@George B

Not having a recommendation algorithm for people to game helps a lot

that's just it. here in the real fediverse you either intentionally have to follow an artificial account filled with slop or a human account who repeats slop.  such accounts would not last long in my timeline ...

@JimmyB (he/him)

no one has suggested you’re not free to decide.

I’m just pointing out the immense privilege of being able to do so.

but you do. you are trying to induce a guilty conscience in me by referring to some fictitious priviledge, that i could do nothing about if it existed.

so it will always be: i am to decide about my spending. and folks running up to me saying, gimme money i'm needful, or i'll say you're priviledged will not be on my receivers' list ..

@JimmyB (he/him) i don't know what "legitimate" should be in this respect. organisations and people known to me from other circumstances are believable. and as i said : everybody is free to ask, and i am free to decide ..

@Jan Penfrat and that is only the federal bill for m$. there are 16 länder with m$ bills, practically all municipalities ....

m$ get much more than only than 500mio € from german administrations ...

@Randahl Fink of course people and organisations can ask for money here in the fediverse. but if that's all they do i will stop following them and when they show up in other followers' comments will mute them.

this is a very good point:

I support recognized aid organisations, but these direct requests make me concerned, because as a Mastodon user I have no way of verifying if the requests are legitimate, or some nefarious person is pretending to be a person in need.

so i mostly ignore such requests ...

@oldguycrusty i don't get it! why do you post screenshots of a text, meticulously add all the text of the screenshot to the alttext instead of just posting the text yourself??

@Megan Marie Hart well the more people you get in contact to the higher the possibility some of them are ungood ..

@Street Art Utopia but some are! look at the musk!