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They offered their own hosted instance of fediverse social platforms, for a pilot experiment. After a successful first year, they were renewed for a second yea

by nolok 2y ago

They offered their own hosted instance of fediverse social platforms, for a pilot experiment. After a successful first year, they were renewed for a second year. 40 "institutionnal account" went on there, which seems a lot until you realize it doesn't mean institutions, any MEP qualify, for exemple. At the end of the days, 40 is just not that high, so the pilot was not extended and allocated funding into a bigger long term project. Because it was a fediverse integrated platform, they're offering all 40+ account a way to convert into another hosted instance. They tried, it didn't catch, figuring out if it was worth doing it long term is what the pilot was for. Personally I'm of two sides, the idea of them owning their own platform seems nice on the surface, but the whole point of social media account is to be where the users are, and also forcing them to use the same platforms the rest of us do also forces them to be facing the same TOS/rules/moderation. Utimately I think it's better this way.

gwervc 2y ago
I'm glad no more taxpayers money is going to fund such bullshit. Alas, they probably found another irrelevant action to burn money already. In the end this is just a convoluted way to transfer money, ie corruption.
- bdjsiqoocwk 2y ago
  It's bullshit to make it easier for MEPs to get in touch with their constituencies? Do you also hate democracy?
  - Arnt 2y ago
    IIRC, if a representative posts on one instance and a constituent replies on another, the original poster is unlikely to see the reply. Not a good way to communicate with constituents.
    - luluganeta 2y ago
      This is not how Mastodon works, the point is exactly that cross-instance communication can work smoothly, and it does. Replies show up on your notifications just like any other similar platform, whether they come from your instance or another.
      - Arnt 2y ago
        I haven't used Mastodon much, but I have seen replies that weren't visible. There was a big thread with several generations, some visible to the original poster (who showed me this), some not. Guessing… server blocking? Grandparent replies (the thread was big)?
- ben_w 2y ago
  Corporations regularly try stuff only to discover that it doesn't work; rather than being called corruption, this is hailed as "innovation" and leads to quotes such as Edison talking about learning 1000 ways to not make a lightbulb. Governments are regularly criticised for not being innovative enough, and for continuing to use obsolete ancient technology like fax machines and Latin for so long beyond the point of usefulness that it actively harms the rest of society — quin tu istanc orationem hinc veterem atque antiquam amoves?[0] [0] From page 8: https://archive.org/details/michelle-lovric-how-to-insult-abuse-insinuate-in-classical-latin/page/n7/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/michelle-lovric-how-to-insult-ab...
  - s1k3s 2y ago
    What is the innovation you're talking about in this case? They installed Mastodon and created 40 accounts, only to conclude that nobody cares about it (but somehow it's a massive success at the same time). Is that where we are with innovation?
    - moooo99 2y ago
      Why is it not innovative? It is a new way of government and citizen interaction, which sounds like it is well worth the attempt. Since it didn’t catch on, the citizens voted, but offering a new communication channel for citizens doesn’t sound like it belongs onto the long list of EU critique
      - sharpshadow 2y ago
        Innovation is not packaging existing technology in a new shell. That’s creative at most.
        moooo99 2y ago
        So by extension, there is basically no innovation currently going on right now? New CPUs arent innovative. x86 is still the same and the rest is just better production technology. New production processes aren't innovative either. EUV is just a different light source anyways. New companies finding uses for generative AI are just OpenAI API wrappers anyways. Your logic spun to a strict degree would mean that nothing except inventing is innovative, which is an expectation that will not hold up in the real world.
qp11 2y ago
Technical goals and Political goals are always 2 different things. And in this case neither is clearly defined or will be clearly defined, because Social Media was never built with a Goal in mind. There is no Political Goal or Purpose like reduce Price so everyone can afford healtcare or education. Basically the Political goal of Social Media as a system is nonexistent so far. The system we have today, was built because it became technically possible to provide Broadcast capability to everyone for Free. Prior to its arrival you had to literally own a movie studio or a newspaper or a tv/radio station or license radio spectrum to do BROADCASTING ie get you message to as many as possible. You could put up a website sure, but the chances of anyone finding it without access to the above broadcasting methods (to spread the word) would be 0. Even after the internet appeared and connected everyone up, sending broadcasts to the whole planet via TCP/IP would cause routers to melt down or get you kicked off the network. Thanks to moores law, all that changed, and routers could handle crazy loads, and suddenly allowing people to Broadcast was possible. No one asked why is such capability required? What problems does it solve? Instead the technical focus went towards - how do we handle the Info Explosion that was a consequence. Everyone was connecting to the same network and everyone was broadcasting. Simultaneously. So How are people going to get noticed if everyone is speaking? How does music emerge out of millions playing their own tunes without a conductor? The answers were half baked because there was never any goal to this system. The answers being Page Rank and the Like/Follower Button. Both creating an entire new set of problems involved never ending spam and gaming of the ranklists. So the focus shifted again to how do we get better Quality results. And tech response was to collect Personal data. Opening the gates to Advertising and influence/attention wars. So the "answers" keep creating new problems. With all these distractions, the original question still remains unanswered - why do we all need these systems? Why do we all need to be broadcasting? When is it producing something good? When is it not? When is it required either way? when is it not required either way? We dont need to be building all kinds of garbage to handle an info explosion if these questions have answers and lead to clear political goals.

