Never heard about Mastodon, it’d have been nice if the article explained what it is. Is this yet another startup promising they won’t become a merciless corporation? Great value prop, lol
Mastodon isn't a startup - it's not even a company. It's a framework, like phpBB forums were (are, I guess). Basically, it's a way that anyone with a web server can set up a Twitter-clone site, but - thanks to the ActivityPub protocol - all those twitter-clones can talk to each other, making the whole universe of Mastodon instances functionally one giant social network.
Mastodon:Twitter::IRC:Facebook Messenger
Practical answer:
Mastodon is a Twitter clone that's currently pretty nice and enjoyable by virtue of being small. It's also decentralized, which is a cool buzzword, but also in practice means that it's nicely broken up into a bunch of small specialized communities in each Mastodon instance that can feel pretty cozy and friendly, way less overwhelming than Twitter.
The really unique thing about it is that it's a weirdo open-source-y alternative social network that actually doesn't appear to be dying off like Diaspora or Voat or Steemit or whatever did - it seems to have reached a sort of social critical mass where people are sticking around because they genuinely enjoy the company and interactions with other users, and is growing at a sustainable rate.
Mastodon doesn't use [GNU Social] OStatus protocols as much anymore. Most of Mastodon federation work has moved to the ActivityPub protocol, which as in the nature of most such standards some proponents see as the natural successor to OStatus and others as an incompatible fork.
It’s essentially a decentralized Twitter-like system. There are multiple clients with varying degrees of good UI (textual and graphical).
I felt that the real problem is the same most new networks have: everyone is on other centralized networks
The other problem is discoverability is challenging. My experience trying to find people worth following was kind of meh: it seemed like it was (I’m still not sure if this is accurate) necessary to connect to
Multiple different servers, to follow people who had chosen different servers as their main account.
Maybe it would be better with more usability? But fundamentally it has to compete with network effects of other platforms, and most users simply do not care about centralization: it’s not a selling point, it’s just a fact
Good call. I just added an elevator pitch for what Mastodon is to the introduction. To save you a click:
“What is Mastodon? My elevator pitch is that it’s a social network for sharing short messages, photos, links, and more that is built by and for people. It’s open source and federated, which means there are no ads, no invasive tracking, no shareholders to demand #maximum #engagement, and no single company or server that can be shut down. It already has over 2 million users, and you can learn more at JoinMastodon.org.”
Theoretically, Mastodon is a federated network that exists to enable free speech because of how evil those big corporations such as Twitter and Facebook are.
In reality, Mastodon is just one single network (because who'd want to tweet alone) which is even more tightly moderated than Twitter or Facebook.
That's flat out wrong. Mastodon has over 2 million active users now, so you're not tweeting alone there, and there is not one single network. Different instances federate with each other, and there are lots of different subgroups that focus on all kinds of topics and interests. The model more akin to Reddit subreddits than Twitter in that regard.
THe problem with Mastodon is a) discoverability and b) Twitter-like UI. Both of which I find hard enough to not bother with it at all. (disclaimer - I never used Twitter due to what I think is a horrible UI) I registered in Mastodon long time ago, when first articles appeared, followed some random maybe interesting people, tried writing a few posts and just dropped. I still have client installed on my phone but last time I opened it was half a year ago. And I use other social networks daily.
Instead of writing Twitter clone they should have done a LiveJournal of Facebook clone, with better interface, different approach to privacy and discoverability etc. But being Twitter-like it is simply not that interesting.
The beauty of the Fediverse is interoperability. Friendica (a Facebook-like social network) is currently implementing the ActivityPub protocol, which makes it possible for Mastodon users to follow and communicate with people on Friendica servers.
If you don't like the Mastodon UI you can always try Pleroma, PixelFed or a number of other ActivityPub projects offering wildly different UI's. It's early days still, but the Fediverse is growing steadily.
>They are quickly banned from most instances (think of them like interconnected communities, or servers). The few instances that allow them are blocked by all the others. Toxic actors are effectively ostracized from the greater community.
Is banning and ostracizing for wrong think really the way we want to go? It works as long as you are on the politically correct side.
I was gonna talk about the same thing.
