I’ve been asked on TV hits and interviews lately to explain why decentralized social media is better, especially re: Mastodon.
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The most concise way I describe the difference between commercial algorithm based platforms versus the fediverse.
In the former, you are presented with the illusion of a town square, it propagates content based on spectacle and “engagement”
In the latter, people are the algorithm as members of distinct communities, moderated by real people.
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Centralized, commercial and algorithm based platforms are centralized command and control platforms.
The fediverse is a constellation of everything from individually hosted servers to the larger instances like mastodon dot social, and everything in between.
I would ask people to consider where do you think the greater liberty resides?
We have seen the kind of censorship that emerges on all of the large commercial platforms. It’s not possible in the fediverse.
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I’ve been asked on TV hits and interviews lately to explain why decentralized social media is better, especially re: Mastodon.
How would you explain the benefits of a platform like Mastodon and the fediverse to someone in just a few sentences? How would you make the argument that platforms like Mastodon allow for more free expression than big tech controlled apps?
Would love to hear people’s thoughts! Trying to make my arguments most effective
@taylorlorenz
Its nice Twitter.
No adverts or algorithm.
No one owns it.
It's like lots of mini Twitters that can talk to each other.
Each mini Twitter has its own rules and interests.
You should join the one that best suits you. -
To answer this, we should first understand why people don’t think it makes sense. Someone I know that dislikes big business, and uses X said: “I struggle to understand the basics of a decentralized social network, it seems oxymoronic except for extreme nerds”.
Take that as you will, but hopefully it is useful feedback.
I would like to suggest then that they struggled to understand a market based economy or democracy
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Centralized, commercial and algorithm based platforms are centralized command and control platforms.
The fediverse is a constellation of everything from individually hosted servers to the larger instances like mastodon dot social, and everything in between.
I would ask people to consider where do you think the greater liberty resides?
We have seen the kind of censorship that emerges on all of the large commercial platforms. It’s not possible in the fediverse.
2/2
RE: https://masto.ai/@GhostOnTheHalfShell/110697014050821679
Sometimes an image is worth 1000 words
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I’ve been asked on TV hits and interviews lately to explain why decentralized social media is better, especially re: Mastodon.
How would you explain the benefits of a platform like Mastodon and the fediverse to someone in just a few sentences? How would you make the argument that platforms like Mastodon allow for more free expression than big tech controlled apps?
Would love to hear people’s thoughts! Trying to make my arguments most effective
@taylorlorenz Monopolies are bad and there's no reason why "posts" need to be owned by a monopoly. Fediverse is good for the same reason why email is good.
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I’ve been asked on TV hits and interviews lately to explain why decentralized social media is better, especially re: Mastodon.
How would you explain the benefits of a platform like Mastodon and the fediverse to someone in just a few sentences? How would you make the argument that platforms like Mastodon allow for more free expression than big tech controlled apps?
Would love to hear people’s thoughts! Trying to make my arguments most effective
@taylorlorenz You control what you see in your feed and you control what you post. No propaganda, censorship, games, surveillance or trolls. How is that not better in every way?
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I’ve been asked on TV hits and interviews lately to explain why decentralized social media is better, especially re: Mastodon.
How would you explain the benefits of a platform like Mastodon and the fediverse to someone in just a few sentences? How would you make the argument that platforms like Mastodon allow for more free expression than big tech controlled apps?
Would love to hear people’s thoughts! Trying to make my arguments most effective
@taylorlorenz Number one for me is, 'You are not making some rich **** even richer.' Secondly, you have better, more meaningful conversations.
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I’ve been asked on TV hits and interviews lately to explain why decentralized social media is better, especially re: Mastodon.
How would you explain the benefits of a platform like Mastodon and the fediverse to someone in just a few sentences? How would you make the argument that platforms like Mastodon allow for more free expression than big tech controlled apps?
Would love to hear people’s thoughts! Trying to make my arguments most effective
@taylorlorenz
You pick your mods. You pick your rules. You pick your community. -
I would like to suggest then that they struggled to understand a market based economy or democracy
@GhostOnTheHalfShell @taylorlorenz
I would agree. That’s why I left the snippet about big business and the use of X. Makes no sense.
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I’ve been asked on TV hits and interviews lately to explain why decentralized social media is better, especially re: Mastodon.
How would you explain the benefits of a platform like Mastodon and the fediverse to someone in just a few sentences? How would you make the argument that platforms like Mastodon allow for more free expression than big tech controlled apps?
Would love to hear people’s thoughts! Trying to make my arguments most effective
@taylorlorenz no algorithm: sequential timeline that updates when there are actually new posts. I can check in and know when I am 'caught up' and can go back to life.
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I’ve been asked on TV hits and interviews lately to explain why decentralized social media is better, especially re: Mastodon.
