Is #mastodon becoming an echo chamber?
-
No, really, I do want to hear your answer.
Why does some rando talking about their vibecoded app need to hear what you personally think about AI? What are you trying to achieve? How effective is it?
What makes you feel so dearly about randos promoting fascism, misogyny, pedophilia, or "AI" that you care so deeply for them being left alone?
Insisting they need to be able to post how joining in made their life so much fun, with everybody else having to stay silent, because they're just "randos"? What are you trying to achieve by that?
-
My point was NEVER to support or endorse AI. I was using it as an example of how 'different topics' are met with hostility here.
People feel VERY strongly about AI. There are clearly horrible things being done. That discussion should happen and I'm not opposed to it.
I just wanted us to be be a *little* more tolerant of *some* ideas but this has clearly spiraled into something far too big for there to be a meaningful conversation at this point.
@scottjenson @shauna @evan Your thread attracted AI justifiers, and you used some really poor comparisons. I also feel it's denigrating the legitimate and non-emotional objections to a harmful technology to refer to people as "feeling" strongly about it rather than acknowledging that people call out issues consistently here rather than letting them get swept under the rug and 'moved on from' as they are in other spaces.
-
@Bronwyn I am NOT doing that!
https://social.coop/@scottjenson/116358195717244835@scottjenson this says that you were doing that and that you’re now apologizing…
-
Okay maybe you need to be clearer on what you mean by "more welcoming"?
As was pointed out already, there is nothing stopping anyone from starting, say, a Mastodon Nazi Bar. It can exist, it can be publicly accessible, it can be open for anyone to join.
How could Mastodon possibly be made "more welcoming" than that?
After "the right to exist" for such people, though, there is no "obligation to be subjected to them" for anyone. Thank *bleep* for THAT.
@scottjenson @dalias @pmdj Also, every Mastodon admin has the ability to allow or block users and entire other servers.
Some servers are "safe places" for people that are heavily moderated so that their users aren't subjected to upsetting, triggering or hurtful content. Other servers are operated like a free for all where "anything goes" and anything is allowed through.
That gives end users the control they need to join the instance that best matches their own interests and sensitivities.
-
What makes you feel so dearly about randos promoting fascism, misogyny, pedophilia, or "AI" that you care so deeply for them being left alone?
Insisting they need to be able to post how joining in made their life so much fun, with everybody else having to stay silent, because they're just "randos"? What are you trying to achieve by that?
@katzenberger I can see you are not interested in having a serious conversation, and that's fine.
Enjoy the rest of your day.
-
@scottjenson @shauna @evan Your thread attracted AI justifiers, and you used some really poor comparisons. I also feel it's denigrating the legitimate and non-emotional objections to a harmful technology to refer to people as "feeling" strongly about it rather than acknowledging that people call out issues consistently here rather than letting them get swept under the rug and 'moved on from' as they are in other spaces.
@scottjenson @shauna @evan The problem AI promoters are having here is that the old tactic of not addressing the legitimate problems and simply repeating that something is inevitable while recruiting 'trusted authorities' like Evan here is not working on the one social media network that is not driven by manipulative algorithms.
Rather than recognize that the concerns are legitimate, they are categorizing them as harassment in an attempt to bypass the brick wall they hit.
-
What makes you feel so dearly about randos promoting fascism, misogyny, pedophilia, or "AI" that you care so deeply for them being left alone?
Insisting they need to be able to post how joining in made their life so much fun, with everybody else having to stay silent, because they're just "randos"? What are you trying to achieve by that?
Really? I'm asking for 'more inclusiveness' as a general rule and you're saying I'm promoting fascism, misogyny, pedophilia?
I'm literally asking for us be nicer to each other and you're doing this?
-
@trisweb @cratermoon @scottjenson @Gargron by definition, no. Literally anyone can spin up a server and talk about anything/try to get more folk to listen…
But other folk have to want to listen to whatever they are saying. Servers and individuals can just decide not to. No one is guaranteed an audience, just the ability to speak.
@octothorpe @trisweb @cratermoon @scottjenson @Gargron
"No one is guaranteed an audience, just the ability to speak."
Exactly this.
-
@mastodonmigration I agree, both the Threads federation interface and the BridgyFed interface need to be smoother and more transparent. That's part of my job; to make it easier to follow people using ActivityPub, wherever they are.
@evan @mastodonmigration
Maybe somebody should ask people/groups like @georgetakei @ProPublica and @msfreepress how they thrive driving content and engagement in the Fediverse because they all maintain both dedicated Mastodon accounts and dedicated accounts on other platforms. -
Really? I'm asking for 'more inclusiveness' as a general rule and you're saying I'm promoting fascism, misogyny, pedophilia?
I'm literally asking for us be nicer to each other and you're doing this?
you're saying I'm promoting fascism, misogyny, pedophilia?
Would you please point me to where I said that about you?
If you can't, take a cold shower now, I guess it's about time.