Yes some topics might be black and white, but what about the ones that have a gray side?
There are so many problems that arise, in the same way extremists could gain majority and outcast other people.
This also creates an unhealthy environment in which discussions are not open due to being afraid of being banned.
Expression of the majority over-rules the right of expression and this is not right.
We already know that centralized social media has a huge problem with bubbles right now, and this problem is a direct result of companies trying to monetize the users and keep them engaged.
On the other hand, federation is a self organizing system where the networks grow completely organically. This is much closer to how humans organize and interact offline. Everybody can run an instance, and they can choose how they moderate it and whom they federate with. There's no single company deciding what's right or wrong for everybody. There are going to be all kinds of extreme bubbles, as well as moderate ones, and everything in between.
One thing of note is that unlike centralized systems that completely kick them out, this systems merely sequesters them, so they can still talk among themselves and have no reason to actively fight against the system and constantly create new accounts.
Containment based systems work better for everyone involved.
Flagging posts as nazi and letting users choose to unhide nazi flagged posts is better. Twitter has a NSFW flag and lets users view NSFW with a setting.
What does flagging someone a Nazi mean? Who decides what is Nazism? If I don't like you because you put your left shoe on before your right shoe can I flag you as Nazi and does that filter them propagate throughout the whole system, so now no one can see your filthy left-shoe-first posts?
> Is banning and ostracizing for wrong think really the way we want to go?
Online is different from IRL. IRL, you have an obligation to engage in dialogue rather than pile-on on someone else's pre-existing drama. You cannot simply regurgitate someone else's quotes, . IRL, you are putting your name behind your words, so you can't ghost when you are asked to provide evidence to support your position, nor can you engage in "lol it's just a joke, stop being so serious" chicanery.
Most importantly, there aren't any likes or retweets IRL that incentivize comments with a "mic drop" attitude. You are in conversation with that person only, you aren't performing for the Internet at large.
>you are putting your name behind your words, so you can't ghost when you are asked to provide evidence to support your position, nor can you engage in "lol it's just a joke, stop being so serious" chicanery.
It may not hold true for scripted, time-bound, many-to-one events like talks, but for person-to-person interaction, people see nuance and context more easily, and it's harder to walk out of a conversation because we'd be losing significant credibility in doing so.
That might be fine on Twitter, where no one's going to bother looking through your post history, but again IRL, people aren't randomly looking around for other people to get into arguments with in the first place.
A tactic used by many a racist and misogynist in real life, unfortunately. They manage to make folks attempting to improve the culture seem boring and humourless.
The best advice I ever got is simply to respond to racist or other inappropriate commentary with "We don't do that here." I've used it to good effect to help shape a more pleasant working environment.
Nazis. We’re talking about Nazis. And white supremacists. And “provacateours” or trolls or whatever they’re called this week.
There was a time when the world didn’t just ostracize people like this, the entire planet went to war to stop them. So, yeah. Silencing them on a social media site seems like a decent first step.
Nazis don't exist. They used to, before most of us were born, but they don't exist any more.
Of course those who want to censor will call their targets Nazis, and try to scare people like you by saying that the world will end if we don't censor them.
As far as I know, Facebook doesn't censor revolutionary Maoists or Khmir Rouge sympathizers, and their ideas are easily as dangerous, if any ideas are dangerous. No, we can work through this as a society.
The term I would use is: 4chan users engaged in Live Action Role Playing. They were trying to spook you, and they did, apparently. The most they could muster from the entire world is < 200.
I remember when the media tried telling us about how "Anonymous" were "hackers on steroids" who treated things like a "real life video game".[1]
Yes, there are some creeps out there. But they are not a serious threat.
>The term I would use is: 4chan users engaged in Live Action Role Playing.
Role playing Nazis, by choice. And this wasn't a historical reenactment, or even a skit/play. This was an attempt at showing fear through symbology and crowd size.
You seem to sympathize with them in a very odd manor.
>They were trying to spook you, and they did, apparently.
LOL I see what you pathetically tried to do there.
Please explain, what's so friendly and cuddly about people who's ideology involves extermination of other humans.
