 The company that - Ran a secret, illegal, manipulative psychological experiment on hundreds of thousands of users But ooh hey shiny new app let’s sign up I don’t understand people. I just fucking don’t. 120 comments
  @chartier I deleted FB in 2014, never went back. Kept Instagram. Used occasionally for a few years. Really liked the cycling stuff there. Stopped posting a couple years ago. I've got a few local friends and family that are still in both places. I just share with them in Slack or Messages. Hoping Threads will be a gateway/bridge that allows for more open exchange. I'm thinking of it more like email and the open web. Perhaps ActivityPub will lessen the tight grip a bit.  @dennyhenke @chartier No worries. Lucy will almost completely certainly let you kick the football this time, Charlie Brown. @chartier i don't get it either and i'm caught absolutely flat-footed by how many people just walked on up and let Zuck do it to them *again* @chartier I think the answer is simple: people want to be where people are. Given 🐘’s slow adoption and confusing explanations from passionate supporters, it wasn’t really an option for the general public. Threads lets people move from Twitter, maintain that experience, and grow with The New Thing™️, which has a “new frontier” vibe. Convenience will *always* win over practicality when you’re not deeply passionate about the underpinnings of what you’re doing. @alex I get this idea, I do. But are we really doomed to “the literal real-life supervillain wins because they have pretty buttons and maybe a better dialog box?” Like, really? @chartier …Yes. I’m sorry. Because to run a platform at scale that requires tremendous resources. The silver lining in all of this is that Threads may become the gateway to the fediverse as features are slow to implement and the platform becomes more unpleasant. But this also requires Mastodon to address its shortcomings, which… requires tremendous resources. So…  @chartier @cpsask There's this toxic idea in gamer culture of "Journalist Difficulty" in video games; where if the writer isn't 100% an elite pro player in the week or two they had to completely finish it and write their review, they're shitty at video games and no one should listen to them. I... loath this dumb idea.. in video game culture. But I.. am catching myself.. cynically starting to subscribe to it for tech journalists. @chartier I said the same thing when Donnie T. Got himself elected president. A self righteous sociopath is presidential material, seriously?  @chartier But, eek, choose a server myself? That’s a lot of extra thinking (I opted for mastodon, because lazy). Eff Zuck. @wendinoakland That one extra step seems to be a huge deal-breaker which is so… typical.  @chartier exactly my thought, but you've put it into more precise phrases, kudos and thanks!  @chartier Europe will correct America’s internet data trolling. Goat killer and plug head will fake fight for chump change. Threads will be sold off, when enough suckers sign up. I’m staying here. 🫶🏼  Brexit. Brexit is missing in your list. And I don’t understand them either. Never did, to be honest. @dangoodin @chartier And should I really want to quote your post, what could I do? https://infosec.exchange/@dangoodin/110668146289928192 @hengstenberg @dangoodin @chartier maybe I'm using the wrong 3rd party app, but this is how your "quote post" appears to me. That's not particularly user friendly. I have no intent to join threads or blue sky or whatever the new hotness is, but let's not pretend that Mastodon is as easy to use as others. And I could see that being a barrier for some users.  @Emtweetworld @hengstenberg @chartier The entire point of my post is that there is NO WAY to do quote posts. Your screenshot proves my point. @dangoodin @hengstenberg @chartier oh phew okay, same page! I know there are many that argue against it but I really think the lack of quote post hampers discoverability @Emtweetworld @dangoodin @hengstenberg What if we don't need as much discoverability? What if boosting a post is fine, and people can choose to follow that person on their own? Linking a post with your own commentary works great too. People know how to tap on links, I super duper promise. They do. @chartier @Emtweetworld @hengstenberg I get that YOU and other people you know don't need discoverability, but many people, me included, do need it. Mark my words because I'll stand behind them: without a working search capability, Maston will remain on the fringes and be dwarfed by competitors. @dangoodin @Emtweetworld @hengstenberg And maybe that's ok. If people want a toxic environment so badly, maybe they deserve a toxic environment. @dangoodin @ReneeWestberry I don't see how the search box indicates that you can search posts from people on other instances. It's my understanding that the only way to search across instances is with hashtags. Maybe I'm wrong, though? @dangoodin @ReneeWestberry @dangoodin Can’t you just view the Fediverse feed? Find people there? @CarolynStirling @ReneeWestberry @dangoodin Naw, journos don’t do that. We commoners can do it, but they’re better than us. @hengstenberg @chartier @Emtweetworld @dangoodin Why do you NEED discoverability? @dangoodin @chartier @hengstenberg @Emtweetworld Ohhhh. I get it. You’re a journo. You guys seem to hate Mastodon in general, because God forbid you have to actually interact with the unwashed. 