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I notice that Mastodon is only mentioned in the article in terms of protocols, but to me the killer feature there is the absolute lack of an algorithm. Nothing

I notice that Mastodon is only mentioned in the article in terms of protocols, but to me the killer feature there is the absolute lack of an algorithm. Nothing is ever pushed on me by the platform, so the whole experience doesn't become combative. That does mean though that each user has to do some work finding others they like, and that can take some time. But that also weeds out those that just want to be spoonfed content, which is a plus. The last three years on there have been some of the most wholesome social media interactions I have had in the last 25 years.

pndy 1y ago
Mastodon and fediverse despite not running on algorithms sadly aren't free of spam and bots - probably nothing nowadays is. Last year in February there was a flood of messages attacking less populated instances, with... Spam can image in message body. What grinds my gear after this attack is that majority of mastodon clients doesn't offer a simple way to block instance that would limit unwanted posts. Some even don't have that feature at all.
tokioyoyo 1y ago
Unfortunately, we discovered that people would rather be told what to watch, rather that self-discover their interests, because that’s a lot of “work”.
- zoul 1y ago
  I hope it’s not that black-and-white, that it’s possible to have a sane social network with algorithmic feed, only we need to design the algorithms around users’ needs first.
  - tokioyoyo 1y ago
    If you judge users’ needs by “things they’ll pay attention on and engage with”, well… it is exactly what all the current algorithms are good at right now. It’s just, in my opinion, bad for the society at large, as rage baiting, slop-posting and etc. is great in achieving that.
pxoe 1y ago
Mastodon literally has a trending feed. Is that not an "algorithm"? It has algorithmic popular hashtags, news feed, and user recommendations. Just a bog standard handful of algorithmic surfaces, so why are they still pretending like it's "algorithm free" is beyond me. "Absolute lack", right.
- diggan 1y ago
  Not to mention "sort by most recent from accounts I follow" is an algorithm too. I feel like the wording needs a bit of rewording/rework. I agree chronological order facilitates better discussions, but just saying that "Mastodon lacks algorithms" doesn't really help people understand things better.
- proactivesvcs 1y ago
  The Trending feature is not pushed into the home (or any) timeline. In the Web UI it sits unobtrusively in the corner of the window and on some apps simply does not exist. It can also be easily disabled. In the discourse about social media, the term "algorithm" is exclusively used to refer to purposefully-maligned algorithms engineered to addict and abuse people. Nothing about any of the Fediverse services is designed this way because they're not chasing money or engagement, they're made to help people converse in a human way.
  - diggan 1y ago
    > In the discourse about social media, the term "algorithm" is exclusively used to refer to purposefully-maligned algorithms engineered to addict and abuse people. But I feel like it misses the point. What about a service where you can design and use your own "algorithms", and it's built into the platform? Such a platform would have thousands of algorithms, but none of them designed for chasing money or engagement, just different preferences. But Mastodon could still claim "We don't use The Algorithm and is therefore better than other places" while a platform with custom user-owned algorithms could get the best of both worlds.
    - proactivesvcs 1y ago
robin_reala 1y ago
Exactly. My three internal rules for a good social media experience (ymmv) are: 1. No algorithm beyond most-recent-first 2. Stick to a maximum of ~250 following 3. Pay for the service instead of ad-supported I can easily do all of those on Mastodon.

pndy 1y ago

Mastodon and fediverse despite not running on algorithms sadly aren't free of spam and bots - probably nothing nowadays is. Last year in February there was a flood of messages attacking less populated instances, with... Spam can image in message body. What grinds my gear after this attack is that majority of mastodon clients doesn't offer a simple way to block instance that would limit unwanted posts. Some even don't have that feature at all.

tokioyoyo 1y ago

Unfortunately, we discovered that people would rather be told what to watch, rather that self-discover their interests, because that’s a lot of “work”.

zoul 1y ago
I hope it’s not that black-and-white, that it’s possible to have a sane social network with algorithmic feed, only we need to design the algorithms around users’ needs first.
- tokioyoyo 1y ago
  If you judge users’ needs by “things they’ll pay attention on and engage with”, well… it is exactly what all the current algorithms are good at right now. It’s just, in my opinion, bad for the society at large, as rage baiting, slop-posting and etc. is great in achieving that.

pxoe 1y ago

Mastodon literally has a trending feed. Is that not an "algorithm"? It has algorithmic popular hashtags, news feed, and user recommendations. Just a bog standard handful of algorithmic surfaces, so why are they still pretending like it's "algorithm free" is beyond me. "Absolute lack", right.

diggan 1y ago
Not to mention "sort by most recent from accounts I follow" is an algorithm too. I feel like the wording needs a bit of rewording/rework. I agree chronological order facilitates better discussions, but just saying that "Mastodon lacks algorithms" doesn't really help people understand things better.
proactivesvcs 1y ago
The Trending feature is not pushed into the home (or any) timeline. In the Web UI it sits unobtrusively in the corner of the window and on some apps simply does not exist. It can also be easily disabled. In the discourse about social media, the term "algorithm" is exclusively used to refer to purposefully-maligned algorithms engineered to addict and abuse people. Nothing about any of the Fediverse services is designed this way because they're not chasing money or engagement, they're made to help people converse in a human way.
- diggan 1y ago
  > In the discourse about social media, the term "algorithm" is exclusively used to refer to purposefully-maligned algorithms engineered to addict and abuse people. But I feel like it misses the point. What about a service where you can design and use your own "algorithms", and it's built into the platform? Such a platform would have thousands of algorithms, but none of them designed for chasing money or engagement, just different preferences. But Mastodon could still claim "We don't use The Algorithm and is therefore better than other places" while a platform with custom user-owned algorithms could get the best of both worlds.
  - proactivesvcs 1y ago

robin_reala 1y ago

Exactly. My three internal rules for a good social media experience (ymmv) are: 1. No algorithm beyond most-recent-first 2. Stick to a maximum of ~250 following 3. Pay for the service instead of ad-supported I can easily do all of those on Mastodon.