>The most they could muster from the entire world is < 200
Not sure what you mean, feel free to clarify.
>I remember when the media tried telling us about how "Anonymous" were "hackers on steroids" who treated things like a "real life video game"
So because one news outlet was wrong one time, we should now disregard all reporting from any outlet till the end of time. Got it.
>Yes, there are some creeps out there. But they are not a serious threat.
You are an expert on what defines a serious threat now too! So in your clearly expert opinion (/s) what is the definition of a "serious threat?"
Fb also doesn’t significantly censor white supremacists or nazis, so what is your point?
Also Nazis do exist - they don’t have an explicit functional party in most countries, but there are plenty of people out there who have adopted the swastika, heil hitler, sieg hiel, the antisemitism and racism (and blaming those groups for their inability to get a job), and mein kampf (that delusional book where me fuckhead falsely claimed he was good at science and maths because of his high quality aryan ancestry). The fact that they are no longer backed by an army doesn’t make them not exist.
If someone acts like a nazi, quacks like a nazi, and outright worships the original nazi leader, they’re nazis.
Good point. There are a lot of dangerous ideas. The best way to counter them is by exposing them to debate and dialogue. Banning them only lets the ideas grow unchallenged.
Except people play the Nazi card for the slightest infringement these days. For example I've been called a Nazi because I wouldn't knowingly date a trans-female with a male genitalia. That in the eyes of these individual made me trans-phobic and thus as bad as Hitler.
I have nothing against banning people doing Nazi salutes or waving Swastika flags or obviously being racist, but these days thous terms have become some watered down that when I hear someone is a Nazi my first instinct is not disgust or hate, but instead my mind goes to "oh someone who said something mildly politically incorrect"
This all is to say that now the term Nazi does not include you and you are all for silencing them, but that does not mean that in the future you might not be painted as one or same silencing won't be used on your views and opinions.
one of the coolest things about mastodon and pleroma is that you can just start your own instance and immediately federate with the rest of the network.
this means that if youre unhappy with the moderation in a community, if you want to own your own data/privacy, or if you want to use self-hosted software, you can just do that with mastodon.
a few weeks back i went through a pleroma guide and set up my own pleroma instance. it only took a few hours, and it has been running for over a month on a $5 Linode (1 GB RAM). i migrated from mastodon.social, and it carried over everyone i was following seamlessly.
i get that the whole decentralized thing has been blown out of proportion in the past, but in the fediverse (mastodon, pleroma, GNU social, etc) it is working quite well.
I set up a private Mastodon server for my family several weeks ago and we're loving it. It's a mighty impressive Rails/React app, very well designed and implemented. I have a few minor UI quibbles based on experience with twitter, but the design is really good, responsive, and snappy.
The kids run Fedilab on hand-me-down, wifi-only Android phones and just go to town with emojis, gifs, and photos. The parents share more of their days with the kids rather than only texting each other.
The setup guide is great--I followed it on a 1GB Vultr VPS and was up and running easily, except for one maddening hurdle, which is that on 1GB server you do need a swap file to successfully precompile JS assets. See [1] for the workaround. I guess this is just normal in 2019. Otherwise all the services run fine with 1GB once compiled.
I wish it supported locking down public posts at the admin level, but that's just my use case. The login system blocks most access, and public posts can be blocked with nginx authentication and tweaking the list of streams flagged public in the streaming service.
Ah, they have a card in progress for a one-click Digital Ocean install [1]. Fantastic! This is an incredible open source project to watch, not your typical library or system service, but a real, polished app.
Polls functionality is in master, just waiting for release. My kids are going to love this.
Admittedly, I spent next to no real time investigating, but I did sign up and attempt to use it after some friends recommended it. There is no way any normal non-tech savvy person is going to go through that many hoops. I also couldn't figure out how to search other servers with any success. So unless I bring people I want to connect with into a server, I'm not grasping what good it's going to do as a social tool.
+1 to this, searching & browsing across instances is a major pain point. To me, joining a Mastodon instance has felt way more like joining a forum than getting on a federated social network.
