Co-founder of Twitter joins new Mastodon board of directors. Right, so federating with Threads wasn’t a mistake. This is just the direction Mastodon is going. Oh, well. Another Mozilla emerges.
Recently I came across an article in Mint Lounge where journalist Shrabonti Bagchi shares the following regarding Mastodon.
I do have an account on Mastodon but even signing up for it feels hard and difficult to understand (what are “instances”?). I don’t want to be on Github, I just want my daily dose of LoLs and fights with men’s rights activists.
It is unfortunate and surprising that Shrabonti Bagchi found Mastodon challenging to understand and signup. She is a senior journalist and her opinions will obviously influence readers in India. It seems likely that her ideas on Mastodon are not isolated. I read and appreciate many of her columns or reports on Mint Lounge.
The best analogy of Fediverse, including Mastodon, is email. If we understand Gmail, GMX mail, Proton mail, Tuta mail, Outlook mail, Yahoo mail etc., then we should understand Fediverse. Fediverse is a collection of interconnected servers, also called instances, that run software compatible with a set of open protocols. Isn’t that similar to email?> Fediverse is a common name for social media sites that cooperate instead of competing. One can sign up for just one site, and follow anyone in the world, just like sending them an email.
In my opinion, the sign up process, in any Fediverse instance, is much simpler compared to X, Instagram, Facebook etc. All one needs is a verified email account, username and password. What further simplification is required?
This article also provides excellent clarity regarding what is Fediverse and how it might affect creators. I will be glad to help anybody get started with Fediverse.
Journalist Jason Koebler reaffirms my thought that an instance of Fediverse is not difficult to sign up and use. Though he talks about Mastodon here, it is applicable for Fediverse.
So, Mastodon:
Not difficult to sign up for
Not difficult to use
Has an app like every other social media network
Not owned by world’s richest man
Not owned by a company whose main platform has been credibly accused of facilitating genocide by the United Nations
Not funded by the guy who made the last place, which sold itself to the world’s richest man
Doesn’t have a crypto thing going on
Free and open source
Administered by a crowdfunded nonprofit
Decentralized, portable, and interoperable
I have been contacting Indian media outlets and journalists via email and private conversations for the past few weeks, asking them to publish their work on Fediverse. They most likely know everything there is to know about Fediverse and Mastodon. Since I value their work and thought that having them in Fediverse would have been advantageous for them in the mid term, I made the requests. My requests were met with silence and nominal response. They prefer Facebook, Instagram, X and Threads since they believe that they can connect with their audience better than those few in Fediverse.
Now, after reading Jason Koebler's article, I have a better understanding of this context.> Anyways, I am using Threads, and I will continue to use Threads, because I am a pragmatic person who wants to connect with readers wherever they are because my livelihood and my reporting relies on it. If Threads "wins," I will submit and use it daily, probably for the rest of my career. Right now, I feel like my brain is falling out of my skull at all times because in order to spread the articles we publish on this upstart website, I need to think about the slightly different ways in which I will share it on Twitter, Mastodon, Threads, Instagram, LinkedIn, BlueSky, TikTok, etc. All things considered, I’d like to pick one and stay there, but that will result in fewer people reading our work and not meeting our readers wherever they are, which isn’t a smart move at this juncture. So, I’ll keep using Threads, but I will not become an evangelist for one of the biggest companies in the world because it is slightly less bad than the alternative, when an actually moral alternative with none of that baggage exists.
Ever since FOSS.IN, Bengaluru has always been a home of Free and open-source software developers, evangelists and enthusiasts. I believe that is just a matter of time before Fediverse is lovingly embraced by Bengalureans.
ActivityPub (a W3C standard) based Fediverse provides several benefits compared to traditional centralized social networking platforms such as decentralization, user choice, reduced risk of data breaches and misuse of personal information, enhanced user control, increased resiliency, greater leeway for content creation, alternate monetization models, self hosting etc. Nearly all Fediverse platforms are free and open-source software.
I look forward to you, Bengalureans, joining The Fediverse and actively participating with vibrant posts using the hashtag #NammaBengaluru. However, in reality, many of us are not using hashtags. So I created a new Fediverse Group.
If anyone mentions the address !@nammabengaluru in a post, it will be boosted to everyone who follows the Group. (Note: adding ! at the start of the address will not boost the post). For now, I have chosen to add a restriction of approving new followers. Only public posts and replies are boosted. Private messages to the group are rejected.
This is an interesting observation. Let us appreciate the fact that, to the best of my knowledge, Linux Bangalore and later FOSS.IN were pioneers in creating awareness of Free and open-source software in Bengaluru and, to some extent, rest of India. Also Atul Chitnis is no longer with us, since last eleven years, to pariticpate in such discussions. That chapter is closed and we have moved on.
Impact of social media and instant messaging apps on interpersonal relationships
My Perspective
Instant messaging apps like WhatsApp, Telegram Messenger, Signal Messenger etc. (primarily WhatsApp in India) do boost one to one connectivity among friends, acquaintances and family members. It also helps improve communication related to mostly once in a while transactional and sometimes friendly topics like family matters, medical, school and college education, fun side of personal life through photos and videos. Jokes and memes, through forwards, add spices to one to one communication. Group chats and social media like Facebook and Twitter strongly influences one to one communication through instant messengers.
There is another side of instant messaging i.e. the not so nice aspects. Dopamine is a brain chemical that plays a vital role in mood regulation of human beings. It seems that entire society is driven by the feel good factor due to constant availability of cheap dopamine through group chats and social media. Unless it is transactional or related to business, most one to one chats survive as long as the recipients gets positive social stimulus and dopamine influx. It doesn’t matter if something is good or healthy for us, as long as we get that quick dopamine fix.
