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"Zero toxicity and probably several magnitudes more meaningful conversations with people from all around the world. This apparently comes from the kinds of peop

"Zero toxicity and probably several magnitudes more meaningful conversations with people from all around the world. This apparently comes from the kinds of people I could find and connect with." So long as you lean to progressive worldviews and see insult slinging at those that don't see your way not as being toxic, but rather just expressions of righteous indignation... sure, I could buy that line. A quick perusal on the front page of mastodon.social had only of either relatively neutral topics or various progressive tropes on the news of the day. No contrary views were there at all. Perhaps this is what you mean: it's your bubble, so it's cozy and non-toxic. A safe-space of sorts for all right minded people. I do agree with you: Twitter is a digital hellscape. Of course, I deleted my account half a decade or so ago for this reason and to be fair, it's not changed. It might now have a different flavor with Musk, but still as toxic a place as it was before him. I can't see Mastodon as being much different and with that I'll do us both a favor a stay away from there as well.

dangus 4y ago
It sounds like you didn’t find the conservative instance you were looking for, but I’m sure they’re out there. Here’s the thing though: not all ideas are created equal. You want equal airtime for contrary views, but those contrary views are 1. less popular statistically 2. against the interests of the working class The alternative worldview to progressivism is basically pro-capital, anti-minority, anti-equality nonsense. You’re unhappy that progressives hurl insults at regressives, but it should be noted that they are not falling into the trap of the paradox of tolerance. When one breaks the social contract, they’re no longer under the protections of that contract, and that’s what happens when the regressive ideology sends hate toward the poor, women, LGBTQ+ people, immigrants, and other similarly disenfranchised groups. The alternative to progressive taxation is regressive taxation. The alternative to equal rights is unequal rights. The alternative to workers’ rights are corporations’ rights. The alternative to freedom of religion is theocracy. The alternative to body autonomy is control by others. The alternative to the scientific method is assumption and ignorance. The alternative to environmental protection is environmental destruction. These contrasting ideologies are not of equal value, objectively. In other words, if I make a statement like “people shouldn’t own slaves” there is no contrary view that should be entertained. You want someone to tolerate the intolerance of your desired contrary worldview, but again, you should know that it’s not hypocritical for the tolerant and accepting people to not accept your views.
pohl 4y ago
You sampled one instance in a fediverse with thousands upon thousands of instances. Do you think none of them have a community more aligned with your worldview?
- gray_charger 4y ago
  Most likely, yes. Those with a different worldview are cut off from the fediverse and many client apps blacklist those instances that gain momentum from being usable in the client app. For example, Gab.
  - nforgerit 4y ago
    Do you have a link to the instance(s) that were blacklisted you're referring to?
    - malf 4y ago
      The blacklist is visible on the about page of each instance. Feel free to go sample a few. The first one I tried had literal swastikas in the user name of the first post. It went downhill from there.
  - irq 4y ago
    > Those with a different worldview are cut off from the fediverse I find this happens most often to people with a worldview that is objectively incompatible with civilization.
    - PixyMisa 4y ago
      Evidenced by the fact that they disagree with the progressive orthodoxy of the moment.
    - numpad0 4y ago
      I find this to happen between groups of instances which audiences has different stamps on the front cover of passports. In case that is going to turn out to correlate with “worldview[s] that [are] objectively incompatible with [the other] civilization”, … what could it mean …
nforgerit 4y ago
I do understand (and suffer from it from time to time, too) the reflex to put labels on bubbles. But in this case, I'm probably the wrong addressee since I'm regularly confronting myself with world views spanning over allover the political spectrum. I'm actively researching for data and arguments from other bubbles than mine and regularly learn something new through that. With toxicity I was referring to the ill-fated activist groups sh*tposting things about each other and newspaper headlines crafted to produce anger-driven traffic. Something, which doesn't give me anything but depressions.
- sbuttgereit 4y ago
