The thing is that #RSS is the best. Social media sites don't like RSS because it breeds independence. Which is exactly why #creators should be using and promoting RSS. You can whine about the #algorithm or you can work on freeing your self from its clutches.
Why are algorithms called algorithms? A brief history of the Persian polymath you’ve likely never heard of.
Over 1,000 years before the internet and smartphone apps, Persian scientist and polymath Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī invented the concept of algorithms.
If you are coming from Twitter, you understandably may feel like it is a lot quieter here. Mastodon is not "dead," but there is no #algorithm bombarding you with stuff. Here you develop your own user experience by searching out and following people and things that interest you. You can pretty quickly build a much more satisfying experience, but it takes a little effort. Following #hashtags is a good way to get started. Be patient and join in conversations.
Imho all #governments in all countries on all levels should communicate via the #fediverse, instead of via commercial services. Why should a profit-maximizing feed #algorithm, and an ad placement algorithm get between the citizen and their government in a democracy?
a lot of time you will hear things like “there’s no algorithm here” and “you are your own algorithm”. these are fundamentally unhelpful, as they explain the technological background but not the practical differences, so let’s break this down.
what does a social media #algorithm do? mainly 3 things.
*1. it prevents you from ending up with an empty home timeline when you first sign up. meanwhile, mastodon and many other fedi tools just put you on an empty screen.
*2. when you have run out of new posts in your curated timeline, an algorithm adds additional content. now, how does it do that?
*3. it observes the kinds of posts you interact with, what accounts you follow, who they interact with, etc. to calculate your interests, with some nasty side effects such as amplifying controversy.
so when people say “you are your own algorithm”, they mean that step 3 is what you need to do in order to achieve 1 and 2.
find out what kinds of posts you like and follow those people and hashtags. seek out groups (yes, we have groups!) and follow them, too.
scan local and federated timelines for good stuff. browse other servers’ local timelines.
check out the people getting boosted and linked into your feed and see if they are worth following, because clearly your friends like them! click on random strangers commenting in a thread. you can be sure they aren’t nazis.
instead of training an algorithm to recognise your interests, and training YOURSELF to adapt your behaviour for controlling the algorithm, you need to manually populate your timeline. the trade-off is you are free to interact in any way you like. no unaccountable machine will interpret your criticism as recommendation. no data siphon is analysing your posts for hints on what to try to sell you.
Nothing new, but maybe a little unusual: Using boids as alternative to Lloyd relaxation and/or Poisson-disk sampling. The boids here are using only two behaviors: local separation, plus a randomized attractor to create global disturbances. Cell density could also be varied by spatially adjusting the separation distance between boids. Overall convergence/relaxation can be much faster than shown here...
Mastodon is built differently. Just like the birdsite, you won't see every toot in existence but the 'why' is different. On birdsite, an #algorithm decided. Here, it's your #social connections that truly, organically determine what you see.
It works because it gives you control over who you interact with, and the people you interact with shape the timelines of you and all your neighbors.
It's smart to follow alot here on #mastodon because unlike #centralized#socialmedia where they feed you all sorts of shit based on their (manipulated) #algorithm, you aren't getting one damn toot until you fill your follow count. You have to follow a lot to get a rich experience.
That needs to be hammered for new #fediverse accounts: follow, follow, follow. Then follow some more.
Between that and the esoteric mystery of picking a server, a lot of people just don't get it.
I love that posts on Mastodon are in chronological order in the feeds. I feel like I discover interesting accounts that I wouldn't find on other platforms because the other platforms have an algorithm.
“It is expensive to spread disinformation and propaganda…Every time you boost a post, every time you comment, every time you share a post that is telling the truth or exposing the truth, you are costing those who are spending disinformation money, because they are going to have to spend way more to counter whatever it is you are sharing.”
I think this is correct in the aggregate for #socialMedia that is #algorithm-driven (i.e. basically everything outside the Fediverse). If you set your posts to public, the posts that you share and boost will eventually become recommended to people at the margins, and will cost disinfo vendors money to counteract. https://newsie.social/@LALegault/111427360189023183
The thing about #Threads not using #hashtags AND not supporting text search - it places you entirely and completely at the mercy of the #Algorithm. Yes, there are ways to fine tune the algorithm, but you are still at its mercy.
Question for anyone who is working on self-driving taxis here in #sanfrancisco ... What happens if someone barfs in the car? Is there some kind of barf recognition #algorithm that tells the car to go back to the depot for cleaning? #autonomouscars
Almost everyone on here points to the lack of an #algorithm as an advantage, but I think it does somewhat disadvantage users from less fedi-online timezones.
I hardly encounter anyone during regular hours in the GMT+5:30 timezone.
Interactions spike past 11pm for me. #Requests or questions I post during (my) regular hours get lost under everything else.
There are some definite downsides for people outside Europe and the Americas.
When coming back from the algorithmic social medias I always feel warm and fuzzy inside knowing the fact that on the Fediverse boosts really matter, because they make the posts pop up naturally as there is no "For you" feed. It's actually fun to boost posts here, because you know YOU are the algorithm. It's more fun and meaningful that way.
I tried to do a Tik Tok video about how the online safety act would censor content and it was ironically throttled for mentioning categories that would be censored. I think we ought to try and use different platforms to reach people about digital rights issues but those platforms don’t make it easy to do so. #censorship#digitalrights#algorithm