From my experience of chatting since the days of Yahoo! Chat, I see that loss of reward stimuli and dopamine activity lead to one or both the recipients disengage at the slightest pretext. Read receipts, online status, last seen status etc. further add to anxiety and feeling unimportant or betrayed. There is lack of patience and empathy. Sharing contrarian or critical views, on matters connected to society and politics, often cause functional impairment and getting ignored or blocked.
The day before yesterday, I learned that a neighbour we had known for nearly seven years had passed away. We were not in touch for the last many years. I did think about him a few times during these years and wanted, at least, to send a text message and inquire about his well being. It never happened.
Now the fact that I can never contact him has left an unexplained void in my mind. And also a tinge of lasting regret.
There are many people with whom I should be in touch but this does not happen. I keep thinking if this is the result of a traffic-infested, hectic city life with a terrible work-life balance, my own negligence, or the present impact of social media and instant messaging apps on our lives and societies.
I have lost those days and times when I used to meet people just to spend some time together with no business or vested interests..
The global risks due to misinformation and disinformation may be more than that posed by climate-related risks such as the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem collapse.
On 10th January 2024, Global Risks Report 2024 was published. While climate-related hazards remain a prevalent topic, the report identifies misinformation and disinformation as the most serious short-term threat.
According to the report
"foreign and domestic actors alike will leverage misinformation and disinformation to widen societal and political divides" during the next two years. This risk is heightened by a huge number of upcoming elections, with more than 3 billion people expected to vote in 2024 and 2025, including in major economies such as the United States, India, and the United Kingdom. The proliferation of mis- and disinformation around the world may cause civil upheaval, but it may also lead to government-led censorship, internal propaganda, and restrictions on the free flow of information.
Though the climate-related risks represent 5 of the top 10 threats during a 10-year period as the world approaches or crosses "climate tipping points", I believe misinformation and disinformation will continue to be ranked among top three risks much beyond the next two years. There is apparently no short term contingency plans and long term mitigation plans apart from effective role of independent fact-checking organizations. I do not know how these fact-checking organizations can deal with the assault of bad actors using Generative AI (including deepfakes) that will dominantly contribute to misinformation and disinformation by flooding the global information systems with false narratives in future. Misinformation and disinformation will also aggravate climate related risks. According to a research done by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, we have "reached the tipping point where humans are unable to meaningfully differentiate between AI-generated versus human-created digital content." I am convinced that Zero Trust Information is the right paradigm in this age of ChatGPT, Google Bard and Bing chatbot for regular end users.
Journalist Harini Calamur's article titled "Analysis: The Unbearable Risk of Misinformation" is worth reading. She expresses her deep concerns regarding misinformation and highlights the following.> The rise of misinformation and disinformation as a primary global risk underscores the danger it poses to individuals, societies, and economies. It needs to be addressed with the seriousness it deserves.
The fact that misinformation and propaganda existed even in the Roman Empire and prior to the battle of Actium during 31 BC between Octavian and Mark Antony, shows that the perils of misinformation and disinformation are here to stay with us for ever. Disinformation is a subset of misinformation that is spread intentionally.
The paper titled "The psychological drivers of misinformation belief and its resistance to correction" discusses in great detail regarding why people share misinformation, barriers to belief revision, information to combat misinformation and related practical implications for practitioners, information consumers and policymakers. There is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all answer. In addition to regulations without curbing freedom of speech (which does not include amplification of that speech), the authors suggest that the most important approach to slowing the spread of misinformation is substantial investment in education, particularly to build information literacy skills in schools and beyond.
Overall, solutions to misinformation spread must be multi-pronged and target both the supply (for example, more efficient fact-checking and changes to platform algorithms and policies) and the consumption (for example, accuracy nudges and enhanced media literacy) of misinformation. Non-text-based corrections, such as videos or cartoons, also deserve more exploration. Additional transnational research is needed to explore questions about causality, including the causal impacts of misinformation and corrections on beliefs and behaviors.
Crowdfunded news portals, which are based on donation from individuals while maintaining high stands of accountability and transparency, are a relatively new phenomenon in the media landscape. These new generation news portals have several potential advantages like financial independence, public engagement and diverse content and content creation outside of mainstream media scope.
“The low expected turnout in the upcoming elections reflects a popular rejection of the…political system, which is suffering from a legitimacy crisis and the absence of real opposition forces to vie with the parties in power…”
We have no problem identifying low voter turnout as a consequence of political illegitimacy. People decline to vote because they recognize that voting will not produce meaningful change, because it’s not worth it and because they don’t want to participate in a corrupt system…
…as long as we’re talking about countries other than the US. When US voters withhold their participation, they’re almost certainly going to hear about how they personally want fascism to win. Haven’t you heard that this is The Most Important Election in Our Lifetime? All systemic analysis goes out the window and all we can talk about is personal failure.
“The low expected turnout in the upcoming elections reflects a popular rejection of the…political system, which is suffering from a legitimacy crisis and the absence of real opposition forces to vie with the parties in power…”
People decline to vote because they recognize that voting will not produce meaningful change, because it’s not worth it and because they don’t want to participate in a corrupt system…
You are only highlighting political apathy. That may not be the only reason in India. In mega cities of India, including Bengaluru, the calculation of low voter turnout percentage is wrong due to:
Out-of-sync voter lists in mega cities that have a lot of migration and inter-city movement. It may require significant effort to get the name added in the electoral roll after migrating to another city.
Duplicate entries and improper deletions, during an effort to clean up the electoral rolls, leading to the disenfranchisement of genuine voters.
The above does not necessarily mean that citizens can be absolved. Indian political parties must introspect why their election manifestos and candidates are failing to motivate voters to come out and vote enthusiastically.