Is #mastodon becoming an echo chamber?
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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 re: #1, you're running into the paradox of tolerance.
Re: #5, LOL. Are you suggesting that we're "losing" AI boosters because Mastodon is super racist? Because that's why you don't see Black folks around here.
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@Gargron That is a personal choice and one which I totally respect. But I do think Mastodon should be big enough, and open enough, to allow an "AI community" to form, even thrive.
Too many people in my replies don't seem to agree with that.
@scottjenson Shame on you for invoking "Black Twitter." AI People want their crap to go viral. Black Twitter wanted a community free of bigotry. Delete your account. Comparing "AI People" to other marginal communities by a "Product Strategy Advisor to #Mastodon Core team"... SMDH
Apparently, the "Product Strategy Advisor to #Mastodon Core team" doesn't understand its userbase, Mastodon's nor the fediverse. It's always been about personal choice.
FWIW, nothing is stopping "AI People" from joining Mastodon nor the fedi. Mastodon is part of the fedi, it's another selling point.
If their instance doesn't want them, they can spin an instance on their own.
No one can force a community to be accepted.
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@octothorpe i agree they are not exactly the same. But "inclusivity" is *always* a complicated topic and never an easy one to solve. Mastodon has always tried to be a safe haven for marginalized people (although it has been a bumpy road and could be better!)
My point is that many of the replies to my post were basically "AI bad, they shouldn't be here" and while I respect anyone's right to think that, it's something else to say we should actively chase them away. They are not nazis and they are not scammers (well, most of them aren't)
I'm just saying the kicking people out for their ideas is a slippery slope and one which we should discuss more and be very careful with.
@scottjenson @octothorpe please don't conflate "AI people" with actual marginalize groups.
Some ideas are bad and should be treated like they're bad. Current AI models are built by exploiting pretty much everyone. They're hiking up the cost of computers and basic utilities. They're probably going to completely destroy the global economy when the bubble pops.
I don't have to be welcoming to people who are going to stan for something that is actively causing harm.
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@ben @scottjenson So, a little context from a former journalist: I asked my boss if I could start and manage a mastodon account for my publication, and she advised that we would have to conduct a study to justify the use of my time - a company asset - by measuring traffic that mastodon drove to our site. Because this is a respectful space, there was no real way to track clicks, so I couldn't justify it and I ended up deleting the account I had already started. It's often not a matter of the journalist's lack of imagination or excess of ego, but their need to meet metrics.
Thank you for sharing your authentic experience. My snarky side says "Were they that circumspect in the early days of Twitter? I bet not."
But you point to a very valid issue for journalists that I believe also extends to nonprofits. It's not the whole answer, but we who want journalists and nonprofits may need to actively hit the like button a lot more.
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@scottjenson the replies to this thread are 50 times the exact same older white guy into computers photographed from a different angle
@woof Exactly! I tried to point it out on the first 10 but it gets exhausting, ESPECIALLY the ones that assume that mentioning AI and Black Twitter in the same sentence somehow proves 1) I equate the two (I don't obviously) and 2) I endorse AI techbros (I don't)
People that WANT TO HATE so much that they are willing to see things that don't even exist are part of the problem here. Don't get me wrong. They can think anything they want, my point is that they feel compelled to POLICE the culture and create this toxic environment.
But to be clear, I poked the bear, I made the comparison (which was in hindsight unwise) and shouldn't be shocked that "asking for more inclusiveness" on Mastodon is met with such vitriol. Oh wait, I can see the replies now: "you didn't ask for it in the RIGHT WAY"
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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 your fifth point, comparing prejudice against "AI people" to prejudice against Black people is, frankly, shocking.
Evangelising about AI is a choice you make; you're willingly embracing an industry that's destroying the planet and the internet, and enabling an increasingly fascist capitalism.
I will judge that, I will call that out, and then I will block anyone doing so.
"AI people" are not a "marginalized community", and pretending that "this is just like racism" is a false equivalency which misappropriates and trivialises the centuries-long battle for racial equality and justice.
Get a fucking grip, actually learn something about social justice, and stop thinking that being called out for something is in any way comparable to the oppression that Black people face on a daily basis.
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@Gargron That is a personal choice and one which I totally respect. But I do think Mastodon should be big enough, and open enough, to allow an "AI community" to form, even thrive.
Too many people in my replies don't seem to agree with that.
@scottjenson @Gargron Mainly because imposing what Mastodon should and shouldn't be from the top down is "algorithm-talk". And AI Communities don't really exist without TINA imposition: remove all methods to mute, silence or disregard the subject.
Here, that isn't the case. You can have a Mastodon Server that is AI inclusive, but it won't be in the Mastodon Compact (let alone mastodon.art, who will likely disconnect on first blush). It would be on the "Island of Misfit Toys" between the leftists here and the Alt-Right "we took Mastodon, we didn't fork it" Truth.social.
AI is a neoliberal and right pursuit, period. The method it has spread, the efforts to continue to grow it, and the people seeking to use it for political reasons (billionaires) to disenfranchise the left have tried every trick in the book to force it down our throats. Including Mozilla, who wants us to accept "open-source AI" (which doesn't exist: models steal content, even when polished and made to look left-leaning) instead of their past role: the free and open web. They didn't see the light, the company was seized by right leaning opportunists.
TL;DR: if you want Mastodon to embrace AI, you're going to have to kick the entire world's "left", "solarpunks", and marginalized political groups offline first and shut us out of coming back.
On a decentralized social network? Good luck.
