Is #mastodon becoming an echo chamber?
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Is #mastodon becoming an echo chamber? This post from @carnage4life has me questioning our community. The Mastodon team is finally getting some traction, the product improvements are increasing, The #UX is improving, yet people posting on multiple platforms are making comments like this. It's confusing.
I *know* people here don't want this to be a classic social media-clone but we'd *like* journalists to be here right? They aren't coming with examples like this!
@scottjenson Mastodon (& the fediverse as a whole) is not an apolitical project; if we were happy with sycophants of big tech we'd still be using their platforms.
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Just came here to say something most people in the USA seems unaware of: “Mastodon” isn’t only people speaking in English.
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Is #mastodon becoming an echo chamber? This post from @carnage4life has me questioning our community. The Mastodon team is finally getting some traction, the product improvements are increasing, The #UX is improving, yet people posting on multiple platforms are making comments like this. It's confusing.
I *know* people here don't want this to be a classic social media-clone but we'd *like* journalists to be here right? They aren't coming with examples like this!
@scottjenson @carnage4life are we a monoculture, yes of course we are ? I follow Dare because he usually posts "against the grain" of many of the normal big Fediverse touch points. I will point out though that I interact with them exceedingly rarely so he may not realize this pattern; there are no "views" in Mastodon. I would bet he and others have a tail of followers like this.
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The core culture value here is equal access and freedom of expression. Everything after that is self-governing. Including segmentation of interests. No one is owed an audience. No one. (2/2)
@scottjenson@mattwilcox @scottjenson in case it matters, I used to work at NVIDIA, now am CEO of a tech startup, and of course I “do AI”. I haven’t felt unsafe here but I also am not looking for the boosts. My goal is to engage whenever I actually do have the time to post here. In fact it is the only platform I actually do personally post to. I want to have real conversations (and not just about what I do). All this to say, I feel I can express my opinions safely, and am happy to be here. And a disagreement with my choice of career or work does not make it unsafe for me.
Now if someone threatened me or my family just because I am who I am—would be very different. So would like to understand what we’re actually talking about here; people being in danger because of their affiliation with AI or just words being exchanged?
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@scottjenson @carnage4life are we a monoculture, yes of course we are ? I follow Dare because he usually posts "against the grain" of many of the normal big Fediverse touch points. I will point out though that I interact with them exceedingly rarely so he may not realize this pattern; there are no "views" in Mastodon. I would bet he and others have a tail of followers like this.
@scottjenson I think the real question here is how is the Mastodon team defining success? Are you chasing usage metrics? Because we know from the last decade plus how that experience goes.
Or are you looking at some other sort of metric and using THAT as the goal. I vaguely remember something about launching some new number of instances as a goal. Perhaps that's a better metric. We know people select the Fediverse to get away from Big Social. What does the team think is important to focus on?
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Is #mastodon becoming an echo chamber? This post from @carnage4life has me questioning our community. The Mastodon team is finally getting some traction, the product improvements are increasing, The #UX is improving, yet people posting on multiple platforms are making comments like this. It's confusing.
I *know* people here don't want this to be a classic social media-clone but we'd *like* journalists to be here right? They aren't coming with examples like this!
@scottjenson @carnage4life Mastodon is lukewarm to politics? That hasn't been my experience at all.
In fact, that rejection of AI is very political in its roots.
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@cratermoon @evan should everyone who joins mastodon be forced to pass that gauntlet? Who are the gate keepers? There shouldn't be a purity test. Catch the scammers of course, but passing judgement on the quality of someone's thoughts is very dubious
@scottjenson @cratermoon @evan I am the gatekeeper of MY timeline. So if I don't want some content, I don't follow it or I can even block it. And you have all the tools to create your own instance about AI things... that I won't follow.
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As this conversation is spiraling a bit I want to make a few things clear:
1. I'd like Mastodon to be MORE inclusive and bring in more voices
2. Some people don't seem to want that
3. This is core problem to solve: How do we let more in, but not "pollute" your feed?
4. The solution is NOT "gatekeeping", revelling in the fact that AI journalists aren't welcome
5. This is the same reason we lost "Black Twitter" when it came over in 2022Yes, a lot of you don't want AI posts in your feed (or pick any other topic) but the solution isn't to keep "AI People" from joining Mastodon, any more than it is keeping marginalized communities off of Mastodon.
@scottjenson LLMs are dehumanizing technologies. Most people here value community, connection, and authenticity. What exactly do you expect?
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Is #mastodon becoming an echo chamber? This post from @carnage4life has me questioning our community. The Mastodon team is finally getting some traction, the product improvements are increasing, The #UX is improving, yet people posting on multiple platforms are making comments like this. It's confusing.
I *know* people here don't want this to be a classic social media-clone but we'd *like* journalists to be here right? They aren't coming with examples like this!
@scottjenson @carnage4life I think the issue is that the fediverse has issues with the engagement-farming business models of the other platforms.
I think any niche can fly here, it just needs to be genuine. I see plenty of politics, but also plenty of music and the arts.
Tech also thrives on here, but from a retro/maker/open source perspective, not a big tech one.
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@scottjenson @Gargron They could even create their own server, and let people decide if they want to follow them, or not, or mute or block them.
I suspect the "problem" here is that people has power to decide what they want to see at their timeline...
@andrewblasco @scottjenson @Gargron Oh no! If Mastodon doesn’t grow at all costs, how will it generate value for the shareholders and investors?
