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 we live in a world where using lightbulbs is probably fascism (because electricity can come from carbon based sources and materials to make them are probably also sourced unethically and factories in China abuse workers). Hell. Using a fork is probably oppression, because capitalists manufacture them.
I'm glad I'm in a position where I can block people and move on and I'm sorry for those who can't easily do that because of the work they are trying to do. It must be hard.
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@scottjenson we live in a world where using lightbulbs is probably fascism (because electricity can come from carbon based sources and materials to make them are probably also sourced unethically and factories in China abuse workers). Hell. Using a fork is probably oppression, because capitalists manufacture them.
I'm glad I'm in a position where I can block people and move on and I'm sorry for those who can't easily do that because of the work they are trying to do. It must be hard.
@scottjenson I have kids, and I drive a car to get them to school and activities. I pay for their education, because I think that will be valuable for their future. I use LLMs because it pays the bills and because I pick my battles.
I'm probably a Bad Person.
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@dalias I strongly disagree that polite and disrespectful is not something to aspire. Being human towards others is something we should aspire. I police whatever I want to police on my feed, I recommend others to do the same.
It says exactly what I said, naysayers and assholes are always the most vocal. This is what I said, and it's precisely the full extent of what I said, anything more is not my opinion, it's not mine, and you're not entitled to say which is my opinion.
@dalias You're free to not be polite and respectful towards others, but personally I've found that being polite and respectful is better for me, and since I also can choose to behave how I want and give my opinion, that's what'll do.
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@dalias You're free to not be polite and respectful towards others, but personally I've found that being polite and respectful is better for me, and since I also can choose to behave how I want and give my opinion, that's what'll do.
@DiogoConstantino @scottjenson @pmdj What I mean by tone policing is that often people with important critiques get dismissed for not being sufficiently subservient ("polite") towards power, when being subservient obviously would not get them what they need. And here on fedi, tone policing has been a classic vector of anti-Black racism. I would much rather hear someone speaking truth to power "impolitely" than hear someone being an apologist for power "politely".
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@kevin and that completely misses my point. It's not about 'having an instance" it's about actively going after people you disagree with. Just read the replies I've been getting. I'm being told to leave the fediverse, I'm being called racist, people are making ad hominum attacks, etc.
THAT turns out to be what I'm actually talking about (I didn't realize when I stated but I became the point I was trying to address). We have a culture here that actively attacks others. No about of "making your own instance" protects you from that.
@scottjenson is that really so much different than other social media or forums?
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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 No, it fucking shouldn't.
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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!
"luke warm to politics" is hilarious
We don't need people who don't want to be here. How much time did he invest here? How frequently did he post? Did he post anything of actual interest? The fact you're using a screenshot from another platform and nothing he posted here tells me a lot.
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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 There are valid concerns with engagement on Mastodon. But using AI as an example was a mistake: it’s the opposite of a marginalized community (by using literal billions to shout at everyone, and your original quote even shows that it’s disliked on every platform). Complaining about getting replies while speaking as an official Mastodon strategist does not seem fair. Getting unsolicited replies while in a marginalized community is an issue, but that’s not helped by 1/n
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You are 100% correct and if the _loud minority_ (because that's what they are - even though they love to proclaim differently) don't realise that they can mute/block instead of screaming off the top of their lungs in everyone's mentions then there will in the end be very little said.
@troed Thank you, it helps to hear that after the morning I've had.
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@scottjenson @Gargron I'd have to ask, what value would an an AI Booster community bring to the FediVerse?
@cratermoon @scottjenson @Gargron more people to block and defederate *shrug*
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@pmdj @dalias
First, I'm using AI as an example, I'm not endorsing AI at all.
Second, and only as an example, there are open source people working on ethically trained local small language models. Again, I'm NOT endorsing them, but I can pretty confidently say that they would NOT be welcome here.The same applies to journalism, there are VERY strong emotions here, basically telling them to fuck off (their words, not mine)
My point is that there is a pattern here: there are topics this community actively hates and "patrols" against. If that's what the community wants, cool, I'm not here to dictate anything. My point is that it might be nice to have a slightly more open way of sharing ideas: Follow, block, filter. You have the tools to make the feed you want (there are clearly more tools that would be helpful)
I'm just saying that focusing on your feed seems more healthy that attacking people whose opinions you don't like. Here, let me me give you an example of what I got 10 min ago
@scottjenson Isn’t it fun to try and talk about nontrivial things on social media?