  We're talking about the same toxicity. I do agree there is less shitposting, but there's a fair amount of it nonetheless. Many other of those activist posts are toned down here... because I expect their expectations are they are largely preaching to the choir. But just scrolling through the "toots" (again, at mastodon.social) on the main landing page I get...: "New Yorkers yelling at nazis is fun. Proud Boys bloodied and jailed during NYC drag queen story hour protest" (https://mastodon.world/@StillIRise1963/110051510087068465 https://mastodon.world/@StillIRise1963/110051510087068465) "Nate Silver's brain seems to be broken. The "data guy" is literally citing a Twitter poll as if it's meaningful in a political context. No wonder ABC News is trying to sell off FiveThirtyEight." (https://mastodon.social/@mattsheffield/110052597467670093 https://mastodon.social/@mattsheffield/110052597467670093) "Yet another wealthy #GOP donor turns out to be an accused pedophile, groomer, and sex trafficker. You'd almost think the party's obsessive focus on demonizing drag queens and library books was a crude act of misdirection. #USpolitics https://apnews.com/article/lazzaro-rep https://apnews.com/article/lazzaro-rep" (https://newsie.social/@stevesilberman/110050892922689946 https://newsie.social/@stevesilberman/110050892922689946 ... mastodon.social showed this to me while scrolling, but clearly this is an example of federated content) "The neo-Nazis are creeping around, kids. Remember, every neo-Nazi/MAGA chud/Jordan Peterson fan is a real person with feelings and gross insecurities who is also a loathsome cnt undeserving of a second of your time or attention unless you are a law enforcement agent working in counter-terrorism. Block immediately, report often.*" (https://beige.party/@GrimmReality/110051420547135356 https://beige.party/@GrimmReality/110051420547135356 again, federation at work). And the replies are, as far as I could tell while casually browsing, all reinforcing.... none at all trying to moderate the severity or civility of the points being made. This isn't that different than what I saw I Twitter over the years, except there you saw it from many different sides of various debates. And note that my comments aren't about the issues being discussed: it's chiefly about the way they are discussed: toxically. So I'm sorry, I don't doubt your intentions and that you really do feel more at home and welcome on Mastodon. But it's not because federation has solved the problem of Twitter-like toxicity: it hasn't, not at all. It's maybe reduced it a bit because the filters for ideology are greater (whether those filters are implemented by administrators refusing users or federating to certain servers or because Mastodon is only attracting people of a certain mindset).
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kornhole 4y ago
If you follow or engage with me, you will probably feel some 'toxicity'. I like to argue with people and see argument as a productive way to enhance understanding. I follow many people with whom I often disagree. You make it what you want. Just don't get bothered by people blocking you from time to time.
- devn0ll 4y ago
  I might be off-base, but I feel this is a very American thing to do: argue. In school there a even debate classes yes? Much better, I think, is to have a truth finding conversation together. Perhaps coming from different sides of the story, but always on the search for trying to find common ground, the truth, science, and an open mind to be changed by those things. And not see the whole thing as a match to be won you know?
  - mise_en_place 4y ago
    Are you European? Wasn’t it your whole cultural tradition to argue? Perhaps your modern culture has been corrupted somehow where you can no longer have meaningful debates. The Socratic method is an argument based system.
    - zztop44 4y ago
      Depends what you mean by “argument”. I wouldn’t say the Socratic dialogues resemble Twitter.
      - mise_en_place 4y ago
        [dead]
      - bmacho 4y ago
        This HN thread resembles a Socratic dialogue.
  - hcks 4y ago
    [flagged]
deleted 4y ago
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emptysongglass 4y ago
As someone who'd consider themselves progressive by the yardstick of 10 years ago but not measured to the new progressives of today, the most visible toxic-but-cozy-because-our-silo was that BIPOC people don't need to use content warning (CW) labels when site guidelines say use CW labels on political toots. The reason given was that white people must not be able to opt out of the BIPOC experience of political outrage. The New Left has become unrecognizable to me as a mode of liberal thinking and both sides of the political fence in the US appear to have escaped into a hole of myopic beliefs that mirror each other in their intensity and desire for control.
- wolverine876 4y ago
  What forum are you talking about. All of Mastadon? Doesn't each instance have its own rules? > As someone who'd consider themselves progressive by the yardstick of 10 years ago but not measured to the new progressives of today ... > The New Left has become unrecognizable to me That's an expected phenomenon. What was progressive yesterday becomes conservative today - think of women's rights, interracial marriage, etc. The same goes for 'who' was progressive. When people are young, they challenge the corrupt system. As those changes are enacted, those young people grow older and become the system. Then a new generation sees that 'progress' of your youth as the old, corrupt, scelerotic system; they have nothing invested in your achievements; they see the system's flaws and push to change them. The formerly-young-challengers, now old-system-members, say 'that's crazy, outlandish, outrageous, etc.' - exactly what was said to them when they were young. Oh yes, I know, 'this time it's different'. 'These kids really are outrageous.' Those words are also exactly the same as before. If you want to be progressive, you need to keep seeing the flaws, not accepting them, and keep pushing for change. The moment you stop, say 'far enough we've done a good job', you cease being progressive.