How would you explain the benefits of a platform like Mastodon and the fediverse to someone in just a few sentences? How would you make the argument that platforms like Mastodon allow for more free expression than big tech controlled apps?
Would love to hear people’s thoughts! Trying to make my arguments most effective
@taylorlorenz No ads
No algorithms
Just people talking to each other -
I’ve been asked on TV hits and interviews lately to explain why decentralized social media is better, especially re: Mastodon.
How would you explain the benefits of a platform like Mastodon and the fediverse to someone in just a few sentences? How would you make the argument that platforms like Mastodon allow for more free expression than big tech controlled apps?
Would love to hear people’s thoughts! Trying to make my arguments most effective
@taylorlorenz It's like the public radio of social networks, user supported social network.
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I’ve been asked on TV hits and interviews lately to explain why decentralized social media is better, especially re: Mastodon.
How would you explain the benefits of a platform like Mastodon and the fediverse to someone in just a few sentences? How would you make the argument that platforms like Mastodon allow for more free expression than big tech controlled apps?
Would love to hear people’s thoughts! Trying to make my arguments most effective
@taylorlorenz
(Part 1)
because believe it or not, groups of people need some isolation from each other. People are angry and want to kill each other because they were all put into the same social forum on facebook, twitter etc. There are simply incompatible world views that if forced to co-exist, people literally they want to kill each other. Also don’t forget what Facebook did in Burma (different topic). -
@taylorlorenz
(Part 1)
because believe it or not, groups of people need some isolation from each other. People are angry and want to kill each other because they were all put into the same social forum on facebook, twitter etc. There are simply incompatible world views that if forced to co-exist, people literally they want to kill each other. Also don’t forget what Facebook did in Burma (different topic).@taylorlorenz
(Part 2)So I think federation more closely matches the pre-social-media world where there were pockets of society that just didn’t interact with each other. And as a result they were distant and didn’t want to kill each other. It’s necessary I think, there just can’t be a common denominator of human discourse.
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@taylorlorenz Number one for me is, 'You are not making some rich **** even richer.' Secondly, you have better, more meaningful conversations.
@taylorlorenz @jackyan this. And thirdly, you're speech isn't limited by the rich ****s.
You can say that JK Rowling is a massive TERF.
And you can block US politicians. Your eyeballs are not directly funding ICE publicity campaigns via advertising.
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@taylorlorenz @jackyan this. And thirdly, you're speech isn't limited by the rich ****s.
You can say that JK Rowling is a massive TERF.
And you can block US politicians. Your eyeballs are not directly funding ICE publicity campaigns via advertising.
@Phil_Tanner @taylorlorenz Excellent points, Phil!
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I’ve been asked on TV hits and interviews lately to explain why decentralized social media is better, especially re: Mastodon.
How would you explain the benefits of a platform like Mastodon and the fediverse to someone in just a few sentences? How would you make the argument that platforms like Mastodon allow for more free expression than big tech controlled apps?
Would love to hear people’s thoughts! Trying to make my arguments most effective
@taylorlorenz How would you? When your bluesky is 1000% more active
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I’ve been asked on TV hits and interviews lately to explain why decentralized social media is better, especially re: Mastodon.
How would you explain the benefits of a platform like Mastodon and the fediverse to someone in just a few sentences? How would you make the argument that platforms like Mastodon allow for more free expression than big tech controlled apps?
Would love to hear people’s thoughts! Trying to make my arguments most effective
@taylorlorenz You formulate your own algorithm using hash tags. Nothing is suggested to you. There are no ads. Thus, on your feed, you see only what you want to see and connect only with the people and businesses you want to be connected with. Yet, you can still scroll and snoop around the entire space if you want to.
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I’ve been asked on TV hits and interviews lately to explain why decentralized social media is better, especially re: Mastodon.
How would you explain the benefits of a platform like Mastodon and the fediverse to someone in just a few sentences? How would you make the argument that platforms like Mastodon allow for more free expression than big tech controlled apps?
Would love to hear people’s thoughts! Trying to make my arguments most effective
@taylorlorenz tell them it’s just like bluesky, but all of their marketing lies are actually true here
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I’ve been asked on TV hits and interviews lately to explain why decentralized social media is better, especially re: Mastodon.
How would you explain the benefits of a platform like Mastodon and the fediverse to someone in just a few sentences? How would you make the argument that platforms like Mastodon allow for more free expression than big tech controlled apps?
Would love to hear people’s thoughts! Trying to make my arguments most effective
@taylorlorenz
I would say that we can observe big US tech media. If there is anything which points to problems in the US governments, the government forces them to remove it. The same also applies to the individual companies which enforces their own censorship - "if CEO is not happy with it it may get removed" (or if there may a an issue with removing it directly, the suggestion algorithm will never pick it)