by nolok 2y ago

gwervc 2y ago

I'm glad no more taxpayers money is going to fund such bullshit. Alas, they probably found another irrelevant action to burn money already. In the end this is just a convoluted way to transfer money, ie corruption.

bdjsiqoocwk 2y ago
It's bullshit to make it easier for MEPs to get in touch with their constituencies? Do you also hate democracy?
- Arnt 2y ago
  IIRC, if a representative posts on one instance and a constituent replies on another, the original poster is unlikely to see the reply. Not a good way to communicate with constituents.
  - luluganeta 2y ago
    This is not how Mastodon works, the point is exactly that cross-instance communication can work smoothly, and it does. Replies show up on your notifications just like any other similar platform, whether they come from your instance or another.
    - Arnt 2y ago
      I haven't used Mastodon much, but I have seen replies that weren't visible. There was a big thread with several generations, some visible to the original poster (who showed me this), some not. Guessing… server blocking? Grandparent replies (the thread was big)?
ben_w 2y ago
Corporations regularly try stuff only to discover that it doesn't work; rather than being called corruption, this is hailed as "innovation" and leads to quotes such as Edison talking about learning 1000 ways to not make a lightbulb. Governments are regularly criticised for not being innovative enough, and for continuing to use obsolete ancient technology like fax machines and Latin for so long beyond the point of usefulness that it actively harms the rest of society — quin tu istanc orationem hinc veterem atque antiquam amoves?[0] [0] From page 8: https://archive.org/details/michelle-lovric-how-to-insult-abuse-insinuate-in-classical-latin/page/n7/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/michelle-lovric-how-to-insult-ab...
- s1k3s 2y ago
  What is the innovation you're talking about in this case? They installed Mastodon and created 40 accounts, only to conclude that nobody cares about it (but somehow it's a massive success at the same time). Is that where we are with innovation?
  - moooo99 2y ago
    Why is it not innovative? It is a new way of government and citizen interaction, which sounds like it is well worth the attempt. Since it didn’t catch on, the citizens voted, but offering a new communication channel for citizens doesn’t sound like it belongs onto the long list of EU critique
    - sharpshadow 2y ago
      Innovation is not packaging existing technology in a new shell. That’s creative at most.
      - moooo99 2y ago
        So by extension, there is basically no innovation currently going on right now? New CPUs arent innovative. x86 is still the same and the rest is just better production technology. New production processes aren't innovative either. EUV is just a different light source anyways. New companies finding uses for generative AI are just OpenAI API wrappers anyways. Your logic spun to a strict degree would mean that nothing except inventing is innovative, which is an expectation that will not hold up in the real world.

qp11 2y ago

Technical goals and Political goals are always 2 different things. And in this case neither is clearly defined or will be clearly defined, because Social Media was never built with a Goal in mind. There is no Political Goal or Purpose like reduce Price so everyone can afford healtcare or education. Basically the Political goal of Social Media as a system is nonexistent so far. The system we have today, was built because it became technically possible to provide Broadcast capability to everyone for Free. Prior to its arrival you had to literally own a movie studio or a newspaper or a tv/radio station or license radio spectrum to do BROADCASTING ie get you message to as many as possible. You could put up a website sure, but the chances of anyone finding it without access to the above broadcasting methods (to spread the word) would be 0. Even after the internet appeared and connected everyone up, sending broadcasts to the whole planet via TCP/IP would cause routers to melt down or get you kicked off the network. Thanks to moores law, all that changed, and routers could handle crazy loads, and suddenly allowing people to Broadcast was possible. No one asked why is such capability required? What problems does it solve? Instead the technical focus went towards - how do we handle the Info Explosion that was a consequence. Everyone was connecting to the same network and everyone was broadcasting. Simultaneously. So How are people going to get noticed if everyone is speaking? How does music emerge out of millions playing their own tunes without a conductor? The answers were half baked because there was never any goal to this system. The answers being Page Rank and the Like/Follower Button. Both creating an entire new set of problems involved never ending spam and gaming of the ranklists. So the focus shifted again to how do we get better Quality results. And tech response was to collect Personal data. Opening the gates to Advertising and influence/attention wars. So the "answers" keep creating new problems. With all these distractions, the original question still remains unanswered - why do we all need these systems? Why do we all need to be broadcasting? When is it producing something good? When is it not? When is it required either way? when is it not required either way? We dont need to be building all kinds of garbage to handle an info explosion if these questions have answers and lead to clear political goals.