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It doesn’t, but the mods (not just these ones, but of any technology community) never seem to remove posts that aren’t actually about technology.
Because the definition of what is and isn’t technology is arbitrary. Wikipedia says “Technology is the application of conceptual knowledge to achieve practical goals, especially in a reproducible way.” By that definition, social media is a technology (uses knowledge of computers and networking to enable online communication), but also so are most human creations.
By that definition the wheel is technology. Should we start posting articles about slight changes to the chemical compound used in newer snow tires?
Ya why not?
Underpants are technolgy.
Is mayonnaise a technology?
Honestly, I’d love to hear about ALL technologies on here, not just computer based ones.
The atproto architecture is technology though. Open source and all
I have a really hard time seeing a difference between X and Bluesky. Both are run by billionaires for their amusement and benefit. Why are people so hopeful about bluesky?
Dorsey is no longer involved with Bluesky.
Oh, really? OK, that makes it definatelly less terrible. I guess I need to update myself about the organization behind it then. Thanks for the correction!
They got funding from Twitter and Jack was on the board for a bit, but he bailed and formally quit (funny enough he bailed because they did more moderation than he wanted)
Jack Dorsey founded bluesky, and is still it’s largest shareholder
Prove it or stop spamming this
He’s not involved with Twitter either. That doesn’t make it not terrible.
Dorsey is THE founder of BLUESKY, and is it’s largest shareholder, even though he is no longer on the board, and went through the theater of closing his BLUESKY account, he will have the say as to who BLUESKY is sold to, when eventually it will be. Fool me once.
Having used it for several days now, I can tell you the difference is that Bluesky is a lot like Lemmy - not filled with hate and vitriol, and easy to make it what you want by selecting your feeds and following things you care about while pruning the rest.
The people who can’t socialize properly with others are swiftly dealt with. Subscription blocklists make it really easy to just annihilate any possible interaction between yourself and undesirables. I have several blocklist subscriptions for MAGA chuds and White Supremacists for example. And when you block someone on Bluesky they can’t see what you write and you’ll never see anything from them ever again. Zero interaction from that point on. So the housekeeping actions actually keep the house clean.
Once you’ve done the initial housekeeping, it’s just full of people talking about cool stuff, and when someone crashes the party to be nasty they are quickly shown the door. It’s wonderful.
Also trying out Bluesky, and it is a lot like Twitter used to be, but it has the potential to turn out like Xitter is today, because at the end of the day Bluesky is a for-profit startup corporation.
Sooner or later, Bluesky is going to want to make money for its shareholders, and that means any of: 1) Selling advertisements, 2) Selling your personal data, and/or 3) In a classic tech startup play, selling itself to the highest bidder like: Android, YouTube, and yes, Twitter.
And with commercialization, or in Xitter’s case a fool with too much money, comes enshittification.
Lemmy is nothing like a for-profit startup company, as far as I know, but that doesn’t make it enshittification-proof, but at least it won’t take the commercialization route.
I was talking about the atmosphere, not the architecture.
It’s the best thing out there of its type right now. I’m not going to shit on it because of what might happen in the future. I’m sure something else will come along to move to if that happens.
Sounds like Mastodon.
It’s not the unusable firehose that mastodon is, and it’s a lot less fediverse-stanny. (it’s not actually federated yet).
I kind of like it, it feels like the right level of engagement, and there’s a culture of just block the assholes, grownups are talking.
It’s worth a few days to try it out. Nice place.
Because one of them is actively promoting and favouring viewpoints many people find abhorrent.
The fact it’s owned by a billionaire isn’t the major concern for most people.
Yes. Having centralized ownership (to whatever extent) is a concern for sure, but it’s a hypothetical concern in and of itself: “what if the leadership does bad things?” Is different from “the leadership is currently doing bad things.”
Decentralization helps. But if the networks effects aren’t behind it, jumping from platform to platform when things DO get bad is also viable.
Yep. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.
Honestly, being willing to jump to a new platform is possibly the most effective way to stop platforms from fucking you over too hard.
Definitely, having strong competition is what keeps companies honest.
Who’s the billionaire?
X Corp. is majorly owned by Elon Musk
I was talking about Bluesky.
Bkuesky was started by the former owners of Twitter.
It’s run by a millionaire, not a billionaire. People like it because it’s Twitter without Musk. That’s it.
That’s a big motivator for the migration but that’s not “it,” people on bsky seem to prefer the way blocking on bsky works, especially since X made your posts visible to people you have blocked.