I still like the instance I joined, though. Really nice people. Check out fosstodon.org if you're interested :)
47 comments
[ 0.92 ms ] story [ 106 ms ] threadMastodon isn't a startup - it's not even a company. It's a framework, like phpBB forums were (are, I guess). Basically, it's a way that anyone with a web server can set up a Twitter-clone site, but - thanks to the ActivityPub protocol - all those twitter-clones can talk to each other, making the whole universe of Mastodon instances functionally one giant social network.
Mastodon:Twitter::IRC:Facebook Messenger
Practical answer:
Mastodon is a Twitter clone that's currently pretty nice and enjoyable by virtue of being small. It's also decentralized, which is a cool buzzword, but also in practice means that it's nicely broken up into a bunch of small specialized communities in each Mastodon instance that can feel pretty cozy and friendly, way less overwhelming than Twitter.
The really unique thing about it is that it's a weirdo open-source-y alternative social network that actually doesn't appear to be dying off like Diaspora or Voat or Steemit or whatever did - it seems to have reached a sort of social critical mass where people are sticking around because they genuinely enjoy the company and interactions with other users, and is growing at a sustainable rate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=IPSbNdBmWKE https://joinmastodon.org/
I felt that the real problem is the same most new networks have: everyone is on other centralized networks
The other problem is discoverability is challenging. My experience trying to find people worth following was kind of meh: it seemed like it was (I’m still not sure if this is accurate) necessary to connect to Multiple different servers, to follow people who had chosen different servers as their main account.
Maybe it would be better with more usability? But fundamentally it has to compete with network effects of other platforms, and most users simply do not care about centralization: it’s not a selling point, it’s just a fact
“What is Mastodon? My elevator pitch is that it’s a social network for sharing short messages, photos, links, and more that is built by and for people. It’s open source and federated, which means there are no ads, no invasive tracking, no shareholders to demand #maximum #engagement, and no single company or server that can be shut down. It already has over 2 million users, and you can learn more at JoinMastodon.org.”
In reality, Mastodon is just one single network (because who'd want to tweet alone) which is even more tightly moderated than Twitter or Facebook.
Instead of writing Twitter clone they should have done a LiveJournal of Facebook clone, with better interface, different approach to privacy and discoverability etc. But being Twitter-like it is simply not that interesting.
If you don't like the Mastodon UI you can always try Pleroma, PixelFed or a number of other ActivityPub projects offering wildly different UI's. It's early days still, but the Fediverse is growing steadily.
But yes discoverability is an issue because it's hard in a federated environment.
Is banning and ostracizing for wrong think really the way we want to go? It works as long as you are on the politically correct side.
There are so many problems that arise, in the same way extremists could gain majority and outcast other people. This also creates an unhealthy environment in which discussions are not open due to being afraid of being banned.
Expression of the majority over-rules the right of expression and this is not right.
On the other hand, federation is a self organizing system where the networks grow completely organically. This is much closer to how humans organize and interact offline. Everybody can run an instance, and they can choose how they moderate it and whom they federate with. There's no single company deciding what's right or wrong for everybody. There are going to be all kinds of extreme bubbles, as well as moderate ones, and everything in between.
Containment based systems work better for everyone involved.
Online is different from IRL. IRL, you have an obligation to engage in dialogue rather than pile-on on someone else's pre-existing drama. You cannot simply regurgitate someone else's quotes, . IRL, you are putting your name behind your words, so you can't ghost when you are asked to provide evidence to support your position, nor can you engage in "lol it's just a joke, stop being so serious" chicanery.
Most importantly, there aren't any likes or retweets IRL that incentivize comments with a "mic drop" attitude. You are in conversation with that person only, you aren't performing for the Internet at large.
Except many times none of these hold true.
That might be fine on Twitter, where no one's going to bother looking through your post history, but again IRL, people aren't randomly looking around for other people to get into arguments with in the first place.
A tactic used by many a racist and misogynist in real life, unfortunately. They manage to make folks attempting to improve the culture seem boring and humourless.
The best advice I ever got is simply to respond to racist or other inappropriate commentary with "We don't do that here." I've used it to good effect to help shape a more pleasant working environment.
There was a time when the world didn’t just ostracize people like this, the entire planet went to war to stop them. So, yeah. Silencing them on a social media site seems like a decent first step.