  - Escapado 4y ago
    I would consider myself left leaning and still wish to see a lot of progress and change but I disagree with quite a few talking points of what might be considered the current “zeitgeist” of the far left. Would I consider misgendendering a _violent_ hate crime? No. Am I for more inclusion and free choice of gender identity? Yes. Do I think that pure socialism will save humanity? No. Do I think it’s bad we have people on the planet with more money than multiple countries combined? Yes. I would even argue most progressives are seeing flaws and don’t accept them and push for change but you don’t need to be “radical”(as in further from the status quo) in your views to do that and it doesn’t make you less of a progressive - you are just trying to push to a different spot on the manifold.
ilyt 4y ago
It was designed to be "bubbly". The fact by default its moderator of the instance deciding who their users can subscribe to naturally leads to that, for better or worse; if you don't want a nanny you pretty much have to host your own instance. Public feed fair enough, that has to be moderated but the fact mod can block who I subscribe to rubs me the wrong way.
- LBJsPNS 4y ago
  So set up your own instance. With blackjack. And hookers.
  - ilyt 4y ago
    "You are only allowed to see who you want to see if you have technical knowledge and money to set up your own instance" is terrible way for social network
    - LBJsPNS 4y ago
      So do you regularly allow those who espouse viewpoints you find abhorrent into your living room to rant?
devjab 4y ago
> So long as you lean to progressive worldviews and see insult slinging at those that don't see your way not as being toxic, but rather just expressions of righteous indignation. I'm not sure which mastodon server you are on, or which ones you're linked with, but I'm on Universeodon and I've frankly seen nothing of the sort. You do have a point of course, but I haven't seen any sort of toxic behaviour. Toxic and hateful people simply get banned, and the servers that house them get blacklisted. Which isn't too dissimilar to how the world used to function before centralized social media made it harder to moderate which people you want to spend your time on. I'm progressive of course, so it's easy for me. But the thing is, if you came up to me in the real world and started to talk about how wrong it is for people to be gay, then I'd frankly walk away from you. This is what becomes possible with decentralized social media, but I'm not sure I'd call it a bubble or safespace, it's simply going back to the world before Facebook and Twitter, to when it was much easier to ignore people.
- brabel 4y ago
  > Toxic and hateful people simply get banned I don't know if that's supposed to sound like a good thing, but to me this sounds like a distopian place where anyone that does not align with the "correct worldview" is made to disappear and never be heard of again. If you think "only bad people are toxic", you probably haven't been to many debates where your viewpoint happens to be the minority viewpoint.
  - andrepd 4y ago
    What an odd thing to say. You can ban people from your instance of mastodon, just like you could ban, kick, suspend etc, people from your IRC server in olden times. What is wrong with that? How strange to make an act of moderation on your own personal instance into an act of censorship.
    - flerovium 4y ago
      He's not complaining about the mastodon technical protocol: he's complaining about the people who control the community and the rules.
gigatexal 4y ago
“ So long as you lean to progressive worldviews and see insult slinging at those that don't see your way not as being toxic, but rather just expressions of righteous indignation” Oh stop with the wo is me… you could always change your views. I mean who doesn’t like the progressive ideals of inclusion and fairness? (And no, inclusion doesn’t mean I have to accommodate racists or nazis or other alt-right trolls, it also means though, that the crazies on the left spewing hate shouldn’t apply either).
mmargerum 4y ago
Twitter has gotten better. probably for the reasons you mention.
rchaud 4y ago
> No contrary views were there at all. Perhaps this is what you mean: it's your bubble, so it's cozy and non-toxic. I'm not sure what your definition of 'town square' is: are you sure you're not looking for a town Coliseum? Most people are not online to debate controversial topics with anonymous strangers.
muyuu 4y ago
i don't see the point in deleting my Twitter account, i just go long periods without using them depending on my mood the very format is useless for anything other than flame wars and bait, culture wars and the occasional announcement - for all of that, going to a smaller network is pointless, it just reduces your reach and your scope; if it's worth the effort, you maintain accounts side by side of course the most important thing to keep "meaningful conversations" is to have not the biggest but "the adequate" group of people participating, and for this... well, it's entirely specific on the topics and demographics you are interested in, the platform is almost irrelevant in the technical sense, even in the sense of its general policies to some extent as people move from platform to platform in such chaotic fashion

