I’ve been asked on TV hits and interviews lately to explain why decentralized social media is better, especially re: Mastodon.

[futurebird@sauropods.win]

@diraquel @taylorlorenz

Yeah I low key hate the chronological feed. I wish I could customize it more and design my own algorithm so I didn't miss posts from people who don't post frequently, for example.

I will take it over an algorithm I can't control, however.

The big sell for me is no ads, including fake bot accounts that are just selling something or pushing something. Getting out from the bubble of influence of the worse people in the world.

[utopiarte@tupambae.org]

@futurebird
I guess, and understand, that there are different ways to engage with social media and suppose that in particular exposing yourself on sites like twitter can lead to a standard strict behavior when it comes to putting yourself out there.

At the same time, asking "the community" about input and muting most of it by default is kinda not useful.

anyway
.. a pretty face of a women that shows her teeth will always have her fellowship ..

[crazydutchy@tulipgardenshow.masto.host]

@Mastodon @taylorlorenz I especially prefer how my timelines are in chronological order rather than some random order based on algorithms no regular user understands. Also, Mastodon allows the use of third party apps, so I can pick one that best suits my needs as a blind user. Most of the other big tech companies no longer allow this. And their native apps or websites are not very user friendly to me.

[samvarma@fosstodon.org]

@taylorlorenz No algo pushing content; community-based content moderation vs top-down; open-source, auditable software

[utopiarte@tupambae.org]

@futurebird
> so I didn't miss posts from people who don't post frequently

You can set notifications for profiles by activating the bell.
It would be neat to customize that more to incial post's, not necessarily answers (or rehares).
And a timeline only for original toots, not reshares of profiles would be fine.
(anyway, that are mastodon specific details, from over here that's different all together)

@diraquel

[ijimkoz@mastodon.social]

@taylorlorenz I would compare it to email. No one company owns all the email providers, but they all talk to each other.

[catnip@mastodon.online]

@taylorlorenz No one can ever own it or sell it.

[adarsh@ruby.social]

@taylorlorenz No ads. That’s it.

[jeffreysmith@mastdn.social]

@taylorlorenz

Your trust in posing the question to us makes the case: on the fediverse one may crowdsource knowledge without a commercially focused algorithm polluting the interaction with wasteful content.

[atomicpoet@atomicpoet.org]

@futurebird @diraquel @taylorlorenz I also like how the Fediverse forces you to see things you wouldn’t otherwise encounter because you previously didn’t have any interest in it.

That said, it would be nice to find more people with similar interests.

[kung_fu_emu@mastodon.social]

@taylorlorenz Think writing and books. Humans have had writing for millennia, books for centuries. But it was the printing press that democratized the written word. The pamphlet and broadside replaced the tome and codices. With the passing of the monastic requirement of manual copy, suddenly the voices recorded were not solely those at the pinnacle of power. Decentralized, in a very important way, means all of us.

[mizblueprint@mastodon.online]

@taylorlorenz
Social media with:
No ads
No algorithm
No oligarchs

[contrasocial@mastodon.social]

@taylorlorenz

I usually lead with the concept that the infrastructure of the fediverse is controlled by its community, not a corporation.

The critical part is understanding that the constellation of servers where all this is hosted is owned (or atleast paid for and administrated by) people and not profit-seeking corporations.

[gnomon@mastodon.social]

@taylorlorenz fediverse platforms are like a table at the local weekend market: anyone can set one up, dirt cheap, little to no infrastructure, small audience, supported by other folks doing the same thing. Perfect place to sell your watercolours or canvas for support for adding speedbumps on that residential road that Uber has been directing drivers to take at 60km/h.

It's not Wal-Mart, it never will be, it doesn't want to be. It's different, and for a bunch of folks it's a lot better.

[mahadevank@mastodon.social]

@taylorlorenz i have a take with respect to police work and surveillance. With decentralized networks, digital surveillance becomes unnecessary and criminal circles can be tracked in the traditional way, by infiltrating their Mastodon servers.

Finding criminal networks in a large centralized network requires scanning every single message and networks s can't be found so easily because the volume of random interactions and noise.

[lottajg@mastodon.social]

@taylorlorenz if nothing else its a blissful respite from the corporate and advertising hellscape that predominates the majority of the internet.

[amblergee@indieweb.social]

@taylorlorenz no black box algorithm predicting / influencing / controlling the information I see !

[dannotdaniel@hellions.cloud]

@taylorlorenz I really struggled to boil this down in a quote toot but I'll try for a simpler answer here: it's ELON proof

^{and custom emojis}

[healyn@normal.style]

@taylorlorenz it feels smaller, in a good way. Less performative, easier to choose the people with whom you interact. Larger platforms naturally become hierarchical, this place is more of a community as long as you're not trying to speak *at* people (my experience, anyway)

[ramshackle@rwn.lol]

@taylorlorenz@mastodon.social cannot be bought by musk, Ellison or any other oligarchs