At this rate, Mastodon will never IPO…
/s
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As this conversation is spiraling a bit I want to make a few things clear:
1. I'd like Mastodon to be MORE inclusive and bring in more voices
2. Some people don't seem to want that
3. This is core problem to solve: How do we let more in, but not "pollute" your feed?
4. The solution is NOT "gatekeeping", revelling in the fact that AI journalists aren't welcome
5. This is the same reason we lost "Black Twitter" when it came over in 2022Yes, a lot of you don't want AI posts in your feed (or pick any other topic) but the solution isn't to keep "AI People" from joining Mastodon, any more than it is keeping marginalized communities off of Mastodon.
@scottjenson ai isn't a voice, the confusion lies there I believe.
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As this conversation is spiraling a bit I want to make a few things clear:
1. I'd like Mastodon to be MORE inclusive and bring in more voices
2. Some people don't seem to want that
3. This is core problem to solve: How do we let more in, but not "pollute" your feed?
4. The solution is NOT "gatekeeping", revelling in the fact that AI journalists aren't welcome
5. This is the same reason we lost "Black Twitter" when it came over in 2022Yes, a lot of you don't want AI posts in your feed (or pick any other topic) but the solution isn't to keep "AI People" from joining Mastodon, any more than it is keeping marginalized communities off of Mastodon.
@scottjenson I don’t know how to word this in a less inflammatory way but comparing the organic rejection of techbros who feel entitled to treat social media as some sort of stock market they can manipulate and growth hack and whatever so they can make money off of people (plus: who will have forgotten their grift in a year or two. how’s their NFT collection going?) to actual racist harassment is, frankly, despicable
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As this conversation is spiraling a bit I want to make a few things clear:
1. I'd like Mastodon to be MORE inclusive and bring in more voices
2. Some people don't seem to want that
3. This is core problem to solve: How do we let more in, but not "pollute" your feed?
4. The solution is NOT "gatekeeping", revelling in the fact that AI journalists aren't welcome
5. This is the same reason we lost "Black Twitter" when it came over in 2022Yes, a lot of you don't want AI posts in your feed (or pick any other topic) but the solution isn't to keep "AI People" from joining Mastodon, any more than it is keeping marginalized communities off of Mastodon.
@scottjenson Comparing "AI people" to Black people is vile.
Everybody is free to post whatever they want. Posting boring stuff is a choice. Nobody has to follow them, everybody is free to block them.
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As this conversation is spiraling a bit I want to make a few things clear:
1. I'd like Mastodon to be MORE inclusive and bring in more voices
2. Some people don't seem to want that
3. This is core problem to solve: How do we let more in, but not "pollute" your feed?
4. The solution is NOT "gatekeeping", revelling in the fact that AI journalists aren't welcome
5. This is the same reason we lost "Black Twitter" when it came over in 2022Yes, a lot of you don't want AI posts in your feed (or pick any other topic) but the solution isn't to keep "AI People" from joining Mastodon, any more than it is keeping marginalized communities off of Mastodon.
Who's keeping them from joining? That's not a thing.
As a user though I have the right to not engage with 'AI people' and no amount of needless philosophising is going to change that.
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@davidgerard @jkmcnk @scottjenson @Gargron Truth Social is a fork of Mastodon, so...
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Is #mastodon becoming an echo chamber? This post from @carnage4life has me questioning our community. The Mastodon team is finally getting some traction, the product improvements are increasing, The #UX is improving, yet people posting on multiple platforms are making comments like this. It's confusing.
I *know* people here don't want this to be a classic social media-clone but we'd *like* journalists to be here right? They aren't coming with examples like this!
@scottjenson @carnage4life@mas.to "least engagement with tech topics"? i find that very hard to believe. i see posts on here from people complaining that all they see are posts from linux nerds. my timeline is full of programmers, makers, scientists, maths nuts — and not because i follow these people, for the most part.
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@mattwilcox @Gargron But that is a slippery slope. I realize this might seem contentious but I believe it's is exactly the same mechanism that chased away black twitter in 2022. If we celebrate our culture, to the point that we are happy we are excluding others, it can cut both ways.
"Being inclusive" is like being "ethical" it only matters when things get hard.
@scottjenson @mattwilcox @Gargron You... you think opposition to "AI" shit and boosterism is the same as systemic and coordinated racism? Oh fuck all the way off, you privileged piece of shit. I'm over any civility with you fuckers.
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@scottjenson @Gargron we need neither neo-nazi instances nor Ai culture.
@remove_huilo @scottjenson @Gargron just think how much we miss not federating with gab
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@cratermoon @scottjenson @Gargron This is a very rich ethics question hidden in a specific example.
Would you permit or allow any community with which you disagree to participate on a platform, even if you’re not forced to participate?
A shortlist of thought experiments, to broaden the perspective, some of which are already here, some not…
- The oil & gas community
- Forestry workers (logging)
- The cryptocurrency community
- Workers at a chick rendering plant
- The finance industry
- Adult content creators
- Religious communitiesIs there a litmus test for topics that you can or can’t discuss on the fediverse? Specific servers sure, but the whole fediverse?
Does that align with the values put forth by mastodon or the fediverse in general?
I don’t have the answers.
@trisweb @cratermoon @scottjenson @Gargron Not sure how a discussion of what is *allowed* is relevant here. AI talk certainly isn't forbidden.
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Is #mastodon becoming an echo chamber? This post from @carnage4life has me questioning our community. The Mastodon team is finally getting some traction, the product improvements are increasing, The #UX is improving, yet people posting on multiple platforms are making comments like this. It's confusing.
I *know* people here don't want this to be a classic social media-clone but we'd *like* journalists to be here right? They aren't coming with examples like this!
@scottjenson@social.coop @carnage4life@mas.to Well, there is more to the fediverse than Mastodon. Not engaging with something is not gatekeeping.
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