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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 mastodon IS inclusive. You can write about pretty much anything you want, whether people want to read it, is their choice. No algorithm is forcing your views on anyone, so if the engagement on a particular subject is low, it just means that people either people don't care about it or haven't seen your post/profile yet. It can take weeks/months for some posts to get some engagement, generally following some unrelated engagement that gained you new followers.
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@scottjenson
What part of "literally anyone can start a mastodon or other fediverse server" do you think is so incredibly uninclusive?The mechanism that chased away black people was active racist hate bots posting in their DMs. Do you think "I'm not planning to listen to AI bros" is the same mechanism as "I'm planning to make a botnet to post KKK material at black people"?
If white Mastodon had just left the early black users to themselves, there'd be a thriving culture throwing memes all over the place. But no, white Mastodon had invented a followers-only message that the Klan could tag to people they wanted to chase away. And white Mastodon still has not killed off that particular misfeature.
@dlakelan @scottjenson @mattwilcox @Gargron -
@scottjenson Which part of "federated" has your precious Apple-trained and AI-fawning mind not been able to wrap around? Go ahead and build a community of prompt fondlers. You can then all sit around and fondle prompts in your timelines. It'll be great. And the rest of this federated mess IS TOTALLY WITHIN THEIR RIGHTS to block your prompt fondling instance. Like we block nazi instances. And Trump instances. And whatever-the-fuck-else instances we don't want nothing to do with. It's FEDERATED. You not getting that in your head is your fault alone.
@phf @scottjenson EXACTLY THIS. -
@Gargron That is a personal choice and one which I totally respect. But I do think Mastodon should be big enough, and open enough, to allow an "AI community" to form, even thrive.
Too many people in my replies don't seem to agree with that.
@scottjenson @Gargron And that's where they can spin up an instance and whoever wants to engage with them, will eventually. It's how it is with topical servers.
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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 mean this most sincerely, but all AI journalists can go fall into the deepest, darkest pit of hell right now and I wouldn't mourn a single fucking one of them.
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@ben But that's the very definition of a mono-culture. A vibrant community allows all of these topics, encourages them even. Then, with filters, who you follow, hashtags, and blocking you get the feed you want.
To get the culture you want by cutting off the supply is counter productive.
The AI supply is artificially inflated by the fact that the one thing LLMs are great at is churning out text promoting themselves, not to mention oodles of questionable VC money. No one is having difficulty accessing AI-related content. Many people are struggling with AI discourse sucking all the oxygen out of important rooms.
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@Gargron @scottjenson these conversations always sound like “why can’t Mastodon be more like US corporate social media? Why aren’t you Americaning properly?”
@Colman @Gargron @scottjenson won't someone think of the poor oppressed AI "journalists" is certainly a take ...
(and in case it wasn't clear enough, the comparison to black twitter really underscores it.)
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@Gargron That is a personal choice and one which I totally respect. But I do think Mastodon should be big enough, and open enough, to allow an "AI community" to form, even thrive.
Too many people in my replies don't seem to agree with that.
@scottjenson @Gargron
Nothing prevents AI boosters making community here any more than the CSAM enthusiasts or Gargron's hypothetical puppy killers are prevented. They can build community today if they want!They'll be widely ignored, just like the CSAM people and the puppy killers, because a significant mass of folks here will ignore/block/mute them, like with other things we find distasteful.
Being blocked isn't painful, or harmful in any way. You might be blocked right now and never know!
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@awfulwoman But my point wasn't *specifically* about journalists, it was just an example of one person that a) wasn't getting traction and b) the 1% of the deplorables wanted to chase them away.
My point way much more broad, about using this as a wedge example of allowing a much wider array of people into Mastodon. Just because you don't like self promoting morons (I don't either of course) doesn't mean we should be actively chasing them away. Not because I want them! But for a much simpler reason: It's very hard to objectively define what a "promoting moron" is. More importantly, they might do it AND be a really valuable person to the community.
There is so much simplistic black and white thinking about who someone is and so many are willing to say "Begone!" for the flimsiest of reasons.
@scottjenson @awfulwoman Are we chasing them away? (I may have missed the data point behind this argument in this thread)
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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!
I think you're missing the point. Mastodon is, intentionally or not, designed to resist "viral" anything.
Value here is largely expressed in the quality of the relationships, not in "follower count" and market saturation (aka "going viral").
If you're here for any of that, to position yourself as a so-called thought leader in any sense, you're in the wrong room.
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@scottjenson @carnage4life Mastodon is 100% an echo chamber in my experience.
Some topics are taboo, and there is very little tolerance for everything that is not the accepted opinion.
I think Mastodon is the platform where I’ve seen the smallest diversity of opinions on any non-technical topic.
Yet I want the fediverse to succeed as a platform to liberate the general public from monopolistic and toxic platforms.
@thibaultamartin @scottjenson @carnage4life ^ this reeks of bad faith lol
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@ben But that's the very definition of a mono-culture. A vibrant community allows all of these topics, encourages them even. Then, with filters, who you follow, hashtags, and blocking you get the feed you want.
To get the culture you want by cutting off the supply is counter productive.
@scottjenson @ben a properly vibrant community does not allow fash propaganda which you are currently doing apology for
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@evan @cratermoon Exactly, even asking that question "What value do they bring" is kind of scary.
It's a fine line, I get it. We draw the line at nazis and scammers but let's not cross the line into "intellectual purity" tests
@scottjenson @evan @cratermoon The AI bros are nazi scammers, or shills for the same
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