I feel like the decentralization of media is happening but it's so fucking slow and confused. The public interest perspective is like the last reason anybody considers. Routing around government, corporate and billionaire control over what we think and pay attention to is why this all really matters. #LiberalValues#AttentionDemocracy
It feels like @zuck is fucking with me. By rolling out federation, #threads becomes THE place for journalists to leave #xitter for. So of course #meta is doing everything possible to discourage conversation about the news there. It will never be the place for community without group functionality, and it won't serve influencers when people can avoid ads and algos but keep their social graph. #AttentionDemocracy
#Ghost implementing #ActivityPub is huge for the concept of #AttentionDemocracy. Their articles will be native to the #SocialWeb. The boosts, likes and comments will be on a writer's work (and often their own website/domain), not on separate posts that reference the piece locked up in a variety of corporate platforms. Making it much simpler for the great stuff to go viral, unlike with RSS or email. This functionality is our killer app here. It will make so much more innovation possible too.
Post.news shutting down. I think the largest fault was that it was JUST news. I guess for pure news junkies that’s great, but it’s not enough - you need to be tied into larger social networks.
Agree with Tim, federation is key. Not sure how they would have managed the paid posts, but they could have tried.
an open protocol for money transfer (not crypto) is the holy grail here. I think "news" is the most important thing here but a basic level of community feeling is also required to make that work. #AttentionDemocracy
For me, the #SocialWeb is about news. Those I follow determine the river I see here, only their boosts deciding how likely I'll see a post (but we're not supposed to see everything). Hashtags should let me filter that by subject matter. Replies should be nested with the most popular on top. Keeping news aggregation (#lemmy, #kbin etc) as a separate service from microblogging (#mastodon etc) is a failure to take advantage of what makes open networks so much better than closed. #AttentionDemocracy
This medium is about news, not your friends and family. The public square. Spreading the best info, ideas and art. Never as safe as a close knit community. It can't serve both functions, at least until we have a good version of groups here. #SocialWeb#AttentionDemocracy
"We're not decentralizing for the sake of decentralization. We're decentralizing because it allows us to reach towards that terminal value of cognitive liberty." - @mmasnick
Thinking and talking about why the #SocialWeb matters is so needed. I love the earlier examples in the show and agree that no ads or owner run algos improves our CL, but by following others who follow and boost others etc, the freedom is very limited by their choices. I prefer #AttentionDemocracy.
The biggest problem in a predominantly capitalist democracy is that money becomes power, so that as wealth concentrates, a few interests overwhelm those of the general public. Lessening the opportunities for money to decide what we pay attention to and how we understand the world via media ownership and advertising, would help a lot. That's why I prioritize both the decentralization of and direct and automatic funding for media. #SocialWeb#AttentionDemocracy#LiberalValues
the fedi is culturally revolutionary. as everyone joins and we plug our decentralized social graph into everything, it will allow the public to decide what information , ideas and art goes viral worldwide. removing the power that money had via ownership of big media corporations and advertising. it's so much bigger than most people are thinking about. #AttentionDemocracy
Listening to #JonathanHaidt on #JRE talking about social media. I used to love Haidt but he has become a fearmonger. A former liberal who no longer trusts that people can adapt. He doesn't seem to know alternatives to corporate algo platforms exist. I think the #TikTok zombie issue is naturally going to fade as people realize it's not good for us. I just hope too many of us don't throw out the civic value of social media along with it. #LiberalValues#AttentionDemocracy https://pca.st/rah37y5y
For me, it's #AttentionDemocracy. Adding an attention layer to the open web, so that now we can not only post anything to the world, but it can earn eyeballs. That we all decide what info, ideas and art should go viral, not money. It's so huge and only possible here. I fear that the failure to see this potential, or the pursuit of other goals, will impede us from getting there.
As the network is decentralized, counting these numbers will always be inaccurate and other counting methods yield different results,but this is still something to celebrate.
As of 13:12 (GMT+1) on the 18th of March 2024, Mastodon now has 15 million user accounts.
I believe in the ability of this network to steadily grow, but never explode in size to subsequently burst like a bubble. I believe in this approach of social networking and that it is the more human-oriented, non-commercial approach we need in order to fix our societal, personal, and political divide.
We are here because we disagree with our data being harvested in order for our “free” communication platforms to be maintained. We disagree with locking users into an ecosystem and removing our ability to choose which platform to call ours.
We are here because we disagree with profit-driven social networks entirely.
