4 ms·

Good rationale and I agree with all of it. Looks like Mastodon has become the self reinforcing echo chamber of the far right for any group. Never to be challeng

by asim 4y ago

Good rationale and I agree with all of it. Looks like Mastodon has become the self reinforcing echo chamber of the far right for any group. Never to be challenged again. In fact that's the point of why so many people go there right? There's a feeling of safety in that lack of challenge. A lot of people will say twitter is an abusive place and I don't disagree but to never have your points of view ever challenged again is incredibly dangerous. It's the path towards ignorance. We as humans are imperfect and constantly learning. Part of that means accepting that maybe our opinions or viewpoints could be wrong and taking a step back to think about it when someone does question the things we say. Now there's communities on Mastodon where that will never happen again. It'll be something that creates a new type of privilege. The privilege of choosing to be and believe whatever you want without anyone ever telling you you're wrong.

lapcat 4y ago
> Never to be challenged again. In fact that's the point of why so many people go there right? No. Some people don't view social media as "debate club". We never signed up for debate club. I personally signed up for Twitter at a software developer conference, and I used Twitter to meet other software developers, social network, and exchange information related to tech. I had no interest in debating politics or whatever. Twitter is possibly the worst possible place in the world to debate politics, given its format. It's a weird assumption that Twitter is the best or only possible place to have your ideas challenged. Go to school. Ready a book. Talk with people you know. Tweeting sound bites at rando strangers typically goes nowhere fast.
- asim 4y ago
  That's not what I'm saying. It's that the people that were challenged chose to put out their thoughts in a way that welcomed it. If all you're there to do is meet fellow developers and network is should be no issue. I never ended up in situations of devolving debate. Not once. But there's a lot of people who want to put out their strong thoughts without recourse. If you use a public platform to make bold statements which 50% of the world will oppose and it welcomes comments as twitter does then you should expect to be challenged. Again it's not about saying twitter is debate club. For the majority of people that's not the case for the outliers it is though and they don't like it.
  - lapcat 4y ago
    I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. If people want to debate, then they can go to a forum where people are debating. If they don't want to debate, then they can go to a forum where people aren't debating. Everyone gets what they want. That's good, isn't it?
    - asim 4y ago
      Yes people should go to a place where healthy discussion is fostered. I'm not arguing against that. What I'm saying is there's a group of very vocal people who have left twitter to go start their own Mastodon communities because they did not like their views being challenged on twitter. If you're going to tweet publicly then it welcomes commentary, it's part of the system. If people want to put out their thoughts in an echo chamber then Mastodon is probably a better place for it.
      - lapcat 4y ago
        > What I'm saying is there's a group of very vocal people who have left twitter to go start their own Mastodon communities because they did not like their views being challenged on twitter. Do you have any evidence for this? The proximate cause of mass migration from Twitter to Mastodon was the acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk.
        asim 4y ago
        Elon is a catalyst because of the rise of hate speech and an inability to moderate it but it's created the opportunity to build these cult like communities elsewhere. I don't want to point to it because I'll receive a lot of backlash for that but it's happening.
        lapcat 4y ago
        > because they did not like their views being challenged on twitter > because of the rise of hate speech and an inability to moderate it You're already changing your story. > it's created the opportunity to build these cult like communities elsewhere That's your characterization, which I do not agree with. Some would say that Musk himself has a cult-like following. In any case, Twitter and Mastodon have naturally segregated into pro-Musk and anti-Musk communities through no particular design by either side but simply as a result of the acquisition. Those who enjoy Musk Twitter have no reason to leave and join Mastodon, so of course there would be less "challenge" from them on Mastodon, but whose fault is that?

by asim 4y ago

lapcat 4y ago

> Never to be challenged again. In fact that's the point of why so many people go there right? No. Some people don't view social media as "debate club". We never signed up for debate club. I personally signed up for Twitter at a software developer conference, and I used Twitter to meet other software developers, social network, and exchange information related to tech. I had no interest in debating politics or whatever. Twitter is possibly the worst possible place in the world to debate politics, given its format. It's a weird assumption that Twitter is the best or only possible place to have your ideas challenged. Go to school. Ready a book. Talk with people you know. Tweeting sound bites at rando strangers typically goes nowhere fast.

asim 4y ago
That's not what I'm saying. It's that the people that were challenged chose to put out their thoughts in a way that welcomed it. If all you're there to do is meet fellow developers and network is should be no issue. I never ended up in situations of devolving debate. Not once. But there's a lot of people who want to put out their strong thoughts without recourse. If you use a public platform to make bold statements which 50% of the world will oppose and it welcomes comments as twitter does then you should expect to be challenged. Again it's not about saying twitter is debate club. For the majority of people that's not the case for the outliers it is though and they don't like it.
- lapcat 4y ago
  I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. If people want to debate, then they can go to a forum where people are debating. If they don't want to debate, then they can go to a forum where people aren't debating. Everyone gets what they want. That's good, isn't it?
  - asim 4y ago
    Yes people should go to a place where healthy discussion is fostered. I'm not arguing against that. What I'm saying is there's a group of very vocal people who have left twitter to go start their own Mastodon communities because they did not like their views being challenged on twitter. If you're going to tweet publicly then it welcomes commentary, it's part of the system. If people want to put out their thoughts in an echo chamber then Mastodon is probably a better place for it.
    - lapcat 4y ago
      > What I'm saying is there's a group of very vocal people who have left twitter to go start their own Mastodon communities because they did not like their views being challenged on twitter. Do you have any evidence for this? The proximate cause of mass migration from Twitter to Mastodon was the acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk.
      - asim 4y ago
        Elon is a catalyst because of the rise of hate speech and an inability to moderate it but it's created the opportunity to build these cult like communities elsewhere. I don't want to point to it because I'll receive a lot of backlash for that but it's happening.
        lapcat 4y ago
        > because they did not like their views being challenged on twitter > because of the rise of hate speech and an inability to moderate it You're already changing your story. > it's created the opportunity to build these cult like communities elsewhere That's your characterization, which I do not agree with. Some would say that Musk himself has a cult-like following. In any case, Twitter and Mastodon have naturally segregated into pro-Musk and anti-Musk communities through no particular design by either side but simply as a result of the acquisition. Those who enjoy Musk Twitter have no reason to leave and join Mastodon, so of course there would be less "challenge" from them on Mastodon, but whose fault is that?