😑 @dangoodin There is a lot of discussion off-Masto and -Fedi about why QTs/QPs and search work (or don't) the way they do here. But in summary: QPs *can* be used for good, but arguably are overwhelmingly used for toxic behavior—dunking, harassment, mob mentality, etc. A lot of this comes from people—especially the marginalized—who've been victims of this toxicity. Search, basically the same deal. Tags are a great way to find content you want and opt-in to promote your own. @chartier Those rationales may or may not make sense, but in either case they are dealbreakers that will prevent Mastodon from ever gaining critical mass. Until those features are available, Mastodon will remain a fringe social media outlet. @dangoodin I get that these are features people are used to elsewhere. But this really just sounds like “never mind all the evidence we have that these are features largely used for abuse and hurting real human beings, we want them.” I just fall back to my original statement: I don't understand people.  @chartier @dangoodin Quote posts are on the public roadmap for Mastodon, btw: https://joinmastodon.org/roadmap Personally I think there are other far more important features that need adding first (such as restricting who can reply to posts and other safety measures). Also worth pointing out that there are alternatives to Mastodon that don't have its mindshare (or iOS apps) that already support quoting and more normal search such as Calckey/Misskey/Hometown etc. @JonnyT @dangoodin If it's built with safety in mind *first* I am cautiously optimistic, because I *do* see the upside to them. But these features historically almost never have been. And people unharmed by this stuff just keep trampling on. It's enraging. @chartier @dangoodin I'm hoping any QT/QP feature is opt-in only. Likewise, any full-text search features if ever added. (The one exception I think that should have been available from the start is the ability to do full text searches of your own posts - the absence of this is aggravating and there are no privacy concerns with it, assuming it's technically possible to isolate the index needed so that it's only available to you and you alone). @JonnyT @chartier There are a ton of researchers and journalists who need the ability to do full searches. They will continue to stay off Mastodon as long as it doesn't exist. Sounds like several people in this discussion prefer Mastodon to stay small and allow users to post to only a small number of people they know or trust. That's perfectly understandable. But those people really shouldn't be perplexed or angry about Masodon's low user base. @dangoodin @JonnyT *need -> would like to Great, then maybe there can be infrastructure eventually to allow that, and most definitely some kind of opt-in mechanism for people who want to participate. They don't have a right to anyone's data. This is one of the fundamental values people just accepted because, hey, capitalist hellscape and nothing matters anymore. @chartier @JonnyT I have lots of criticisms of the capitalist hellscape, but I don't think you can pin people's need for full search solely on that. Some people's jobs or avocations require it. And if Mastodon won't provide it (even for legitimate reasons) they will choose to go elsewhere. Bottom line, Mastodon people have to chooses between a small neighborhood where everyone knows each other or a town square with critical mass. It will never be both. @dangoodin @chartier I'm intrigued. You don't have full text search and access to >90% of the content on Facebook yet it's far more significant and important than Twitter ever was or will be. It seems to me that you're measuring an expectation to access to content from the perspective of what happened to be available via a single social media platform - Twitter - that wasn't and isn't available elsewhere. If that's a problem here, it'll be a problem elsewhere too. @dangoodin @chartier I'm not disagreeing with you on that latter point, I fully expect Mastodon to remain a minority platform. But I'm failing to see how access to content here will be all that different on eg. Threads. It's not like Instagram have ever made it easy to get content or data out of that platform so I don't expect they'll do any different with Threads. Bluesky may make it trivial to extract but it's unclear at this point whether or not it'll go anywhere. @dangoodin @chartier I'm of the opinion that Twitter is already dead. I give it 6 months at most. Once it's gone, there isn't going to be another platform with search parity with Twitter. That era of access to almost everything on a platform will die with it. Mastodon could be that but I don't think the ethos of the place and the people building it will permit it. Calckey supersedes Mastodon in terms of search etc but I'm not sure it'll get big enough either.  @chartier @dangoodin I love the word “toot.” Sure as hell beats “tweet.”  