this post was submitted on 28 Oct 2024
6 points (100.0% liked)

Chat

7498 readers
4 users here now

Relaxed section for discussion and debate that doesn't fit anywhere else. Whether it's advice, how your week is going, a link that's at the back of your mind, or something like that, it can likely go here.


Subcommunities on Beehaw:


This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

@chat I just want to ask you guys if you have any input on how the decentralization of Mastodon has ever posed benefits/drawbacks for you? I'm really interested in exploring the site and would love any feedback!

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] JCPhoenix 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I think Mastodon is better since it's not algorithmic. I could create a bubble of negativity (or positivity) if I wanted to on Mastodon, but I'd have to go out there and search for it and then build it, right? It's different from maybe, on Twitter, tweeting something negative, then the algorithm serving me up similar negative content, which I consume, which gives me more, so and so forth.

In addition, I definitely don't spend as much time on Mastodon as I do on, say, Instagram or YouTube, which is serving me content algorithmically. That's probably a positive, too.

Though given that IG and YT are more unidirectional -- content creator serves content to viewer with little in the opposite direction, other than comments -- whereas Twitter and Mastodon are more multidirectional, with conversation happening between people in the threads, that it's more of a "true" communications platform, the lack of the algorithm on Mastodon does make it more difficult to have those spontaneous interactions. Whether that's a good thing or not probably depends on the person. Some people just want to consume content, while others want to participate in the content. I guess that's kinda tangential to your question!

@JCPhoenix Cool! I don't think its tangential at all actually. A large part of social interaction is the fact that the response you get is more often than not dependent on what you wanted going in.

Do you think that finding your own communities and content on Mastodon might be a solution for mitigating the spread of misinformation? Should more platforms consider adopting the same decentralized style?