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She has a real good example of how algorithms on platforms like Instagram not only try to make you addicted but also divide us even more
I real LOVE the fact Mastodon and most of the Fediverse software avoids this all together
People keep saying that Mastodon doesn't have this problem "because no algorithms," but Mastodon absolutely does have this problem.
For example, whether or not a fediverse user sees this post that I'm writing right now, depends on whether or not their admin thinks that they should see posts from hachyderm, or from me in particular. 
Someone is still deciding which replies you see and which ones you don't see, presumably for your safety and enjoyment.
@stux@mstdn.social@mekkaokereke True but it does NOT serve you posts based on who you are, you are and what you like to fuel the fire even more 
The only thing that could happen is that posts are missing because of blocks indeed
@stux @mekkaokereke and if someone from my instance is following or boosting the comments. That's probably a pretty big factor too.
Unless you use a client like moshiodon that fetches comments from the origin instance as well
@shadowwwind @stux @mekkaokereke Moshidon does it automatically itself? O.o
Yes it does. It's just slower and more manual.
Because in Mastodon, a boost is closer to a "like" on other platforms.
If I start boosting a lot of crypto spam, mods on other servers will be like, "Crypto spam?! Seriously?! What happened to him?! This dude sucks now! Hachyderm, handle that, or else!" Then if Hachyderm doesn't, other admins may defed Hachyderm, or block me individually.
Instances that don't like people that like crypto spam, don't let their users see my posts.
On all platforms, a like and a boost communicate two things:
1) I enjoyed this! (Enjoy)
2) Other people should see this! (Visibility)
On a platform like TikTok, the "like" button gives a score of 1.0 to "Enjoy" and N<1.0 to "Visibility." TikTok gives the "repost" button a score of N>0.0 to "Enjoy" and N<1.0 to "Visibility."
Mastodon gives the "like" button a score of 1.0 to "Enjoy" and 0.0 to "Visibility." It gives boost a score of 1.0 to "Enjoy" and a score of 1.0 to "Visibility."
@mekkaokereke Is that based from the code?
@mekkaokereke Also, replies are always in the "same order", ofc sometimes some are missing due to blocks or non-federated etc
But it won't give a per-user based selection of replies based on once interested/gender etc
I count that as a win
Maybe?
Other social:
"Everyone sees every reply! But we fiddle with the order!"
Mastodon:
"Not everyone sees every reply! But the order of posts that are seen, is guaranteed to be strictly reverse chronological!"
Different trade-offs inherent in the architecture of each.
I've posted on here before about how Mastodon's trade-off makes it much easier to racially abuse Black people in the replies, and puts more of the burden of reporting that abuse on victims rather than the community.
@mekkaokereke @stux Honestly speaking as a social media abuse survivor – as a survivor of abuse by these very social media platforms, by their interfaces, by their affordances, by their (deliberate) limitations – all things that can be called “dispositives of power”, following Michel Foucault's theory –, I can tell you without a shadow of doubt that Mastodon makes people more violent and that other social media platforms like Diaspora* are, at worst, sponging negativity coming from other social media platforms, including Mastodon, as well as other forms of AFK oppression.
I do not meant that there would be no racism problem over here, or that it would boil down to an attempt at open sourcing tobacco. There's a lot of important stuff to be said about it, about the whiteness of the communities involved on Mastodon, including the open tech community and unfortunately too many activist, antifascist circles. But I also notice that the perpetrators – who could be prosecuted according to the French law – are themselves stuck in echo chambers, in a form of double exploitation as makers and consumers of assets, in a mostly closed circuit, isolating them from a differentiated society that would therefore fit into Erving Goffman's theory of “total institutions”. This is the result of deliberate design decisions from Twitter, but also from Facebook and Instagram, of which Mastodon, as a Twitter clone nostalgic of the “good old times”, isn't sanitized (and isn't meant to be).
As a result, many Mastodon users are disenchanted toward open tech because they expected this pile of glittery poop to save their lives, whereas it's doing too little for them, and often begrudgingly. This is why we should all, including white people, put more attention and funding into Aer0h's work on Fipamo.
@mekkaokereke @stux what was the reasoning behind the “me, receiver and my followers” visibility setting? It seems custom made for harassers…
@mekkaokereke @stux Other social would be better described as:
“Nobody sees every post or reply. We choose which posts and replies you see and in which order based on categories that our advertisers care about that we don’t disclose to you.”
And Mastodon is:
“By default, everyone sees a subset of replies based on the community instance they are a member of, who they follow, and who other people in their community follow, and how much of their timeline they bother reading. But anyone can also choose to see the replies as the original poster sees them. And everyone can choose how the replies they do see are ordered.”
Absolutely different trade-offs in each.
