3 ms·

Adding to this, having run small communities I can see platforms like Mastodon growing into Twitter albeit with a different twist of behavior but eventually bec

Adding to this, having run small communities I can see platforms like Mastodon growing into Twitter albeit with a different twist of behavior but eventually becoming equally toxic, just a different flavor of toxic. I believe one of the root causes is that the internet basically connected billions of people from many different cultures into one big pool without any arbiter mechanisms which is bound to get ugly fast. In this regard I agree with the article that the internet wants to be segmented. Mastodon will probably start with silos of similar thinking people but as it grows they too will run into culture clashes leading to groups of people being silenced. Then some other platform will come along to make smaller silos or tribes and this pattern will repeat.

poszlem 4y ago
You can already see that. If you think Twitter moderation is arbitrary or weird, clearly you haven't seen some of the popular Mastodon servers. Meet the new boss same as the old boss.
- jacooper 4y ago
  The difference, as the article mentions, is that you can just leave. You can follow the same content from another instance with other rules and not be effected by any of the weird laws on the main mastodon instance.
  - astrange 4y ago
    Do other people have to refollow you if you move? Can your client form a single timeline when you’re “actually” following from two different places? It seems inconvenient…
    - jacooper 4y ago
      Yes, you can move your account. though I dont know if you can still move if your account gets banned.
      - OctopusLupid 4y ago
        You lose your followers if you get banned. I was following someone who got banned for disagreeing with moderation policies. I suggested asking the admin to help with the migration; he did, and the admin refused. This was a rather large server too, featured on JoinMastodon.
        jacooper 4y ago
        Generally all official mastodon servers are very left leaning, so if you are conservative, you might get banned quickly, and certainly the admin won't help you migrate.
fleddr 4y ago
I think Mastodon has the tendency to grow into the opposite extreme of toxicity: fragility. People as well as instances are very generously blocked, leading to perfectly peaceful bubbles. Which are not that great. There's almost perfect ideological agreement...but not really. A handful of people dominate conversation by posting frequently whilst the rest barely engages and/or is afraid to speak their mind. As an example, on a fairly large Mastodon instance I saw a popular user claiming how we should still wear masks. There were a few dozen replies, all in perfect agreement. That's truly bizarre, as this is a topic that people have strong opinions on across the entire political landscape. Even amidst just progressives, there's no uniform consensus, granted people are free to speak their minds without repercussions. The fact that there wasn't even a hint of disagreement or nuance I find telling. So I agree with your point, this too is a type of toxicity, just a different flavor. Fragility, toxic positivity, I'm not sure what to call it, but it's not healthy. Another fun opposite effect (in comparison to Twitter) to reason about is algorithms and amplification. Mastodon has very little of that which is considered good. It's a more "organic" social network. Quite a few users will discover though that an organic social network makes the chance of getting engagement on your posts even harder than it already was. Just getting your post seen at all is a challenge, and building somewhat of a following can takes months if not years of purposeful effort. This means that for the typical user, the feeling that you're screaming into the void will be common, leaving the question: why post at all?
- LinuxBender 4y ago
  toxic positivity Positively toxic echo chambers. I think you summed it up perfectly. I've seen what you described occur in the past on other chat platforms and forums. Mostly forums. People that think alike get some high rank and access to private sub-forums and people that have thoughts not aligned with the tribe start to think the forum is no longer being used. Not sure how that would translate into the Mastodon platform.
  - fleddr 4y ago
    I think today it translates into every platform due to the highly polarized political landscape. This sorts people into just 2 buckets, after which each bucket is dominated by radicals or semi-radicals. That's why I dislike the term "bubble", because it fails to describe the inner working of the bubble. It suggests that it is uniform and consensus-based, whilst instead they are ran by an autocratic elite that "softly" silence dissent. By making dissent costly. The state of online conversation: 50% of the population is evil. Luckily I'm in the good 50%, which is full of terrible ideas but I can't afford to challenge them.

poszlem 4y ago

You can already see that. If you think Twitter moderation is arbitrary or weird, clearly you haven't seen some of the popular Mastodon servers. Meet the new boss same as the old boss.

jacooper 4y ago
The difference, as the article mentions, is that you can just leave. You can follow the same content from another instance with other rules and not be effected by any of the weird laws on the main mastodon instance.
- astrange 4y ago
  Do other people have to refollow you if you move? Can your client form a single timeline when you’re “actually” following from two different places? It seems inconvenient…
  - jacooper 4y ago
    Yes, you can move your account. though I dont know if you can still move if your account gets banned.
    - OctopusLupid 4y ago
      You lose your followers if you get banned. I was following someone who got banned for disagreeing with moderation policies. I suggested asking the admin to help with the migration; he did, and the admin refused. This was a rather large server too, featured on JoinMastodon.
      - jacooper 4y ago
        Generally all official mastodon servers are very left leaning, so if you are conservative, you might get banned quickly, and certainly the admin won't help you migrate.

fleddr 4y ago

I think Mastodon has the tendency to grow into the opposite extreme of toxicity: fragility. People as well as instances are very generously blocked, leading to perfectly peaceful bubbles. Which are not that great. There's almost perfect ideological agreement...but not really. A handful of people dominate conversation by posting frequently whilst the rest barely engages and/or is afraid to speak their mind. As an example, on a fairly large Mastodon instance I saw a popular user claiming how we should still wear masks. There were a few dozen replies, all in perfect agreement. That's truly bizarre, as this is a topic that people have strong opinions on across the entire political landscape. Even amidst just progressives, there's no uniform consensus, granted people are free to speak their minds without repercussions. The fact that there wasn't even a hint of disagreement or nuance I find telling. So I agree with your point, this too is a type of toxicity, just a different flavor. Fragility, toxic positivity, I'm not sure what to call it, but it's not healthy. Another fun opposite effect (in comparison to Twitter) to reason about is algorithms and amplification. Mastodon has very little of that which is considered good. It's a more "organic" social network. Quite a few users will discover though that an organic social network makes the chance of getting engagement on your posts even harder than it already was. Just getting your post seen at all is a challenge, and building somewhat of a following can takes months if not years of purposeful effort. This means that for the typical user, the feeling that you're screaming into the void will be common, leaving the question: why post at all?

LinuxBender 4y ago
toxic positivity Positively toxic echo chambers. I think you summed it up perfectly. I've seen what you described occur in the past on other chat platforms and forums. Mostly forums. People that think alike get some high rank and access to private sub-forums and people that have thoughts not aligned with the tribe start to think the forum is no longer being used. Not sure how that would translate into the Mastodon platform.
- fleddr 4y ago
  I think today it translates into every platform due to the highly polarized political landscape. This sorts people into just 2 buckets, after which each bucket is dominated by radicals or semi-radicals. That's why I dislike the term "bubble", because it fails to describe the inner working of the bubble. It suggests that it is uniform and consensus-based, whilst instead they are ran by an autocratic elite that "softly" silence dissent. By making dissent costly. The state of online conversation: 50% of the population is evil. Luckily I'm in the good 50%, which is full of terrible ideas but I can't afford to challenge them.