dangus 4y ago

It sounds like you didn’t find the conservative instance you were looking for, but I’m sure they’re out there. Here’s the thing though: not all ideas are created equal. You want equal airtime for contrary views, but those contrary views are 1. less popular statistically 2. against the interests of the working class The alternative worldview to progressivism is basically pro-capital, anti-minority, anti-equality nonsense. You’re unhappy that progressives hurl insults at regressives, but it should be noted that they are not falling into the trap of the paradox of tolerance. When one breaks the social contract, they’re no longer under the protections of that contract, and that’s what happens when the regressive ideology sends hate toward the poor, women, LGBTQ+ people, immigrants, and other similarly disenfranchised groups. The alternative to progressive taxation is regressive taxation. The alternative to equal rights is unequal rights. The alternative to workers’ rights are corporations’ rights. The alternative to freedom of religion is theocracy. The alternative to body autonomy is control by others. The alternative to the scientific method is assumption and ignorance. The alternative to environmental protection is environmental destruction. These contrasting ideologies are not of equal value, objectively. In other words, if I make a statement like “people shouldn’t own slaves” there is no contrary view that should be entertained. You want someone to tolerate the intolerance of your desired contrary worldview, but again, you should know that it’s not hypocritical for the tolerant and accepting people to not accept your views.

pohl 4y ago

You sampled one instance in a fediverse with thousands upon thousands of instances. Do you think none of them have a community more aligned with your worldview?

gray_charger 4y ago
Most likely, yes. Those with a different worldview are cut off from the fediverse and many client apps blacklist those instances that gain momentum from being usable in the client app. For example, Gab.
- nforgerit 4y ago
  Do you have a link to the instance(s) that were blacklisted you're referring to?
  - malf 4y ago
    The blacklist is visible on the about page of each instance. Feel free to go sample a few. The first one I tried had literal swastikas in the user name of the first post. It went downhill from there.
- irq 4y ago
  > Those with a different worldview are cut off from the fediverse I find this happens most often to people with a worldview that is objectively incompatible with civilization.
  - PixyMisa 4y ago
    Evidenced by the fact that they disagree with the progressive orthodoxy of the moment.
  - numpad0 4y ago
    I find this to happen between groups of instances which audiences has different stamps on the front cover of passports. In case that is going to turn out to correlate with “worldview[s] that [are] objectively incompatible with [the other] civilization”, … what could it mean …

nforgerit 4y ago

I do understand (and suffer from it from time to time, too) the reflex to put labels on bubbles. But in this case, I'm probably the wrong addressee since I'm regularly confronting myself with world views spanning over allover the political spectrum. I'm actively researching for data and arguments from other bubbles than mine and regularly learn something new through that. With toxicity I was referring to the ill-fated activist groups sh*tposting things about each other and newspaper headlines crafted to produce anger-driven traffic. Something, which doesn't give me anything but depressions.