I wish there were more people in the fediverse as a whole who would quote-repost racists and other bigots behind a content warning and with a hashtag that let the rest of the community find the bad actors and report them.
CC: @mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io
The "No Algorithms" crowd falls into the trend on #Mastadon of being technophobic.
There is nothing about having an #algorithm sorting posts that has any moral value one way or the other whatsoever.
Nor does the "simple" algorithm of Mastadon lack any moral implication.
The issue with #Instagram is that it's maliciously designed with dark patterns.
The optimal solution is to design algorithms with the positive intentions.
(D.Burch) 
@AeonCypher @mekkaokereke @stux (aka non-capitalistic in nature)
@mekkaokereke @stux do you think there would be technical (let's call them) interventions that could help address this problem? After all, you seem to be working on a related domain in one of the most resourceful organisations in the world.
@mekkaokereke @paninid @stux I’ve been using the Like button for all the wrong reasons. I tend to use it to acknowledge I’ve read something. 
@ramsey Using 'like' as a read-receipt is totally fine
The main thing it does is let the author know you read the post, and presumably approved
For DMs it's a useful way to acknowledge the message without posting another message yourself
For public posts it's a useful way to let the author know you'd appreciate more, similar posts or support their position. Boosting would usually be even better since it would spread their post to your followers; unless the author wouldn't _want_ publicity
@mekkaokereke I agree on the theory, but I think a difference between Mastodon and other social networks is that the (default) algorithm feeding you the posts won't be based on your own Enjoy or Visibility scores. You can like or boost whatever you want, the algorithm won't use that to decide what you'll see next. @stux
But it will be based on the "follows" of people close to me.
On Mastodon, if someone on the same instance as me follows someone, it can change the posts that I do or do not see. That's a fun side-effect of the trade-offs that Mastodon's algorithm uses.
I'm not sure that's strictly better than personalizing what I do and don't see based on what I like? Again, I think the challenge is in who gets to choose that personalization algorithm, and the objective function.
@mekkaokereke Ok, I see what you mean! Sorry I tend to forget it because I'm alone on my instance 
. As I understand it it's more of a technical constraint than a design choice, but you're right: it's hard to tell if it's better or worse than a feed based on your Visibility/Enjoy/Whatever scores.
To be fair, even putting that issue aside, I'm not sure if a doctored feed is better or worse than a purely chronological one. I think I like the chronological one because it makes more sense to me and it gives me a feeling of control.
Also I'm not sure of all the meanings "better" or "worse" could have in this situation. :D
Yup!
I'm that weirdo that used algorithmic social media, but constantly fought the dark UI patterns to keep setting my feed back to chronological! 
@mekkaokereke @stux I see your point to an extent but there’s still a big difference here.
Those are admins using Mastodon as it was designed and in line with their values. It’s part of the core point of Masto’s defederated architecture.
It isn’t an algorithm tuned to create maximum outrage bait and making weird decisions on what content to show each user based on psychological manipulation. It’s just humans deciding on content based on their choices and instance users making THEIR choices.
I mostly agree. But instance users aren't completely making their choices.
For example, the replies that you do or don't see, are based on who the other users on your instance follow. They're also based on your admin's values, not necessarily your values.
On Mastodon, instead of clustering you into a virtual cohort based on your interests, you have to manually find your own cohort (move instances). If no exact cohort already exists for what you want, you must create one.
@mekkaokereke @chartier @stux I wish Mastodon would lean more on sending people to the original page. I keep the mental model of an RSS reader in mind, that I can read stuff in the client but I need to click through to see everything.
I think Mastodon's desire to emulate Twitter keeps them from embracing UI affordances like a "See full comments on original post" button or something. I'm not saying they made the wrong choice, just highlighting the design decision.
@mekkaokereke @chartier @stux interestingly, it seems that https://phanpy.social supports something like this
jwz wrote a good explanation of how Mastodon’s reply functionality should/could have been architected, which I agree would have been a great improvement. https://www.jwz.org/blog/2023/08/mastodons-mastodonts/
@george @mekkaokereke @chartier @stux Incidentally, some of the Misskey clones get this right. You're told up front that you won't see all replies unless you go to the original profile.
I agree that Masto tries too much to emulate Twitter, and in general Fedi tries too hard to emulate corporate media. Just because YouTube, Instagram and Twitter are separate services doesn't mean we need PeerTube, PixelFed and Masto instead of one general-purpose service, for example.
@cholling @george @mekkaokereke @chartier @stux Personally managed blogs, blogrolls, RSS and trackback pings pretty much had almost everything right except for ease of entry. I was using an awesome feedreader that I ran on my own server that had bayesian boosting model that allowed me to control the algorithm. Just didn't have the network effects of facebook, etc.
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