It doesn’t bother people that their blocks are public?
It bothers some people. I think it’s just something you need to be aware of. If you want to stop seeing someone’s posts without hurting their feelings or whatever, you could always mute.
What I think is a tougher problem is that if/when it actually federates with a third party, the third party may not treat blocks the same way. I haven’t looked at AT proto in while, I wonder if that is addressed or it will have to be a shrug.
Kinda how on Lemmy votes are hidden for plebs in the UI, but not on kbin.
I never understood the appeal of Twitter.
The problem is not that they are billionaires. But one is run by an obvious malignant narcissist, and the other is not.
One is responsible the other is not.Here’s a very down to earth explanation of why Twitter after Musk became an ethical problem.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8zfgIgZ4c0
So tired of hearing about this platform that, afaiu, is barely even federated and not really decentralized. Why the hype when fedi exists?
Because people are using it
A very vocal minority is using it, and only because Musk changed the moderation rules on X. Otherwise Twitter was as shit as it has ever been
fediverse is great but it’s not for the general public, sadly.
this is the only argument repeated and no one ever comes up with exactly how it’s not for the general public, only that it isn’t.
and don’t say algorithms. the general public constantly laments about how algorithms have ruined everything.
I use both. I’ve been on Mastodon for the better part of a year and only actively tried Bluesky the last couple weeks. My Bluesky feed is thriving, whereas Mastodon not so much. IMO this is due to Mastodon is missing the major quality of life features of Bluesky.
- Add lists
- Subscribable block lists
- Custom subscribable topic feeds
- Optional recommendation engine
These things make Bluesky very easy to get started with and more powerful even than Xitter was. It’s simply a better product if you have any requirements other than federation. Getting a good feed up and running doesn’t take more than an hour or two. Mastodon is a lot more work.
Yes, its federation is more or less bullshit, but for most users, that feature is a distant priority when compared to the rest.
You can dead name Twitter. People will know what you’re talking about haha.
I tend to use Twitter if I’m talking about the pre-Musk infused flavor and Xitter for the Musky turd flavor. Since we must compare features to the now-existing platform, I used the new naming convention ;-).
There are a lot of reasons why. Mastodon apps are not pretty. The logo is not attractive. The signup where you need to pick the server for some reason is confusing. The reputation Mastodon already has among the general public, that it’s the place for Linux enthusiasts, is not doing it any more favors.
You say that the algorithms have ruined everything but it’s just not true. Discoverability is dead on Mastodon. The platform doesn’t suggest me any new people to follow. The vocal minority against the recommendation algorithms is just that, a vocal minority. Recommendations are useful if they are not obtrusive.
I’ve been trying to keep my Mastodon account active for two years and I’ve been posting some random shit the same way I did on Twitter. I’ve been looking for some fun idiots but there are none, it’s all uptight serious people who are honestly pretty insufferable to read. I deleted my Mastodon account half a year ago and the one thing I appreciate is how easy it was — just a couple of clicks and you’re done.
And most importantly - there isn’t millions of dollars spent to market it to people. You have to go out of your way to learn about Mastodon or federation in general, and as you say, their reputations precede them.
There are a lot of reasons why. Mastodon apps are not pretty. The logo is not attractive. Ivory is more or less Tweetbot for Mastodon which is miles ahead of any other client for either platform as far as visuals go. Logo is is debatable.
The signup where you need to pick the server for some reason is confusing. Only “confusing” on many of the open source offerings since they weren’t made with general users in mind.
The reputation Mastodon already has among the general public, that it’s the place for Linux enthusiasts, is not doing it any more favors. ?
You say that the algorithms have ruined everything but it’s just not true. When was the last time you heard someone embrace hate on the internet? The whole point of algorithms is to fuel engagement which is done best with controversial content targeting polar opposites.
The platform doesn’t suggest me any new people to follow. It does, you have the initial list which features popular users like eugen, george takei, etc. in the recommended users carousel. You can also go to explore people to see recommendations based on who you follow and who those you follow follow. Perhaps I should have been clear that the problem users feel is content algorithms trying to bait engagement, which is something Mastodon, unlike every other platform out there, doesn’t do - because it’s psychological hell fueled entirely by hatred and while it drives addiction it entirely removes any rich content, constructive debate or interests, which I’d assume was the MAIN reason people wanted to be on social media in the first place, but you can’t have that if you want an addictive platform.