-
@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@mamot.fr @scottjenson@social.coop @carnage4life@mas.to I wonder if and how the size/scope of a platform affects if it becomes an echo chamber
-
you're saying I'm promoting fascism, misogyny, pedophilia?
Would you please point me to where I said that about you?
If you can't, take a cold shower now, I guess it's about time.
Here, here is the quote:
"What makes you feel so dearly about randos promoting fascism, misogyny, pedophilia" -
@iris
Thank you for that thoughtful reply. I certainly agree that there could be that 'dogwhistle issue' and I'd like to steer as far from that as possible. It certainly wasn't my intent.Also, let's agree this is a complex topic. There are clearly toxic ideas that we agree as a community we don't want. It's hard to define, but we should try to do it nonetheless.
But let's take people that want to talk about AI. I chose this example because it is such a lightning rod (not that I personally support it) There are clearly toxic AI bros. But, there are also open source people working on local models that are ethical and sustainable. Are they allowed here?
Looking at the comments to my post, it's clear they are not. That is the higher level point I'm trying to make. Some topics aren't toxic, they are just controversial. But we have a culture that simplistically drives them out.
@scottjenson Thanks Scott. There is nuance and it does invite careful consideration.
If we stick with the example of AI, I am still concerned about the distinction between people who use/develop it and the technology itself, and between being allowed and being welcomed. As long as we are discussing the people, they are always allowed, but not always welcomed. And whether they're welcomed is a result of how they behave. What they put in their profiles, how they engage with other people, what they bring to the community. If people find their behavior unacceptable, they aren't welcomed, and this is not a sequence of events I am anxious to interrupt.
What I think you're getting at, however, with the comment about simplistically driving [people] out is a reaction disproportionate to the stimulus and a copycat effect, sometimes leading to dogpiling. You mentioned ad hominem attacks specifically in a previous reply. If we're getting into the territory of harassment, then we have an issue. I don't want to fall prey to the fallacy of "if I don't see it happening, it's not happening" so I won't claim that, but I do suspect such things are already covered by servers' rules of engagement.
I'm inclined to believe the issue, then, isn't that particular ideas are unwelcome, but rather that our (collective) responses to server rule violations aren't cutting it. We know we have a poor track record of retaining Black people on mastodon because of harassment campaigns and inadequate moderation tools, for example. You have gotten some other responses here about how harassers have found a stronger foothold here than on other platforms -- that's a real issue.
It's also possible that relying on individual servers to set reasonable rules and using (de)federation as the mechanism of excluding servers with inadequate safeguards is not functioning well. That's above my paygrade, but I know server mods (including mine) have a lot of thoughts about this.
-
@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.
@spiegelmama
It's trivial to track referrals from anywhere. You just add a parameter or parameters to the link. -
Here, here is the quote:
"What makes you feel so dearly about randos promoting fascism, misogyny, pedophilia"That was directed at @stefan
You can see in all of my posts that I put the handle of the person I am talking to at the top, and everybody else's handle who is still in the thread at the bottom, in the "CC" position.
I've been keeping it like this for years now, and I wish more people made that a habit.
-
@octothorpe @Gargron I think the "Black Twitter" migration of 2022 would disagree.
Of course there are no technical reasons this can't happen. My original post wasn't about technology but culture. The Mastodon culture (for complex reasons) chased away black twitter. It's doing the same with AI and my biggest worry, many other topics that "don't fit".
There *is* a culture to Mastodon outside of the tech and I'm suggesting that it is too exclusive. This ultimately hurts us.
@scottjenson The Black AI-rish lol
@octothorpe @Gargron -
@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.@scottjenson @rolle Here is some context for the journalism comment. https://blog.rinesi.com/2026/03/already-disruptive
-
That was directed at @stefan
You can see in all of my posts that I put the handle of the person I am talking to at the top, and everybody else's handle who is still in the thread at the bottom, in the "CC" position.
I've been keeping it like this for years now, and I wish more people made that a habit.
@scottjenson Yes, Scott, don't you know? I love all those things.
-
@fzer0 @scottjenson @evan @cratermoon I think I know what's holding them back - they can't be bothered to do it themselves, they just want a whole community served up to them on a plate.
@nske @fzer0 @scottjenson @evan @cratermoon Perhaps one of them could build an agentic AI workflow to spin up an AI-friendly instance that uses LLM bots to instance-block anyone who is rude to AI boosters. I’m sure it’d just require a couple of prompts.
-
@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@social.coop @Gargron@mastodon.social
Hey, maybe you could move your account to the instanceai.wiki. It has a lively community consisting entirely of AI (and nothing to do with wikis despite the name).
What you won't get is people who don't like AI following you.
Hello! It looks like you're interested in this conversation, but you don't have an account yet.
Getting fed up of having to scroll through the same posts each visit? When you register for an account, you'll always come back to exactly where you were before, and choose to be notified of new replies (either via email, or push notification). You'll also be able to save bookmarks and upvote posts to show your appreciation to other community members.
With your input, this post could be even better 💗
Register Login