I'm here for #AttentionDemocracy. That the best info, ideas and art should go viral because we the people find it most valuable, not media owners or advertisers. Decentralized social media solves the original web problem of everything being available but much of the best stuff never getting seen, unless it was mentioned in old mass media. The next steps are better norms/tech for welcoming all perspectives while lessening harassment. Then automatic decentralized donations.
I want the public to take back control over what gets attention. I think that's required to have a working democracy. I think everyone replacing the programming decisions of corporate media and the algorithms of big tech with a decentralized social graph without ads is key. Our thinking will be influenced by others. The question is can we better control who will be doing that, so that it's varied and of the highest possible quality. #LiberalValues#AttentionDemocracy#fediverse#OpenSocialWeb
One interesting lesson about the #fediverse is that centralization and algorithms are not all bad.
Centralization for managing block lists, and a simple algorithm that shows you posts popular in your network, so that your friends who live in different timezones don't need to repost their posts every few hours.
I know some will disagree, but to me the fediverse is not about being against these things on principles, rather approaching them more thoughtfully.
strongly disagree probably because we disagree on what it's fundamentally for. until we have greater agreement on this, it's gonna be a struggle here. competing priorities.
I believe it's for #AttentionDemocracy. an attention layer on the #openweb. centralization threatens this. same with algorithms to the degree that they are centrally controlled or we're all convinced to use similar services etc.
I am against #algorithms we don't control period. I am even against algorithms we do control for feeds. But I am for algorithms we control when looking at hashtags. Let me sort that. I want to know what's the most popular hashtag or the most active post with a hashtag I follow right now. I want to be able to jump into great conversations when people are commenting. That's part of the public deciding what goes viral and how our culture evolves. #fediverse#OpenSocialWeb#AttentionDemocracy
Sometimes I feel like a fish screaming about the water. How all the things every other fish is concerned about is a result of what we're swimming in. And that we could make life much better for all of us fish if we just first recognized our larger predicament. #ThisIsWater#AttentionDemocracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Is_Water
Decentralized social media is about managing attention in the public interest. We decide together what goes viral. The info, ideas and art that will change culture. #AttentionDemocracy
The problem is any group deciding for us. Legacy media hates that big tech usurped that power via social media platform algos. They want it back and the ad dollars that go with it. That's the battle you're seeing play out in media and Congress.
And they both don't want people to know we even exist. #uspol
When Hillary Clinton led a neocon takeover of the Democratic Party in 2016 we warned that this would lead to further wars in both the Middle East & Europe, and possibly lead to WWIII, Democrats denied it was possible. Biden, who is less hawkish than Clinton, shows what we warned about could, and now has, come true.
thanks for writing. my view is that democracy can work, but it needs a well informed populace. Capitalism has value, but it's insatiable. It has corrupted what people know and focus on and views we hold, through media ownership and advertising. Decentralization of media and direct support of journalism etc can fix that, then we can fix everything else. The fedi is a big first step that I call #AttentionDemocracy. Next is a way to auto fund media creators we consume.
Boostable decentralized LIFO social feed services (like #mastodon) should implement a reddit-style rating system (but absolutely only for replies). It would make conversations here much better, deal with the #ReplyGuy problem and give us a better version of the #CommunityNotes feature they have over at #Xitter.
Big love to everyone leaving #substack but for me, it's just about killing another centralized platform. And I want them to die because it's a roadblock to the #AttentionDemocracy that I see as essential to society and culture improving ASAP. The public freely making these decisions about what art and ideas go viral and get paid is much better than a concentrated few who happen to advertise, own media companies or have the right connections.
With #ActivityPub, could you have no character limit for the size of posts but then have them for replies? Posts (like articles) should go viral, replies should make for a great conversation and not deter from further engagement.
I think the core of the #fediverse is virality, what I call #AttentionDemocracy. that everyone could be here. that we all could collectively what information, ideas and art becomes important in the culture. no longer mass media owners and advertisers.
but could conversations be better here? what if comments all worked like reddit? if only replies had up/down votes, otherwise everything flowed like mastodon etc. hashtags functioned like subreddits etc.
I call it #AttentionDemocracy. that the best info, opinions and art goes most viral as decided by the public. via boosts, assisted by comments. but to maximize this, we need everyone on one network with an open protocol fully implemented. every item (article, video, podcast, song etc) should be native to the social network, not requiring a link to it. and no ads or algos giving anybody but who we choose to follow, extra say in who sees what.