@wjmaggos@liberal.city
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wjmaggos

@wjmaggos@liberal.city

Host of https://culturewar.radio. An open conversation about the news and views that capture our attention every week. Taking calls live on Sundays at 9pm Central.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

wjmaggos, (edited ) to fediverse
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What will happen first? #x

willoremus, to random
@willoremus@mastodon.social avatar

Deplatforming is out of favor in Silicon Valley. But it works.

A new study in Nature finds that Twitter's mass suspension of 70,000 QAnon-linked accounts after Jan. 6 meaningfully reduced the overall circulation of fake and hyperpartisan news on the platform. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/06/06/twitter-jan-6-deplatforming-misinfo-nature-study/

wjmaggos,
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@willoremus

but it means owners (and the people who can squeeze them) get to make that decision. same with getting the algorithms to boost who/what they want. that's why decentralization matters.

rolle, to fediverse
@rolle@mementomori.social avatar

My experience so far with microblogging services:

Threads: I'm in a wrong party and don't know what to say. I feel awkward, everyone is so happy with their gym selfies. Everyone asking endless questions and asking things from the algorithm. Lots of people use it like Instagram, every post is a selfie with a meaningless caption. Some are copy-pasting the same sentence over and over again for each line. Endless quote-post memes... What the fuck is this shit I don't even...

Bluesky: A Twitter clone, but still very barebones. Notifications are still not working, there are no hashtags and I don't find any relevant content to me in any of the feeds. It's mostly Facebook-like what's up in life, furry scene and AI photos. No news, no tech/web scene, no nothing. Not to mention it's still invite-only and won't support ActivityPub (yeah I know the reasoning behind that but for me it's mostly bullshit, I look forward to trying bridgy fed).

Mastodon and the Fediverse: Here I'm at home on my own server. Most content, most features. A community is friendly but has also lots of nitpicking, some angry dudes. Still the most safest, most healthy and most customized, but somehow the most hated network elsewhere. "Too techie", they say. "Too difficult", they say. "No algorithm", they say.

Nostr: Kinda promising, but way too obscure, strange and even techier than Mastodon. Too much crypto shit.

Well, that's that. Sometimes I feel like Internet is ruined. But I believe in the open social web movement and I want to see this grow.

In no other place I can write a status update as freely as this, as long as this or with a low bar as this. I LIKE this 100%. The same can't be said in those other places I'm experimenting with out of curiosity. There I'm the weird kid. Here I feel like myself.

wjmaggos,
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@rolle

I'd argue that we're stuck cause we're buying into their framing. decentralized social media is a technology, not a corporate platform. email is the best comparison. if you could only email with other Gmail accounts but Gmail was huge with lots of nice features, many would be happy with that. Same with Outlook. But when we explain it obviously shouldn't work that way, they'd have no argument. We're clunky like email was at first, but we'll obviously get better with more user adoption.

GottaLaff, to random
@GottaLaff@mastodon.social avatar

Via Robert Reich:

The “I won’t vote for the lesser of 2 evils” rubbish

“So 1 of the noms from 1 of the 2 major parties is going to win. & if you don’t vote, or you vote for 3rd party candidate, you’re inevitably hurting the candidate from 1 of major parties who’s closest to you in values — & helping the 1 farthest from you… as GOP has gone fascist, w unhinged at its head, potential consequences of your not voting or voting for a 3rd party candidate are horrific”
https://open.substack.com/pub/robertreich/p/the-i-wont-vote-for-the-lesser-of?r=br61&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

wjmaggos,
@wjmaggos@liberal.city avatar

@GottaLaff

every vote is a compromise if you're not the candidate, but I've been alive 45 years and never not been told that we can't afford to vote third party this time. even with the electoral college for president in solid blue states. and I know Democrats are constantly pushing back against . and where is the public option Biden promised? vote strategically but also support reform. it just gets so tiresome.
https://time.com/6112318/american-democracy-final-five-voting/

wjmaggos, to RSS
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The use of email and could mostly disappear if there were dedicated apps to ingest/parse feeds and read or listen to articles. The bonus being that we'd also have comments and virality. Then podcasts and video too.

wjmaggos, to fediverse
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right now I love . but something like a Personal Data Server that I can keep at home or pay somebody to manage, move whenever I want and connect to any new service that somebody develops, seems like the inevitable way forward. a blob with all my stuff as safe as I am willing pay for, where these companies are competing to be the most trustworthy and reliable. instead of having it spread out everywhere or with Google or Apple. and them pushing me to use their services.

wjmaggos, to bluesky
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My read on is that they are effectively sucking the air out of the decentralization balloon, whether they intend to or not. On the tech side, the will prevent much decentralization from ever happening and divert the focus that was on development. On the culture side, they deter a critical mass from developing here, which we need to overwhelm the influence of our most annoying users and lure in the people most people want to follow and interact with.

wjmaggos, to fediverse
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looks like it's gonna suck based on what we who most love the care about. My hope has always been that federating would give us the opportunity to convince a huge number of their users to move here based on it simply being a better deal for users (and democracy), since folks would no longer lose their connections. Lock-in has always been the hardest hurdle to overcome. If they're dumb enough to open that door, fuck yeah we'll make the case. Guess we'll see.

wjmaggos, to fediverse
@wjmaggos@liberal.city avatar

Elon freaking out about these companies not advertising with him is evidence that they could all join together and create their own servers on the (and build their own software) and promote it and all their followers would follow them here and they'd be securing their social media freedom and independence forever. Like when AOL was dominant but they all built their own websites and people learned to use a browser. That they have the power in this relationship.