Preach!! @chartier Brings to mind these words from Maya Angelou: “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” @terrigarland Yep. And in Facebook's case, the second time, the third, and fourth, fifth, sixth... and 50th.” Sigh. In a few weeks you'll have people who *definitely* don't work for Meta coming to this post and telling you their psychological experiment wasn't that bad and posting links to the paper about it. It happened to me. :blobcatcoffee:  @chartier wrote "I don’t understand people. I just _______ don’t." That's why you're here and they're there. If we can't change people, we can at least build ourselves a safe(-ish) space, and then listen to vulnerable groups about where we're failing and keep trying to do better. What just pissed me this morning was The Guardian. Figured them for some kind of ally, being all lefty and corporation-hating, and all those many Facebook-critical stories. But they've never done a simple "how is this, is it fun" review of Mastodon, ever. But! Today, their top 5 tech stories were all about the exciting new Threads. I nearly unsubscribed. @RoyBrander @chartier The Guardian had lots of articles about Mastodon when Twitter started to implode. That’s how I heard about it and why I’m here at all.  Contributed to Rohingya genocide, don’t forget that. Moderation has been amputated on Twitter and stripped on Google and Meta. Am I going to be able to tell whether the person/account that I am interacting with is of 'threads' or 'meta' origin? ...McRocker.thread? ...because I don't want to hang out with facebookers (do not have an account in that platform) @McRocker Once they turn federation on (AFAIK, they haven't yet) I'm pretty sure that means Threads/Facebook people will have an address that denotes as such. So something like @person@threads.net, so it should be pretty clear. In Mastodon's settings and some apps, I believe you have the option to block entire instances, so that is an option to you. @chartier another mastodon user mentioned going onto threads and making a profile featuring his mastodon address. nothing more. perhaps a try?? @diljot You just trolled me with a link to the company and website I'm condemning. What did you expect? @chartier regardless of their past and intense data collection and poor privacy practices, we all know threads will end up being the most successful and popular implementation of the Fediverse. @chartier when you go against Musk, you just can't get it wrong. My son licked the white urinal block in a public toilet to find out what it tasted like once. I think the same thing is happening here. @chartier It might be because of the perceived "stability" and "safety" large for profit companies like Meta offers. Most people with their very short attention spans likely would probably use a new service from a company they trust, because they used another service from that same company and were satisfied. So why leave and learn about the awesome Fediverse and Mastodon, when you can just sign up for a threads account with your existing Instagram account and start tweeting right away. @chartier At this point i see Bluesky and Threads as part of a new IQ test but it's simply a pass/fail one.  @chartier Zuckerberg's a psychopath. I wouldn't do business with him if he were selling dish soap. The thing is social media requires people. Thread provides easy onboarding for people scared away by Mastodon's quite rough sign-up process. The Instagram connection provides the people and makes them easy to find. A majority of people didn't make the jump over from Twitter and the people that did are difficult to find as they are scattered across the various instances. People still go to nightclubs even when they are owned by gangs. Who owns it doesn't matter; the exp does.  @chartier I forgot about the experiments. I'll have to find news articles so I can reference these in my repo at https://github.com/alexisart/block-meta-from-fedi#whats-this-about @chartier same. Trying not to judge all because for some they need reach, but for the others…shame. all day. @chartier I would offer that we have a lot of new tools that can help with this. A lot of new laws in the EU and the USA as well.  @chartier I hate Meta and hate the idea of joining another platform of theirs when IG and FB suck so much. Also? I need to market my work to make a living and in addition I've had to chase multiple impersonators off of other platforms soooo... not sure what the answer is there. @chartier fuck sake you got a lot of bootlickers DYING to deep throat the newest method of stealing data and manipulation in these comments. @chartier @chartier And then I see posts like that from supposedly smart folks. https://mastodon.social/@gruber/110667962169426329 Some people just can't help it. A lot of people will avoid #meta for that reason. I may have to use #Threads for work.😒 Pros Cons @chartier they don't understand these concepts and their implications, nor do they have the desire to. It's like if I offered my dog a pack of bacon after warning him that it's high in saturated fat. @chartier I think they want that corporate sheen. Threads will make deals with all the big corporations so that they can broadcast their messaging and people will like that. @chartier I think the real answer is that people just don't care or even remember... This is also why they vote for horrible politicians who lie and deceive constantly. Let's be honest, Mastodon is confusing, and most servers (if not all) will be smaller than Threads. People don't want social justice, they want a platform to post their food pics, rant about the football match and maybe occasionally follow a celebrity.  |
Gregory's Server
@chartier There’s a pent up demand for a Twitter-like clone. A lot of people stopped using it post-Musk takeover. The issue was Mastodon couldn’t take advantage of it (not to the same extent). Most of my non-tech friends found the on-boarding UX too confusing and unclear to the layman what picking a server meant.
People are just flocking to the first alternative with good UX they can understand.