know, the ones that do account/content moderation. That, along with various shenanigans with the verification system, means we now have profiles like [0][1][2] with an official gray check. The new boss has a different opinion of free speech than the old boss, (and who he's allowed to cancel) and is starting to make changes effecting that point of view. Downplay that all you want, but that's something of consequence for a social media site. If Twitter were a car company, it would be difficult but not impossible to ignore all the talk and focus on the product, the cars. However, seeing as how Twitter is "only" good for talking on, the tone of that conversation changing is quite important to the people in that conversation, and they are liable to have gasp conversations about that change. [0] https://twitter.com/amymek https://twitter.com/amymek - banned in Germany for Nazi shit [1] https://twitter.com/realadolphhitle https://twitter.com/realadolphhitle [2] https://twitter.com/funnymonkey9876 https://twitter.com/funnymonkey9876 - "dead tw*tter employee hanging from a tree groyper" Their pinned tweet is especially lovely. It's been up for almost 6 hours. (cw: boringly uncreative use of the n-word) https://twitter.com/FunnyMonkey9876/status/1573524991794085888 https://twitter.com/FunnyMonkey9876/status/15735249917940858... [3] https://twitter.com/richardbspencer https://twitter.com/richardbspencer - Nazi that previously lost verification for throwing Nazi rallies. Your politics and their relation to the above, and whatever you believe of free speech; it's uncontrovertible that it's no longer their Twitter, it's Elon's Twitter now, and not everybody is going to like that.
    - fragmede 4y ago
      Following up, [0] and [3] are still up, but [1] and [2] have been removed.
spion 4y ago
> tends to accumulate second-hand spam The second hand also has to follow spammers. Most humans just don't do that, do they? > It was the driver in case of e-mail, but e.g. for Mastodon, I'd say political extremism is the primary force. The result ends up being the same, because the dynamics are content-agnostic: users migrate to nodes that offer most reliable communication, and as those nodes grow in usercount, it makes it easier for them to fight undesired communication with blunt tools (e.g. instance or IP blocklists). I agree with this bit. But I think there is an opportunity to avoid it this time. We're much more aware of the potential pitfalls than when email was conceptualized as a protocol, and we have some quite amazing tools to tackle some of these challenges differently. I predict we'll see some innovation on this front, and I'm honestly pondering participating in that effort. The fruits of that would be very much worth it.