| ▲ | MrDresden 3 days ago |
| I notice that Mastodon is only mentioned in the article in terms of protocols, but to me the killer feature there is the absolute lack of an algorithm. Nothing is ever pushed on me by the platform, so the whole experience doesn't become combative. That does mean though that each user has to do some work finding others they like, and that can take some time. But that also weeds out those that just want to be spoonfed content, which is a plus. The last three years on there have been some of the most wholesome social media interactions I have had in the last 25 years. |
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| ▲ | pxoe 3 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| Mastodon literally has a trending feed. Is that not an "algorithm"? It has algorithmic popular hashtags, news feed, and user recommendations. Just a bog standard handful of algorithmic surfaces, so why are they still pretending like it's "algorithm free" is beyond me. "Absolute lack", right. |
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| ▲ | proactivesvcs 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | The Trending feature is not pushed into the home (or any) timeline. In the Web UI it sits unobtrusively in the corner of the window and on some apps simply does not exist. It can also be easily disabled. In the discourse about social media, the term "algorithm" is exclusively used to refer to purposefully-maligned algorithms engineered to addict and abuse people. Nothing about any of the Fediverse services is designed this way because they're not chasing money or engagement, they're made to help people converse in a human way. | | |
| ▲ | pxoe 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | If you're not logged in, the evil algorithmic trending feed is literally the first thing you'll see being pushed onto you. (seems like it's a default setting, because it's that way across several different instances.) So what's the truth? Seems like an incoherent position to me, especially given how mastodon itself advertises it as "no algorithms". It doesn't hold true when you can immediately see algorithmic feeds, at most charitable it's confused, at worst it's just a barefaced lie. So it's literally just "bad algorithms" (the ones other platforms make) and "good algorithms" (the good algorithms good platforms make, like us). Which is kind of literally how it is, there are good ones and bad ones, except both of these kinds of platforms employ "bad" engagement driving discovery algorithms, so it's really just 'us vs them'. The trending and news algorithms are literally just driving engagement and discovery, and top hashtags feed is proudly clamoring how much engagement there is. Doesn't seem like they're not "chasing" it. | | |
| ▲ | proactivesvcs 3 days ago | parent [-] | | You seem to be purposefully mixing the two opposing uses of the word "algorithm". On the non-abusive platforms, an algorithm is a fairly simplistic set of criteria that are designed to be useful to the human beings that use a service. If you want to, you can inspect the code used to generate them; the likes of Mastodon don't hide how these work because they aren't trying to harm anyone. I think this is the part of Mastodon's code that calculates the Trending page: https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/tree/main/app/models/tr... These sorts of algorithms tend to promote posts or people that have recently been popular for the purpose of being useful to folk. On the likes of tiktok, facebook and twitter they are the culmination of very large sums of money and an ocean of professional psychological collaborators with the aim to purposefully harm and addict people, e.g. to manipulate public opinion and democracy, incite the suicide of transgender people and the perpetration of genocide. For money. I find it difficult to believe that you're arguing, in good faith, that the two types of "algorithm" have much in common. I am not sure how it is "evil" showing recently-popular posts on a social media server's home page to logged-out people, and how that's pushing anything. It's not an agenda, it's not a series of posts that are picked because they are likely to addict and enrage people. I do suspect that there's some ragebait that shows up, because some people are still having to unlearn the indoctrination they're suffering from. | | |
| ▲ | pxoe 3 days ago | parent [-] | | It's totally fine if people would just say it like "bad algorithms" or "good algorithms", but somehow the meaning of the word "algorithm" in itself got so twisted that it apparently means "bad" just on its own. Which looks idiotic if you realize that everywhere there are algorithms, even in those platforms that claim to be "no algorithm/algorithm-free" or whatever other meaningless duplicitous marketing drivel they dress it up with. From where I see it, it's some other people that purposely mix the meanings there, while also overlooking how some arbitrary "good" or "unremarkable" things just kinda silently get a pass, despite being functionally the same thing. Almost to the point where you could just advertise as "no algorithms" (whatever that means) and just have algorithms anyway, and it's kind of whatever. It's not "evil" to be showing an algo feed per se. But mastodon and a bunch of other platforms refer to algo feeds as "bad/evil" or something of the sort, market themselves as not having them, and yet thoroughly employ multiple algo feeds. Is that not just hypocritical? It looks glaringly dishonest. They could at least have some integrity to say "we don't like the yucky algorithms, but here we only have good™ algorithms", when that's literally what it is. |
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| ▲ | diggan 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | > In the discourse about social media, the term "algorithm" is exclusively used to refer to purposefully-maligned algorithms engineered to addict and abuse people. But I feel like it misses the point. What about a service where you can design and use your own "algorithms", and it's built into the platform? Such a platform would have thousands of algorithms, but none of them designed for chasing money or engagement, just different preferences. But Mastodon could still claim "We don't use The Algorithm and is therefore better than other places" while a platform with custom user-owned algorithms could get the best of both worlds. | | |
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| ▲ | beej71 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | In this context, "algorithm" means something that gives you the endorphin hit and keeps you scrolling. Facebook is "algorithmic social media", whereas Mastodon is not. | |
| ▲ | esafak 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I suggest calling it a 'ranking algorithm' or 'engagement-driven ranking algorithm' to be more precise. | | |
| ▲ | pxoe 3 days ago | parent [-] | | That trending feed on mastodon would still literally be that, ranking posts on how much they're engaged with and further driving engagement on the platform. So I'm just wondering what hairs are even there to split. | | |
| ▲ | esafak 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Yes, but trending posts are a sidebar, not the main show, right? |
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| ▲ | diggan 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Not to mention "sort by most recent from accounts I follow" is an algorithm too. I feel like the wording needs a bit of rewording/rework. I agree chronological order facilitates better discussions, but just saying that "Mastodon lacks algorithms" doesn't really help people understand things better. |
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| ▲ | robin_reala 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Exactly. My three internal rules for a good social media experience (ymmv) are: 1. No algorithm beyond most-recent-first 2. Stick to a maximum of ~250 following 3. Pay for the service instead of ad-supported I can easily do all of those on Mastodon. |
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| ▲ | pndy 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Mastodon and fediverse despite not running on algorithms sadly aren't free of spam and bots - probably nothing nowadays is. Last year in February there was a flood of messages attacking less populated instances, with... Spam can image in message body. What grinds my gear after this attack is that majority of mastodon clients doesn't offer a simple way to block instance that would limit unwanted posts. Some even don't have that feature at all. |
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| ▲ | tokioyoyo 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Unfortunately, we discovered that people would rather be told what to watch, rather that self-discover their interests, because that’s a lot of “work”. |
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| ▲ | zoul 3 days ago | parent [-] | | I hope it’s not that black-and-white, that it’s possible to have a sane social network with algorithmic feed, only we need to design the algorithms around users’ needs first. | | |
| ▲ | tokioyoyo 2 days ago | parent [-] | | If you judge users’ needs by “things they’ll pay attention on and engage with”, well… it is exactly what all the current algorithms are good at right now. It’s just, in my opinion, bad for the society at large, as rage baiting, slop-posting and etc. is great in achieving that. |
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