Is #mastodon becoming an echo chamber?
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I believe you have nailed it:
»Yeah, maybe I will block one or two people, but I can see how that can get tiring, and people just end up leaving.«
That's precisely why your "you can block them" is useless "advice". It is a pity that you only realized that once your own advice was mirrored back to you.
We have to agree to disagree here, I agree.
You are equating two different things.
Scenario 1: I don't want to see person A, I will block them. They will never know I exist. I will likewise block person B, person C, heck, let me block this whole server.
But I don't have to even block anyone, I can just mind my own business.
Scenario 2: I am being told I am not posting the right way by person A. I will block them. Now by person B. I can block them too. Why are all these strangers talking to me? Why can't they mind their own business? I guess I'll just leave.
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@scottjenson @pmdj No, we absolutely should NOT be "welcoming more opinions". "Diversity of thought" is NOT a value. Some opinions are wrong. They may have a right to exist, as long as they're not nazi opinions (those have no right to even exist), but that doesn't mean we have to welcome them. It's perfectly fine to tell people off for having bad opinions, to shun them, to let them share those bad opinions only with whoever is willing to listen to them and not in our circles.
If that causes them to leave fedi, that's not a bad thing.
So who watches the watchers?
Are you the god the decides who can stay or who should go? Who gave you that power?
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@scottjenson @pmdj There are no watchers. Nobody is "in charge". There is just everyone setting and enforcing their own personal boundaries.
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@scottjenson reminds me of how Chiquita Banana account on Twitter had a recorded statement apologizing for the banana wars.
Well, best of luck in your position of authority.
@alltherum how is asking for more inclusiveness in any way, putting me in a position of authority?
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You are equating two different things.
Scenario 1: I don't want to see person A, I will block them. They will never know I exist. I will likewise block person B, person C, heck, let me block this whole server.
But I don't have to even block anyone, I can just mind my own business.
Scenario 2: I am being told I am not posting the right way by person A. I will block them. Now by person B. I can block them too. Why are all these strangers talking to me? Why can't they mind their own business? I guess I'll just leave.
@katzenberger Or to put it differently, nobody is actively driving you away if they post about topics you are not interested in and/or in ways you don't agree with.
But by jumping into a complete stranger's mentions, you are, in fact, showing the toxic side of the fediverse and actively driving people away. Some cheer on this as a good thing. That's gatekeeping.
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@katzenberger Or to put it differently, nobody is actively driving you away if they post about topics you are not interested in and/or in ways you don't agree with.
But by jumping into a complete stranger's mentions, you are, in fact, showing the toxic side of the fediverse and actively driving people away. Some cheer on this as a good thing. That's gatekeeping.
@stefan @katzenberger @Gargron
This is the curse of the fediverse but hey, "You can always spin up your own instance if you don't like it!"
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@stefan @katzenberger @Gargron
This is the curse of the fediverse but hey, "You can always spin up your own instance if you don't like it!"
"You can always spin up your own instance"
But that doesn't solve the problem, because people in your mentions criticizing you don't care about the rules of your community, they will either try to enforce rules of their own community, or what they see as rules governing all of the fediverse.
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@scottjenson @pmdj There are no watchers. Nobody is "in charge". There is just everyone setting and enforcing their own personal boundaries.
This is the curse of the fediverse, a small cadre of usually old white guys that feel the need to "Educate" everyone around them. This is their duty, the world needs them and will eventually thank them for purifying the timeline of heretics.
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@scottjenson @pmdj Old white guys like... checks notes... the one who's here scolding everyone that we need to be more welcoming of assholes.
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@scottjenson This is embarrassing.
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"You can always spin up your own instance"
But that doesn't solve the problem, because people in your mentions criticizing you don't care about the rules of your community, they will either try to enforce rules of their own community, or what they see as rules governing all of the fediverse.
The only solution I can think of that I mentioned earlier is that non-moderators should not moderate non-members of their community. They can report, block, move on.
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@mattwilcox @scottjenson your literal first reponse to a Black writer was verbatim: "No. I don’t particularly want them here.", how do you think that gets interpreted?