sbuttgereit 4y ago
We're talking about the same toxicity. I do agree there is less shitposting, but there's a fair amount of it nonetheless. Many other of those activist posts are toned down here... because I expect their expectations are they are largely preaching to the choir. But just scrolling through the "toots" (again, at mastodon.social) on the main landing page I get...: "New Yorkers yelling at nazis is fun. Proud Boys bloodied and jailed during NYC drag queen story hour protest" (https://mastodon.world/@StillIRise1963/110051510087068465 https://mastodon.world/@StillIRise1963/110051510087068465) "Nate Silver's brain seems to be broken. The "data guy" is literally citing a Twitter poll as if it's meaningful in a political context. No wonder ABC News is trying to sell off FiveThirtyEight." (https://mastodon.social/@mattsheffield/110052597467670093 https://mastodon.social/@mattsheffield/110052597467670093) "Yet another wealthy #GOP donor turns out to be an accused pedophile, groomer, and sex trafficker. You'd almost think the party's obsessive focus on demonizing drag queens and library books was a crude act of misdirection. #USpolitics https://apnews.com/article/lazzaro-rep https://apnews.com/article/lazzaro-rep" (https://newsie.social/@stevesilberman/110050892922689946 https://newsie.social/@stevesilberman/110050892922689946 ... mastodon.social showed this to me while scrolling, but clearly this is an example of federated content) "The neo-Nazis are creeping around, kids. Remember, every neo-Nazi/MAGA chud/Jordan Peterson fan is a real person with feelings and gross insecurities who is also a loathsome cnt undeserving of a second of your time or attention unless you are a law enforcement agent working in counter-terrorism. Block immediately, report often.*" (https://beige.party/@GrimmReality/110051420547135356 https://beige.party/@GrimmReality/110051420547135356 again, federation at work). And the replies are, as far as I could tell while casually browsing, all reinforcing.... none at all trying to moderate the severity or civility of the points being made. This isn't that different than what I saw I Twitter over the years, except there you saw it from many different sides of various debates. And note that my comments aren't about the issues being discussed: it's chiefly about the way they are discussed: toxically. So I'm sorry, I don't doubt your intentions and that you really do feel more at home and welcome on Mastodon. But it's not because federation has solved the problem of Twitter-like toxicity: it hasn't, not at all. It's maybe reduced it a bit because the filters for ideology are greater (whether those filters are implemented by administrators refusing users or federating to certain servers or because Mastodon is only attracting people of a certain mindset).

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kornhole 4y ago

If you follow or engage with me, you will probably feel some 'toxicity'. I like to argue with people and see argument as a productive way to enhance understanding. I follow many people with whom I often disagree. You make it what you want. Just don't get bothered by people blocking you from time to time.

devn0ll 4y ago
I might be off-base, but I feel this is a very American thing to do: argue. In school there a even debate classes yes? Much better, I think, is to have a truth finding conversation together. Perhaps coming from different sides of the story, but always on the search for trying to find common ground, the truth, science, and an open mind to be changed by those things. And not see the whole thing as a match to be won you know?
- mise_en_place 4y ago
  Are you European? Wasn’t it your whole cultural tradition to argue? Perhaps your modern culture has been corrupted somehow where you can no longer have meaningful debates. The Socratic method is an argument based system.
  - zztop44 4y ago
    Depends what you mean by “argument”. I wouldn’t say the Socratic dialogues resemble Twitter.
    - mise_en_place 4y ago
      [dead]
    - bmacho 4y ago
      This HN thread resembles a Socratic dialogue.
- hcks 4y ago
  [flagged]

deleted 4y ago

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emptysongglass 4y ago

As someone who'd consider themselves progressive by the yardstick of 10 years ago but not measured to the new progressives of today, the most visible toxic-but-cozy-because-our-silo was that BIPOC people don't need to use content warning (CW) labels when site guidelines say use CW labels on political toots. The reason given was that white people must not be able to opt out of the BIPOC experience of political outrage. The New Left has become unrecognizable to me as a mode of liberal thinking and both sides of the political fence in the US appear to have escaped into a hole of myopic beliefs that mirror each other in their intensity and desire for control.

wolverine876 4y ago
What forum are you talking about. All of Mastadon? Doesn't each instance have its own rules? > As someone who'd consider themselves progressive by the yardstick of 10 years ago but not measured to the new progressives of today ... > The New Left has become unrecognizable to me That's an expected phenomenon. What was progressive yesterday becomes conservative today - think of women's rights, interracial marriage, etc. The same goes for 'who' was progressive. When people are young, they challenge the corrupt system. As those changes are enacted, those young people grow older and become the system. Then a new generation sees that 'progress' of your youth as the old, corrupt, scelerotic system; they have nothing invested in your achievements; they see the system's flaws and push to change them. The formerly-young-challengers, now old-system-members, say 'that's crazy, outlandish, outrageous, etc.' - exactly what was said to them when they were young. Oh yes, I know, 'this time it's different'. 'These kids really are outrageous.' Those words are also exactly the same as before. If you want to be progressive, you need to keep seeing the flaws, not accepting them, and keep pushing for change. The moment you stop, say 'far enough we've done a good job', you cease being progressive.
- Escapado 4y ago
  I would consider myself left leaning and still wish to see a lot of progress and change but I disagree with quite a few talking points of what might be considered the current “zeitgeist” of the far left. Would I consider misgendendering a _violent_ hate crime? No. Am I for more inclusion and free choice of gender identity? Yes. Do I think that pure socialism will save humanity? No. Do I think it’s bad we have people on the planet with more money than multiple countries combined? Yes. I would even argue most progressives are seeing flaws and don’t accept them and push for change but you don’t need to be “radical”(as in further from the status quo) in your views to do that and it doesn’t make you less of a progressive - you are just trying to push to a different spot on the manifold.