But nah.

wjmaggos, to meta
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So why would federate ?

Listening to @mike and @Gargron, Mike brings up that it's a perfect way to steal usage from . That an open protocol is a huge advantage for creators who now know how closed platforms (and esp Elon) will freely fuck up a platform and abuse the relationship they have with their fans.

So while decentralization seems like bad business, sometimes it's not. And it's a great way for Zuck to get back at a guy he hates.

https://pca.st/episode/22d6d1ac-b74a-46f1-8958-d16bc0442026

wjmaggos, to BBC
@wjmaggos@liberal.city avatar

The now has their own instance. An experiment, but this is exactly what we need, journalistic outlets with their own space on the decentralized . Just like when media created their own first websites in the early days of the public internet (going beyond AOL keywords etc). This place is about news imo, so being embraced by journalists is key. I hope their list of accounts grows quickly, and other outlets follow their lead.

Welcome @BBCRD!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/blog/2023-07-mastodon-distributed-decentralised-fediverse-activitypub

dell, to random

“We must mark him now, if we had not done so before, as the most dangerous Negro of the future of this Nation…”

William C. Sullivan, FBI intelligence chief, on Martin Luther King Jr., Sept. 16, 1963. #MLK

wjmaggos,
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@dell

cc @TheConversationUS

https://theconversation.com/the-most-dangerous-negro-3-essential-reads-on-the-fbis-assessment-of-mlks-radical-views-and-allies-197864

wjmaggos, to reddit
@wjmaggos@liberal.city avatar

I don't understand how @micahloewinger and @onthemedia could cover the drama without mentioning or the fedi, but they did.
https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/episodes/on-the-media-battle-save-reddit-last-good-website

wjmaggos, to fediverse
@wjmaggos@liberal.city avatar

Marketing sucks, but I think we're failing to push the "unique selling proposition" (ugh) of the . So many kinds of social media exist, but this place is about "attention democracy". We are "decentralized boosts with dialogue". That the best art, info and ideas go viral, as decided by everyone collectively. No gatekeepers or advantages for advertisers. It embraces journalism's ideals. It's why it matters at a cultural level. It should be the focus of future development and our message.

wjmaggos, to random
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A great article by @anildash about online abuse. I think we are making progress.
https://medium.com/humane-tech/the-immortal-myths-about-online-abuse-a156e3370aee

wjmaggos, (edited ) to random
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The social network where each journalistic outlet, government agency and institution has its own instance will obviously become the best place for news eventually. Where no third-party can ever decide whether or not we see what gets posted/boosted by the people we follow, and nothing else shows up in our feed either.

It's just taking way too fucking long for them to figure this out and join us here.

wjmaggos, to threads
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The head of Instagram, re said "We're committed to building support for , the protocol behind Mastodon, into this app. We weren't able to finish it for launch given a number of complications that come along with a decentralized network, but it's coming."

I don't believe it. isn't actually decentralized yet either. They will never be truly open like the is. Look at all the good PR they've gotten for promising federation. Standard startup bullshit.

wjmaggos, to random
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Money doesn't trickle down. It rises, like hot air. The more money you have, the more you can make by investing it. The less you have, the quicker the crappy stuff you can buy breaks down. And generally, the less healthy of a lifestyle you can lead, resulting in more health care costs etc. It's crazy that we let that metaphor take hold.

wjmaggos, to TaylorSwift
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wjmaggos, to random
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Great conversation between @mmasnick and @pluralistic. We need a regular show about tech and culture with @Rushkoff thrown in.
https://pca.st/episode/1865e21d-d136-416c-8543-d6331cee5888

wjmaggos, to mastodon
@wjmaggos@liberal.city avatar

I'm less interested in getting to connect seamlessly with than with . Anybody working on this?

wjmaggos, to random
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But conservatives told me the unions and big media were all on the same side. And it's happening while a Democrat is president? Impossible. My black and white conspiratorial brain won't stand for this.

wjmaggos, to threads
@wjmaggos@liberal.city avatar

This is why we will win (if ever fully federates). Over time, people will recognize that algos and ads serve the interests of the platform owners (and maybe the top .0001% of most popular accounts) over those of the users. Your time on social media can be spent seeing stuff from the people you follow (and what they boost), or what the platform owner decides you should see. What you want is not what they want. Given a choice and no lock-in, people will move here.
https://mstdn.social/@renwillis/112209102930667255

wjmaggos, (edited ) to fediverse
@wjmaggos@liberal.city avatar

Can #podcasting be made to work with #ActivityPub as well as #RSS? Then podcatchers could work like a #Mastodon client, allowing us to interact directly via comments, favorites and spreading around the best episodes via boosts. #podcasts

update: it exists but no podcatcher fully supports it yet.

https://cosocial.ca/@evan/112106150061260659

davew, to random
@davew@mastodon.social avatar

An internet for writers

The next step in online social media will be group blogs that support the APIs needed to integrate with not only the Fediverse, but other non-AP services that have their own APIs.

Each one will have a theme, a voice, not all writers in agreement of course, but sharing a similar perspective, context, point of view.

wjmaggos,
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@ben @davew

we also need something like to become a standard. like a podcatcher for articles. competing services. pulling in the most popular articles in your social graph. and a way to directly pay writers.

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