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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 For a variety of reasons, I do not follow journalists here (or on any other social media site). If I want to read what journalists have to say, I read the news.
I am fine with journalists being here, but if they just come here to get attention, I couldn't care less if they do not come at all. -
@scottjenson There are valid concerns with engagement on Mastodon. But using AI as an example was a mistake: it’s the opposite of a marginalized community (by using literal billions to shout at everyone, and your original quote even shows that it’s disliked on every platform). Complaining about getting replies while speaking as an official Mastodon strategist does not seem fair. Getting unsolicited replies while in a marginalized community is an issue, but that’s not helped by 1/n
@scottjenson 2/n this discussion. Which is a shame. Reply guys are a problem, alt text berating is not quite constructive. So I hope that something can be done, and there’s lots of room for improvement. Personally I want more journalists here. And more marginalized communities. And constructive discussions outside my bubble. While also have the opinion to conveniently ignore for me e.g. AI evangelists, Trumpists and fascists.
And death threats and insults are never cool. HTH & GL -
@Setok @scottjenson @vfrmedia @mattwilcox
Since you have clearly recognized my use of "AI" as a synonym for LLMs, as is common literally everywhere, picking that nit feels quite dishonest to me.
Also I never said anything about copyrighted material. I said material created by *real* people, taken without consent or compensation.So dishonest word games and putting words in my mouth that I never used is the best you have in defense of AI?
Thanks for proving my point.
@stefanie @scottjenson @vfrmedia @mattwilcox yes, I went with a strong assumption as to what you meant. But then one shouldn’t state ‘all AI’.
The debate around generative AI is admittedly the more interesting one and probably worthy of a separate thread.
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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 I disagree with you Scott completely. I come to Mastodon to escape the onslaught of AI slop that surrounds me everywhere else. Your soft shoe shuffle is the same argument used whenever someone wants to soft sell a product that is questionable at best… but wants to ignore the reality of the harm their product does.
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@scottjenson @carnage4life "we'd *like* journalists to be here right? They aren't coming with examples like this!" if they're only coming to see number go up engagement metrics... they may have a hard time. maybe they should come here to, oh i don't know, spread information? have targeted discussions with specific folks (rather than hoping for drive-by engagement)?
@patrick_h_lauke @scottjenson @carnage4life
I feel that the comparison between Mastodon/other is currently a bit like linux/other. As one game developer put it: only 1% of their users were on linux, but that 1% created 90% of bug reports, of which 90% were applicable to other platforms.
You're not going to get similar numbers of likes on Fedi, and not just due to lack of algorithm: the platform rewards conversations more, which means longer engagement per post (instead of skimming & liking).
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OK, this is going even MORE sideways so I need to make a few things clear:
1. I took a complex point and made it poorly
2. My goal was to ask for more inclusiveness
3. I am sickened by what happend to BlackTwitter and I don't want it recur
4. But I can't speak for BlackTwitter nor should I
5. I apologize to black mastodon users for making such a poor comparison
6. I'm not endorsing "AI Slop" they were a foil to make my point
7. I'm certainly NOT trying to compare AI bros to Black twitter (but, as I said, I can see how people made that connection. I'm trying to correct that here)@scottjenson maybe just stop posting for a while and slow down enough to actually learn something from marginalized folks. Also, learn to read the damn room.
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Having never interacted with none of the people in this thread outside of it, that seems like a dick way of putting things.
Even if someone has ideas that you don't agree with (and which will never get approval of majority), just talking why the experience/opinion exists may lead to other improvements.
[This of course barring stuff that can be seen as a threat to safety. Fascists and the like.]
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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 maybe journalists should stop farming engagement like they do on other social media sites. I specifically joined Mastodon in the hopes of my attention not being farmed.
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@scottjenson I guess I'm just not as attached to the idea of the fediverse as being one community that needs to follow the same rules and discuss the same topics in approved ways?
My two bits:
Calls for homogenity are pretty distasteful even on company platforms with detailed rules based on US legal and social agreements.
It's even more so in a multinational platform, where an impactful number of people are non-North Americans, or otherwise part of some "misunderstood minority".
Ofc there are some stuff that falls under "basic dignity", but in general it should be possible to live with different POVs without having to start flame wars.
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