I’ve been trying to keep my Mastodon account active for two years and I’ve been posting some random shit the same way I did on Twitter. I’ve been looking for some fun idiots but there are none, it’s all uptight serious people who are honestly pretty insufferable to read. I deleted my Mastodon account half a year ago and the one thing I appreciate is how easy it was — just a couple of clicks and you’re done. So it’s a you problem. If you haven’t setup any hashtags or accounts then obviously you’re not going to see any relevant content to your interests. I’m not sure what you mean by fun idiots but I’ve blocked plenty of both hashtags and users on Mastodon because they’re the type of individual who thrive on hostility, so there’s plenty of that shit if that’s what you like. Just gotta go look for it.
Here are some:
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The average person is tech illiterate, so having them understand what a “federated platform” is, is too much to ask. It may be easy for you or me, but we’re here on Lemmy, so that immediately makes us not the average.
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The average person also doesn’t care what a federated platform is. They just want something that is convenient and works. Same as the above point; maybe we would be willing to sit down and figure things out, but others will consider that a waste of time and makes something bad.
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In that sense, federated platforms are a major failure, as picking instances and creating accounts is a hassle rather than a convenience.
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From personal experience, trying to find a Mastodon instance to make an account on was irritating. Some rules were too restrictive, some rules were too vague, other rules looked like they were created for sensitive little snowflakes. It was like reading through the rules of Discord servers. Not a good look for a social media platform.
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Something like Bluesky tries to be both; a platform without algorithms (or only user-created algorithms that you can choose to subscribe to), where you can make your own instance or just be part of its centralised instance. The fact that the overwhelming number of people choose the latter should tell you enough about what people want.
Whether a platform is federated or not is an abstract and irrelevant question to most users. It’s like telling a typical end user that their hardware architecture is big-endian or little-endian. In terms of their usage, it makes no difference.
federated platforms are a major failure, as picking instances and creating accounts is a hassle rather than a convenience
Some UI improvements and simple affordances could make a bit difference to those barriers.
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In almost every thread where this has come up, people have gone into extensive detail about why.
There are a number of you either missing or ignoring it. Which I guess is why the comment sections for these articles are always almost exactly the same.
The reason given is always about features that already exists.
No it’s not.
Enlighten me.
the general public constantly laments about how algorithms have ruined everything.
It’s like the idiots on Facebook complaining that every image was generated by AI. (I have elderly relatives, FB’s the only easy way to keep in touch with them).
and don’t say algorithms. the general public constantly laments about how algorithms have ruined everything.
Right, right. Much the same way the American public complains that fast food has ruined their health and yet 2/3 of the nation is overweight. Or how chain smokers know full well their lungs are fucked six ways to Sunday but they keep reaching for those nicotine hits. It’s almost like people say they hate the things they continue to reach for all the time. Funny, that.
Do I think the Fedi is reasonably within the grasp of understanding for most of the general public? Sure. But do I think anything on the Fedi stands a ghost of a chance in competition against centralized services that cater to the dopamine rush people are already conditioned to expect and continue to reach for even when several of them claim to hate it? Oh fuck no, absolutely not.
If they’re is anything my we’ve learned from this last election cycle, it’s that the general public will trade superior and nuanced for inferior and simple every single time.
Nobody ever lost money underestimating the intelligence of the general public
I mean, yes, addiction is hell of a drug? Doesn’t necessarily mean it’s what users crave, just why they keep coming back for more. But users used to come back for genuine content too, before algorithms were built to optimize ragebait engagement for maximum advertisement profits.
Doesn’t necessarily mean it’s what users crave, just why they keep coming back for more.
Yes. And they do come back for more. A lot more. More than “genuine content” ever made them do. It is very much the intended effect, and it is demonstrably working as intended.
So why is it that when a platform like Bluesky does gangbusters while Mastodon languishes looking to pick up table scraps, people here treat it like a wild mystery?
The Fediverse is a cure to an addiction very few people actually want cured; at least, based on their actions taken to solve it. That’s how addictions work. Even people who recognize the harm and say they want out actively choose to not get out when presented an exit.
The Fediverse would succeed if it was the only choice. But in a head-to-head competition with a competently-built centralized platform that dabbles in all the trapping features its predecessor did, it’s severely outmoded.
Because the general public is fucking stupid and Lemmy requires a bare minimum level of intelligence to understand
Because there’s VC money behind it.
Talkin’ 'bout the placebo syndrome.
Because Bluesky is less evil than X. At least for now.
Bcuz fedi ass
says the person on fedi
I got banned from Reddit. I had no choice
I got banned from Reddit.
what for?