ilyt 4y ago

It was designed to be "bubbly". The fact by default its moderator of the instance deciding who their users can subscribe to naturally leads to that, for better or worse; if you don't want a nanny you pretty much have to host your own instance. Public feed fair enough, that has to be moderated but the fact mod can block who I subscribe to rubs me the wrong way.

LBJsPNS 4y ago
So set up your own instance. With blackjack. And hookers.
- ilyt 4y ago
  "You are only allowed to see who you want to see if you have technical knowledge and money to set up your own instance" is terrible way for social network
  - LBJsPNS 4y ago
    So do you regularly allow those who espouse viewpoints you find abhorrent into your living room to rant?

devjab 4y ago

> So long as you lean to progressive worldviews and see insult slinging at those that don't see your way not as being toxic, but rather just expressions of righteous indignation. I'm not sure which mastodon server you are on, or which ones you're linked with, but I'm on Universeodon and I've frankly seen nothing of the sort. You do have a point of course, but I haven't seen any sort of toxic behaviour. Toxic and hateful people simply get banned, and the servers that house them get blacklisted. Which isn't too dissimilar to how the world used to function before centralized social media made it harder to moderate which people you want to spend your time on. I'm progressive of course, so it's easy for me. But the thing is, if you came up to me in the real world and started to talk about how wrong it is for people to be gay, then I'd frankly walk away from you. This is what becomes possible with decentralized social media, but I'm not sure I'd call it a bubble or safespace, it's simply going back to the world before Facebook and Twitter, to when it was much easier to ignore people.

brabel 4y ago
> Toxic and hateful people simply get banned I don't know if that's supposed to sound like a good thing, but to me this sounds like a distopian place where anyone that does not align with the "correct worldview" is made to disappear and never be heard of again. If you think "only bad people are toxic", you probably haven't been to many debates where your viewpoint happens to be the minority viewpoint.
- andrepd 4y ago
  What an odd thing to say. You can ban people from your instance of mastodon, just like you could ban, kick, suspend etc, people from your IRC server in olden times. What is wrong with that? How strange to make an act of moderation on your own personal instance into an act of censorship.
  - flerovium 4y ago
    He's not complaining about the mastodon technical protocol: he's complaining about the people who control the community and the rules.

gigatexal 4y ago

“ So long as you lean to progressive worldviews and see insult slinging at those that don't see your way not as being toxic, but rather just expressions of righteous indignation” Oh stop with the wo is me… you could always change your views. I mean who doesn’t like the progressive ideals of inclusion and fairness? (And no, inclusion doesn’t mean I have to accommodate racists or nazis or other alt-right trolls, it also means though, that the crazies on the left spewing hate shouldn’t apply either).

mmargerum 4y ago

Twitter has gotten better. probably for the reasons you mention.

rchaud 4y ago

> No contrary views were there at all. Perhaps this is what you mean: it's your bubble, so it's cozy and non-toxic. I'm not sure what your definition of 'town square' is: are you sure you're not looking for a town Coliseum? Most people are not online to debate controversial topics with anonymous strangers.

muyuu 4y ago

i don't see the point in deleting my Twitter account, i just go long periods without using them depending on my mood the very format is useless for anything other than flame wars and bait, culture wars and the occasional announcement - for all of that, going to a smaller network is pointless, it just reduces your reach and your scope; if it's worth the effort, you maintain accounts side by side of course the most important thing to keep "meaningful conversations" is to have not the biggest but "the adequate" group of people participating, and for this... well, it's entirely specific on the topics and demographics you are interested in, the platform is almost irrelevant in the technical sense, even in the sense of its general policies to some extent as people move from platform to platform in such chaotic fashion