Is #mastodon becoming an echo chamber?
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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 threads and bluesky are single monolithic platforms. masto federated. so would likely depend on which masto server someone's posting on i'd guess as a starter...
also, purely anecdotally/for my own part, there's less of a culture of boosting/liking/trying to make things go viral for the algorithm. lack of apparent engagement may not signal lack of people actually reading posts/following links/etc.
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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 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.
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@scottjenson @carnage4life threads and bluesky are single monolithic platforms. masto federated. so would likely depend on which masto server someone's posting on i'd guess as a starter...
also, purely anecdotally/for my own part, there's less of a culture of boosting/liking/trying to make things go viral for the algorithm. lack of apparent engagement may not signal lack of people actually reading posts/following links/etc.
@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)?
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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 Or maybe we all come here to get away from the politics and the AI BS
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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 So is the only alternative "number go DOWN" metrics? I'm not trying to be snarky, I'm trying to find a way to have both be possible: how can we keep our soul but still have a diverse community.
My concern is that your comment uses the "we don't want a number go up mentality" argument to hide the fact that our community is a mono culture.
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@scottjenson @carnage4life Or maybe we all come here to get away from the politics and the AI BS
@ben But that's the very definition of a mono-culture. A vibrant community allows all of these topics, encourages them even. Then, with filters, who you follow, hashtags, and blocking you get the feed you want.
To get the culture you want by cutting off the supply is counter productive.
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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 I do not think it is becoming an echo chamber as much as it was literally built to be one. We're all on these separate federations, and only if you put particular effort into it do you see posts from other federations.
I bet if I posted to mastodon.social, I would get more traction on some of my posts. But also, I would not be able to have any kind of readable local timeline.
I bet I could manually edit a deck together for both but... even I don't, because UX.
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@scottjenson @carnage4life I do not think it is becoming an echo chamber as much as it was literally built to be one. We're all on these separate federations, and only if you put particular effort into it do you see posts from other federations.
I bet if I posted to mastodon.social, I would get more traction on some of my posts. But also, I would not be able to have any kind of readable local timeline.
I bet I could manually edit a deck together for both but... even I don't, because UX.
@scottjenson @carnage4life Bluesky on the other hand resolves this (partially) with its starter packs. The user experience being that you essentially subscribe to 'sections of interest' (e.g. as if federated, but technically not so), but still see the overall system of all posts from anyone ever, if you would like to.
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@scottjenson @carnage4life I do not think it is becoming an echo chamber as much as it was literally built to be one. We're all on these separate federations, and only if you put particular effort into it do you see posts from other federations.
I bet if I posted to mastodon.social, I would get more traction on some of my posts. But also, I would not be able to have any kind of readable local timeline.
I bet I could manually edit a deck together for both but... even I don't, because UX.
@RYStorm
Sorry but I'm not parsing "I bet I could manually edit a deck together for both but... even I don't, because UX."Could you explain that a bit more?
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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 Not sure why a journalist would be disappointend that people hate "AI".
Generally taking engangement as a KPI for journalism is understandable for obvious economical reasons. But I don't want to be engaged by journalism. I want be informed and often enough also left alone and look at kittens and nerdy projects instead. -
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!
Anecdotally, the last few times I have seen a Bluesky user mention Mastodon it's been to complain they see "trolls over the bridge". Screenshots refer to servers I never see on fedi actual.
1) there's a lot more diversity on ActivityPub than is visible
2) it may be the kind most mainstream fedi servers block as trolls
@scottjenson @carnage4life -
@scottjenson @carnage4life Bluesky on the other hand resolves this (partially) with its starter packs. The user experience being that you essentially subscribe to 'sections of interest' (e.g. as if federated, but technically not so), but still see the overall system of all posts from anyone ever, if you would like to.
@RYStorm Well, we're releasing our version of starter packs in just over a month so hopefully that will help.
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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 always has been, to be honest. Niche platform means you need to be fed up with mainstream enough to leave your friends, high barrier to entry and general decentralization struggles cause mostly technical folks to be here. Not surprised, that the opinions here are quite homogenous
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@ben But that's the very definition of a mono-culture. A vibrant community allows all of these topics, encourages them even. Then, with filters, who you follow, hashtags, and blocking you get the feed you want.
To get the culture you want by cutting off the supply is counter productive.
@scottjenson @ben I think that is in parts what happens. I noticed that my timeline, thanks to blocks and mutes has become quite monotone.
To get out of that, I recently went to some instances outside my bubble and follow (more or less) random people.
As a thought bite: I think in the earlier days the federated timeline countered this experience better, but AFAIK as part of UX improvements for instances like mastodon.social that has moved more out of focus.
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@scottjenson @carnage4life Not sure why a journalist would be disappointend that people hate "AI".
Generally taking engangement as a KPI for journalism is understandable for obvious economical reasons. But I don't want to be engaged by journalism. I want be informed and often enough also left alone and look at kittens and nerdy projects instead.@mormund And you have every right to do that. But do that with filtering/blocking/hashtags. Don't do it by chasing away people that want to be part of the community. "Gatekeeping" is not a good look for an "open social" network.
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@scottjenson @carnage4life Bluesky on the other hand resolves this (partially) with its starter packs. The user experience being that you essentially subscribe to 'sections of interest' (e.g. as if federated, but technically not so), but still see the overall system of all posts from anyone ever, if you would like to.
@scottjenson @carnage4life To be clear here, I am unhappy with both Mastodon and Bluesky, but they are both the best options out of all available. I wrote about Bluesky's issues here: https://bsky.app/profile/rystorm.com/post/3lq2n5oahs22y
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@patrick_h_lauke So is the only alternative "number go DOWN" metrics? I'm not trying to be snarky, I'm trying to find a way to have both be possible: how can we keep our soul but still have a diverse community.
My concern is that your comment uses the "we don't want a number go up mentality" argument to hide the fact that our community is a mono culture.
@scottjenson sounds a bit like "people don't engage with my content, so it's a monoculture"?
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@scottjenson sounds a bit like "people don't engage with my content, so it's a monoculture"?
@scottjenson the alternative is a "number mean NOTHING" metric...
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Anecdotally, the last few times I have seen a Bluesky user mention Mastodon it's been to complain they see "trolls over the bridge". Screenshots refer to servers I never see on fedi actual.
1) there's a lot more diversity on ActivityPub than is visible
2) it may be the kind most mainstream fedi servers block as trolls
@scottjenson @carnage4life@osma The number don't lie, active users on Mastodon are going DOWN not up, we're hemorrhaging users, most likely because we're chasing many of them away with these 'purity tests'. I certainly am not experiencing this diversity you are referring to.
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@RYStorm
Sorry but I'm not parsing "I bet I could manually edit a deck together for both but... even I don't, because UX."Could you explain that a bit more?
@scottjenson Sure: I use the 'deck' view of mastodon. I have a home column, a local timeline column, and a notifications column.
I do not have a simple + button on the right side of these columns to then add more columns such as timelines from other servers. I know there is another gamedev server out there, and I would like to read their posts too. And I would like for them to read mine. But there is no way for either of us to easily do that, so we just stay blind and confined.