Basically, a group of black users were being racist to white individuals by making a bunch of generalizations, so i wanted to point out the hypocrisy by making an obviously racist generalization of my own. I commented, “All black people are disgusting”, and was rightfully called out, but the irony was that they were doing something pretty similar calling white people colonizers and other things like that.
The result? I got mass reported and banned, and due to Reddit’s inability to identify nuance in comments, my appeals were all for naught.
The collapse of X should’ve been the movement to get rid of social media, not replace it with another identical platform
…he said on social media…
Okay, so it’s a link aggregate, but still.
Why everyone’s so happy about BlueSky and Threads though is what pisses me off, and it’s that’s they are in the safe arms of a corporate daddy.
Submissive little shites.
You’re not wrong about Lemmy also being social media, but I view it as my methodone for Reddit. Long term I think I will get rid of Lemmy too.
I think giving it up is sort of a cop out. It’s like saying because all new movies suck, that you should stop watching films.
The good thing about Mastodon I feel is that people are more sincere than what you’ll find here, or even on Threads.
I also think Beehaw has a good idea by being strict. If you dislike the brainrot, remove the brainrot. Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.
I already ask useful things on lemmy, find guides and read interessant articles, maybe Lemmy is not as bad as other socials
In all likelihood that experience will be temporary, in one of two ways. Either Lemmy becomes mainstream enough to enshittify beyond your tolerance, or Lemmy atrophies into obscurity and ceases being a platform with any benefit.
Which will happen, and on what timescale it will happen? Who knows. But I wager one of those outcomes is inevitable before too long. The “chill, somewhat unknown but appreciably active platform” position is long-term an unstable one.
Until then, we’re all just in time to bask in the warm glow of this little experiment for at least a little while.
My guess is most normal people just want to be where every other normal person is and to have comment moderation enforced.
Decentralized/OSS platforms >>> Multiple competing centralized platforms >>> One single centralized platform
Bluesky and Threads are both bad but having more options than Twitter/X is still a step in the right direction, especially given the direction Musk is taking it in. As much as I like the fediverse (I won’t be using either Threads or BlueSky anytime soon), it still has a lot of problems surrounding ease of use. Lemmy, Mastodon, Misskey, etc. would benefit a lot from improving the signup process so that the average user doesn’t need to be overwhelmed with picking an instance and understanding how federation works.
Platforms like Twitter are incredibly useful for following public figures and journalists, your feed doesn’t have to be all brainrot. Having a similar platform that’s not in the hands of a billionaire freak is in the public interest.
But it is all brain rot since they changed their algorithm and started feeding me what posts they want to feed and showing me people Idon’t follow
Both platforms have a chronological “following” feed. That’s the only one I look at.
RSS rests in peace
Yeah but bluesky isn’t that.
Mom said tomorrow is my turn to post the Bluesky article.
I’m liking bluesky a lot, seems like they rolled back most of twitters toxicity. I’m seeing a lot of communities jump over and I’m all for it, we need more options on social media.
Yeah, the constant negative circlejerking on Lemmy is getting pretty tiresome.
More competition is better.
I have to agree. Blocking hexbear and ml helped a lot
I have never seen a hexbear user tbh
Pretty sure they defederated with SJW, that would explain why
that would make sense, thanks!
When bluesky gets enshitified i wont be suprised. Imagine tge alternative reality we could have had if they chose activpub.
Doesn’t Threads use AP?
Yeah and contraversial take i think as long as there are strict rules about not allowing single direction federation or federating ads then they should be allowed to fededate.
Oh, gee, there’s this thing called Bluesky that’s an alternative to Xitter?
Never seen anything about it ever posted here and in every other community before, thanks for letting us know!
Despite the predictable dumpster fire of a comment section sharing this would inevitably lead too, I’m glad you shared it, it was a pleasant read.
what’s the problem with mastodon?
- Mastodon’s recommendation algorithm isn’t sufficiently addicting
- Mastodon lacks venture capital to fund an army of PR flacks to plant stories in EVERY FUCKING NEWS WEBSITE IN THE UNIVERSE.
Pages that don’t work well with darkreader aren’t many, but when they do fail they fail somewhat entertainingly:
Black Death as a Viable Alternative for Cholera.
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I’m getting Google+ vibes.
Ah yes, always good to retreat to a safespace of open, and honest dialogue. Sadly, liberals can’t stand not forcing their opinion on people so this will be shortlived.
Does it hurt when you need to stop talking enough to listen, or does the listening part never happen for you?
liberal’s meaning is basically giving people rights
Yo, are you okay?