@laurenshof @scottjenson I think if you read the thread you’ll understand that the topic when I said that was “AI centered topics”, and not Black people. I would hope that everything I said both in this thread and historically would clue you in that I am *very much* unhappy with how Mastodon HQ as a historical series of choices has mistreated the concerns of Black people, and I very much want to see Black people here.
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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 why journalists in particular? I enjoy this space for its calm, the silliness, the lack of rage bait. I appreciate people want different things from social media, and look there are a variety of platforms which meet those different needs.
Why do you think it's an echo chamber? -
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 @rolle
Speaking as a journalist, if news peeps don’t like the Fediverse as is, they can fuck off the same as anyone else. The fediverse is for communities not the masses. And news is not journalism as all this AI shit demonstrates daily. And comparing black people to tech bro cunts won’t win you any black friends. Give nostr a try. -
That is the exact opposite of what I said. I'm saying the fediverse gives you the tools to follow/block/filter/ to your hearts content to create the space you want.
What is corrosive is people ACTIVELY going after people they don't agree with. Just look at the replies to my post to get small sample.
My point was, I thought, very simple, and very reasonable: we should be more welcoming of more opinions. If you don't like them, then don't follow them. That should be the fedi-way. To be clear, I'm NOT endorsing AI, it just used it as an example.
Instead I'm living the very point I was trying to make. I've been told to leave, called a racist, and had ad hominem attacks leveled at me.
Now to be fair, my original post was poorly worded. I've owned that
https://social.coop/@scottjenson/116358195717244835@scottjenson @pmdj @dalias I'm with ya bro. Don't hear anyone complaining about ai application in the science fields. People are just focused on the slop side of things, not the tangible.
[edit]
Came back to posit a real world example.Simulating ALL 100 billion stars in the Milky Way for the first time (with the help of AI?!
- Dr Becky
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFpW5W06kV4 -
@scottjenson @dalias @pmdj that's the thing about power on a federated platform. nobody gave us that power. nobody can give us that power. we found it for ourselves when we realised that nobody, and no algorithm, is forcing us to listen to abhorrent opinions.
anyway, this post is a rehash of every frozen peach's shitty arguments from the year dot. honestly, they're beneath someone who's presenting themselves as an advisor to the Mastodon board. the only thing you could have done to make it more stereotypical is dip into incorrect Latin.
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@trevdev @cratermoon @Gargron @evan
You didn't answer MY question. Have you read the replies to my original post? People are actively joyfully attacking AI, making it clear not only are they not welcome, they should not be here.
To be clear. I"M NOT ENDORSING AI. I just used them as an example of this tendency to police the culture.
@scottjenson @trevdev @Gargron @evan Of course anyone is welcome to join any instance or set up an instance. I don't intend to gatekeep. I am expressing my intent to ignore and never boost the boosters. Or the "existential risk" doomers, for that matter.
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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!
being the most decentralized, it's the most open network. everybody should be here. I get that some don't want that but then be very selective in who you federate with. but the unique potential here is big fedi. universal. the more people we have ,the less it will feel like we have a certain culture re AI or anything else. I'm against algos and ads and think that's justified, but what also slows our growth is not focusing our moderation mostly on unwanted tagging.
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@scottjenson @pmdj Old white guys like... checks notes... the one who's here scolding everyone that we need to be more welcoming of assholes.
I'm making a post on my timeline that you can ignore. There is a BIG difference to getting in someone's mentions and correcting them.
This is my whole point. We are each on the fediverse and we say what we want. You can like, ignore, whatever.
I'm NOT getting in anyone's mentions, I'm not scolding, I'm ASKING that we are more inclusive because it's the more humane and helpful thing to do, but hey, you can disagree, that's cool.
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@scottjenson @dalias @pmdj I think what you’re talking about is called “talking to each other about our problems and working it out”, which is the only option left to us when we have no technical means of preventing different types of people from joining in on a community.
Unfortunately, some people are not going to agree with you. Nor are they required to. You can’t control them or ask them to behave differently, quite frankly. You can only control yourself and how you deal with it.
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