In the beginning of 2010 I was registered to over 150 social media sites. The rise of the social media were exciting times. There were rarely any algorithms, no TikTok, no Instagram for Android, no ads on Twitter.
However, over the years everything went to shit. The social media sites died one by one and couple of the dominating players slowly shifted to platforms where your data was no longer yours, where you were the money machine. The sad thing is, most of the people didn't even notice this change.
I have now almost half of the followers here when compared to the amount on the bird site when I left it. I know metrics don't matter but in terms of the "critical mass" there's way more activity in that number than on Twitter ever or that I ever anticipated. #Mastodon#Fediverse#SocialMedia
"Twitter feels a little emptier, though certainly not dead. More like the part of the dinner party when only the serious drinkers remain. Whiskey is being poured into wineglasses, and the cheese plate has become an ashtray. It’s still a great time — indeed, it’s a little looser — but it also feels as if many of us are just avoiding the inevitable."
"Kein tragfähiges Geschäftsmodell": Twitter-Klon Parler verkauft und geschlossen
Die bei Rechten beliebte Twitter-Alternative Parler wurde übernommen und geschlossen. "Kein vernünftiger Mensch" glaube noch an das Geschäftsmodell, heißt es.
Yesterday after over a decade on the #birdsite I was randomly trolled for having visible pronouns, in response to a message on a serious topic.
As such this #morning I’m making a point of making sure my pronouns are visible on every single one of my #socialmedia accounts until their use doesn’t generate this kind of response… they were missing on my #Mastodon profile, not any more.
#Twitter Users With a Million Followers Are Getting 'Paid' Blue Checks, Like It or Not
“Wait I’m crying they’re giving them for punishment now,” Chrissy #Teigen tweeted.
[...]
"Disturbingly, accounts from people who are" dead — including Anthony #Bourdain, Chadwick #Boseman, and Kobe #Bryant — have also received the paid blue checks, obviously without being able to consent."
Day 177 and #Twitter users are surprised that #ElonMusk’s decision to remove #bluecheck validation is causing chaos and the creation of impersonation accounts. That could never have been predicted?
#Decentralized#SocialMedia is the solution for exposure to willful and arbitrary behavior by egomaniacal billionaires
Is #Substack a Nazi bar ... or simply misunderstood?
In this article I discuss the interview that started it all, social media's response to it, why top down moderation is not the solution and why #SubstackNotes is not a Twitter killer.
PS: Please be civil and courteous in the comments. I know it’s a controversial topic for some, but let’s learn to listen to each other :)
Thank you James for your expert guidance and UMATV Urban Media Arts (formerly Malden Access TV) for helping the SPARTA Seniors Show Ep7️⃣ become a reality!
And it was great to see amazing friends, who are doing much good for our community💫
#Mastodon, despite having more than 11 million users, is largely based on enthusiasm and unpaid work.
That's not sustainable, especially not, when the #Fediverse keeps growing and more people come here, that don't want to idealistically build the future of #SocialMedia, but just microblog, share pictures or connect.
Someone has to pay for server costs and stuff like that, but the work to moderate the content shouldn't need to be done for free either. So we need a financing model.
At the same time, #Mastodon is explicitly designed so that business models such as #Twitter's do not work. Advertising can't or shouldn't pay for the costs, like on other #SocialMedia.
Hope is pinned on companies and organizations setting up instances for their employees. Here the funding would be clear, but except for some industries with employees in the public eye - such as the press (like my emploeyer @heiseonline) - I see no reason why companies should do this on a large scale.
I can think on one other alternative, at least in countries with big public boradcasters, that have money. Here in #Germany, @ZDF has made public, that they are working on a #Twitter-alternative. So clearly they think, it's their mission, to provide a #SocialMedia-plattform.
So then, why reinvent the wheel? Just set up a #Mastodon or #Fediverse-instance for the public, that already funds the broadcaster. So we would pay, but not a new fee, but with existing costs.
What do you think ☝️? If I am wrong, why and where? Who should pay the costs of a #Mastodon with say 100 million users?
I'm not talking about the tech-savvy people hosting their own instances, I'm talking about the broader public, that could one day migrate here from #Twitter and the other #SocialMedia.
If we don't get us – and later them – used to the idea, that all this here costs money, I don't think, this is futureproof.
Pondering the state of Twitter alternatives (six months post-Musk-takeover of Twitter):
Mastodon: here seems one of the most popular of the alternatives so far. However, the difficulty for the average person to sign up for or use it still holds it back. (You lost them at "pick an instance".) I see a lot of tech-related users jumped ship for here, but not as many creative users (comics/music/TV/etc.).
Starting tomorrow, I will do my best to have Social Media Detox weekends, which means I will not use any social media on Saturdays and Sundays, including chat modules such as Facebook Messenger.
And to be fair, Mastodon and Calckey are also included in this experiment. Join me if you want, and let's share our experiences on Monday.
I've just done an experiment that shows that #mastodon is vulnerable to the same bad incentives as any other #socialmedia platform e.g. #twitter or #reddit
I posted this stolen meme about #AI and #ChatGPT :
Es ist schade, dass immer weniger Webseiten RSS-Feeds anbieten, da ich gerne auf diese Art und Weise relevante Themen verfolge. Ich frage mich, ob es eine Möglichkeit gibt, RSS-Feeds zu erstellen, wo keine vorhanden sind. Habt ihr hierzu Empfehlungen? #RSS#Feeds#SocialMedia
“The Ukrainian people are resilient, we know that,” he said. “But don’t confuse resilience with not needing help. They are resilient because they have no option.” -Julio Salado