Every now and then I hear conversations from outside of here about "the state of social media" and let me tell you: People are suffering. People are miserable. Many people feel addicted to social media but unable to have positive and valuable interactions in the space. Mostly, in the profit-driven social media space negative emotional reactions glue eyeballs as well as positive, so a heap of the experiences is just ... unpleasant.
Getting popular on the fediverse isn't really possible. People who are famous outside of their internet presence may draw large following, but these people also tend not to be as engaged. Moderately large accounts that I follow are people who make me happy mostly?
"Hate following" is hardly a thing. Arguments happen but I've witnessed a shocking amount of... reconciliation. "I misunderstood your post." And at worse people just seem to mute out.
The simplest is homogeneity. There is less distance between the extremes of opinions so there is less cause for conflict. And I don't think homogeneity or worth bragging about.
But, I also don't think it's the whole story. The model is different. If you have a post that gets shared around a lot it's probably because it has good content: great art or photos, neat information, and interesting take... simply "slamming" some other user isn't something I see much.
Could it be that there aren't people worth slamming? Sort of. But I remember the Facebook group I was once in "NUMTOT" for "urbanists" being more toxic that just day to day fediverse from my perspective. And NUMTOT was great. It was homogenous-- but there was always some painful drama.
I naturally want to blame Facebook for this. I want to claim something in how they select posts promoted conflict. But that is a pretty serious accusation and a big claim.
@futurebird There are terrible people in the fediverse; I've seen them. Some are people who made the jump early on when Twitter and Facebook were making an effort to deplatform fascists, just to evade that sweep on their own little fascist instances.
The difference is that the system isn't automatically pushing them at you. You occasionally see one, you block or even defederate and move on. On Facebook it feels like endless Whac-A-Mole.
@mattmcirvin Yeah I still see these wildly racist nasty posts every now and then— but it’s so rare they come off as funny more than anything. Just this one person missing the whole point of the conversation and trying to get a rise from me. I used to mute — but now I hardly bother to do that.
@futurebird I do, however, think that some of this relative calm is just the effect of lower volume. If Mastodon were as popular as Facebook, things would get bad here too.
@mattmcirvin But NUMTOT was very small too— it just seemed like every bit of drama would keep blowing up more and more rather than dying down. And so think it was because when posts got comments facebook would send them to the people in the group most likely to comment more— effectively putting people who hate each other in a box together over and over. Here if I sense an argument brewing I’m unlikely to boost it (unless I really need help)
When I talk about social media to coworkers or friends not on here people think I'm nuts. "I've love social media, it's so relaxing and fun. Sometimes it's really funny too. I do wish I felt like it helped me to keep up with the news better, but I can read a newspaper I guess."
They just stare and say "what are you talking about? Relaxing? Nice?" They have the look of shell shocked troops back from the front. They have Seen Things.
On Shitter I experienced far less antisemitism than I see here. I know there's more of it and it's likely far worse but because there are so many Jews on there I didn't see it.
Here there's the equivalent of a handful of us and there's just not enough to build the kind of community cocoon Jwitter has still.
I left there for here because I don't want to give that guy money and support the subversion of democracy. And that was the right choice for me politically. But I sure AF miss Jwitter.
So my social media experience is far more negative and limited here in the fediverse.
@futurebird
a thing I think about a great deal: at first, I was very suspicious of facebook and twitter. But slowly, it seemed all the blogging science communicators whose work I read were leaving blogging for either facebook or twitter. So I got accounts on both primarily to keep track of those science communicators. In the long run, I came to regret it, despite my love for their work.
Now it seems most of them have abandoned the fediverse for bluesky.
I see far fewer edgelords, replyguys, and flamers here, and far more trans people than on BirdChan, which is great. It has a calmer vibe, and more meaningful and valuable exchanges from what I have experienced.
On the downside, I lost a ton clinicians when I moved, which is a shame, and I really miss the gay toxicologists who often helped me with my short stories, and sometimes made cameo appearances in stories.
@futurebird part of what makes things better for me here, is that I have a lot more control over what I see, and how much of it. Pretty much total control over my algorithm...no paid advertising sneaking in, no influencers, ability to block non-organic attempts to get into my feed and present disinformation.
That was how things were in the early days of Facebook and Twitter. They changed. I left.
@futurebird Since the whole paid blue checkmark thing on Xitter, I had a nonexistent reach beyond the occasional mutual and the bots. Today I deleted the app from my phone, but keeping my account there to squat my user handle and lookup some things. Locked my account to signal that I'm disengaging from there as much as possible.
@futurebird just today, I had a conversation on here where I pointed out that someone's comment was too focused on the US and I felt they were being limited in their reasoning by it and the person actually took that advice and listen to my European perspective. Unheard of on X where the exchange would have probably ended up with this or that tired French bashing and a block.
@futurebird Very important thoughts, thank you!
Just one note: As a journalist, looking into the worst abysses of the Fediverse sometimes, I can tell you that we do have these extremes, absolutely terrible hateful people, and even propaganda. But the Fediverse is more secure:
🟡 The lack of algorithms does not reward the loud, polarising and haters.
🟡 The report-system is connected to real humans, engaged moderators.
🟡 We have a lot of filtering/blocking variations (and better CW), this means 1/2
@futurebird 2/2 This means that everyone can decide what they see in the timeline and when.
🟡 Bad guys/groups can become effectively isolated by admins/instances. (a famous fediblock was with Gab). And it took only a short time to isolate Russian propaganda accounts.
And then it's as you say: good content is appreciated, also active communication. And people are much more sensible to report the bad guys and fight against them.
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