What about communists? Communism killed a lot more people than the Nazis. Will communists be banned too? Antifa? Black Lives Matter? Nation of Islam?
At least you are honest about favoring censorship on the platform.
Of course those who want to censor will call their targets Nazis, and try to scare people like you by saying that the world will end if we don't censor them.
As far as I know, Facebook doesn't censor revolutionary Maoists or Khmir Rouge sympathizers, and their ideas are easily as dangerous, if any ideas are dangerous. No, we can work through this as a society.
Censoring everything is letting them win.
So what's the term for a bunch of white guys shouting "Jews will not replace us" while holding swastika, iron cross, and Nazi eagle symbols?
I remember when the media tried telling us about how "Anonymous" were "hackers on steroids" who treated things like a "real life video game".[1]
Yes, there are some creeps out there. But they are not a serious threat.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=128IR21ZQa0
Role playing Nazis, by choice. And this wasn't a historical reenactment, or even a skit/play. This was an attempt at showing fear through symbology and crowd size.
You seem to sympathize with them in a very odd manor.
>They were trying to spook you, and they did, apparently.
LOL I see what you pathetically tried to do there.
Please explain, what's so friendly and cuddly about people who's ideology involves extermination of other humans.
>The most they could muster from the entire world is < 200
Not sure what you mean, feel free to clarify.
>I remember when the media tried telling us about how "Anonymous" were "hackers on steroids" who treated things like a "real life video game"
So because one news outlet was wrong one time, we should now disregard all reporting from any outlet till the end of time. Got it.
>Yes, there are some creeps out there. But they are not a serious threat.
You are an expert on what defines a serious threat now too! So in your clearly expert opinion (/s) what is the definition of a "serious threat?"
Also Nazis do exist - they don’t have an explicit functional party in most countries, but there are plenty of people out there who have adopted the swastika, heil hitler, sieg hiel, the antisemitism and racism (and blaming those groups for their inability to get a job), and mein kampf (that delusional book where me fuckhead falsely claimed he was good at science and maths because of his high quality aryan ancestry). The fact that they are no longer backed by an army doesn’t make them not exist.
If someone acts like a nazi, quacks like a nazi, and outright worships the original nazi leader, they’re nazis.
I have nothing against banning people doing Nazi salutes or waving Swastika flags or obviously being racist, but these days thous terms have become some watered down that when I hear someone is a Nazi my first instinct is not disgust or hate, but instead my mind goes to "oh someone who said something mildly politically incorrect"
This all is to say that now the term Nazi does not include you and you are all for silencing them, but that does not mean that in the future you might not be painted as one or same silencing won't be used on your views and opinions.
this means that if youre unhappy with the moderation in a community, if you want to own your own data/privacy, or if you want to use self-hosted software, you can just do that with mastodon.
a few weeks back i went through a pleroma guide and set up my own pleroma instance. it only took a few hours, and it has been running for over a month on a $5 Linode (1 GB RAM). i migrated from mastodon.social, and it carried over everyone i was following seamlessly.
i get that the whole decentralized thing has been blown out of proportion in the past, but in the fediverse (mastodon, pleroma, GNU social, etc) it is working quite well.
The kids run Fedilab on hand-me-down, wifi-only Android phones and just go to town with emojis, gifs, and photos. The parents share more of their days with the kids rather than only texting each other.
The setup guide is great--I followed it on a 1GB Vultr VPS and was up and running easily, except for one maddening hurdle, which is that on 1GB server you do need a swap file to successfully precompile JS assets. See [1] for the workaround. I guess this is just normal in 2019. Otherwise all the services run fine with 1GB once compiled.
I wish it supported locking down public posts at the admin level, but that's just my use case. The login system blocks most access, and public posts can be blocked with nginx authentication and tweaking the list of streams flagged public in the streaming service.
[1] https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon/issues/5836#issuecomme...
Polls functionality is in master, just waiting for release. My kids are going to love this.
[1] - https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon/projects/8#card-185452...
I still like the instance I joined, though. Really nice people. Check out fosstodon.org if you're interested :)