So "X" - nothing to see here. Elon's in control - Part XXX **Threadbans in OP**

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120079274#Comment_120079274

You're telling absolute and blatant lies here.

You mention a "quote where he said children should be on adult networking sites" (my bolding for emphasis). There is no such quote, because he said no such thing. He recognised the reality that children ARE on adult networking sites. He didn't say they should be on those sites.

The only one blurring lines around young adults is you. Young adults are adults. The hint would be in the 'adult' bit of 'young adults'. You're now trying to turn it into something that it's not.

You say "he argues that children should have access to adult networking sites", but he doesn't actually say that.

His point about credentialing users refers to the effectiveness of credentialing, not the righteousness of credentialing. There is no way to ensure that an internet user is of a certain age. If there was, we wouldn't be facing the challenge of young children having access to pornography. And just before you start twisting my words, I'm not saying that young children SHOULD have access to pornography, I'm recognising the reality that young children DO have access to pornography.

If you want someone leading a trust and safety team who doesn't recognise the reality of the world that they operate in, they're probably not going to be very effective.

There is no evidence of course that Twitter is actually taking CSAM more seriously, except your hearsay comment about what one campaigner said.

Please stop telling lies about this.

Tony EH

Why is it that there are some people who would rather cling to a falsehood or a lie rather than the facts of a given matter?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120078273#Comment_120078273

Wow what a conclusion to come to. You've been guzzling on the Musk cool aid

pixelburp

To no great surprise, there hasn't been a sustained bump to Mastodon; it makes sense. It's leagues more complex for the average user just wanting some social media, and the drop-off would track with impatience over servers and so on.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2023/jan/08/elon-musk-drove-more-than-a-million-people-to-mastodon-but-many-arent-sticking-around

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120080832#Comment_120080832

What’s the complexity? You just register and away you go.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120078893#Comment_120078893

Considering culturally, "we" can't even get consensus on the simple notion to teach teenagers about sex in schools, even the basics of protecting against pregnancy - acknowledging the reality that they're just seeking all this online without adults' consent seems further away again. 2022 and people still seem to think you can stick teenagers in amber til they're 18 and that's fine, nothing can go wrong.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120080837#Comment_120080837

You gotta find a server, attempt to join it etc right? That's demonstrably more barriers to entry than Twitter. Or different enough to have put off casual users. The absence of some larger outlets and public figures probably didn't help, a reduced landscape less appealing. Decentralisation isn't enticing the masses and remains niche, mastadon clearly no exception here.

prosaic

I came across an article looking at Musk's back story:

https://savingjournalism.substack.com/p/i-talked-to-elon-musk-about-journalism

One thing that struck me with this article was the quality of English used. I find so many news articles so badly written they are hard to wade through.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120080842#Comment_120080842

You gotta find a Twitter server and attempt to join it too. What's the difference? I saw some good people talking about using Mastadon.ie, so I went to Mastadon.ie and registered. Are people deliberately trying to overcomplicate this?

Dohnjoe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120080832#Comment_120080832

Unsurprising. Twitter and "tweets" works perfectly for the type of medium that it is, amazed that no one has come up with a decent competitor along those lines. Nope, only something that sounds like a dominatrix porn site.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120081166#Comment_120081166

Easy tiger. I'm pointing out that the numbers have dropped significantly since the surge around number so clearly something hasn't taken with Mastadon. It's not a like for like clone of Twitter, what with its "instances" and I've certainly seen tell of folk bailing because it's a more manual entry. That or the simple absence of many brands, celebrities and outlets making it an emptier place.

Either way, the numbers don't lie. Mastadon is failing to capitalise on the malaise and bad press against twitter.

Nabber

Elon is a troll. The quantity of people taking the bate is concerning.

Considering that Mastodon isn’t really a commercial entity, it’s not bothered either way. It’s just there.

The “it’s too complicated” narrative is mostly just lazy commentary. How is it’s complicated? Go to Mastodon.ie for example and it’s no more complicated than setting up a Twitter account or a boards account.

It can’t magic your decades old Twitter account to be replicated on a different platform. You can use 3rd party tools to find old Twitter contacts that might be there too, but you are creating an account on a new platform. It isn’t Twitter and it’s not like porting your mobile phone from Vodafone to Eir. It’s like moving from Boards to Reddit.

You’re also always going to get a surge effect and people dropping off. The general experience though is that the volumes on Mastodon have grown and activity is way up.

It also ignores things like people drifting from Twitter to other established platforms where they already were active. I’m finding myself using Reddit and Boards far more than Twitter or Mastodon. Frankly I’m just fed up with microblogging. The level of hostility on Twitter would give me depression after a while tbh. It is just full of threads that go down spirals of grim and it’s definitely become worse. Mastodon just reminds me of old Twitter in vibe when it was still fairly friendly.

I gave up on Twitter completely after very weird interactions just before Christmas - it l isn’t worth the hassle to me. I used to enjoy it, had good interactions and a nice timeline of interesting people, and would have defended it when people said it’s a cesspool, but over the last few months unfortunately I stumbled the cesspool by chiming in on a few threads where I seem to have attracted a swarm of various weirdos, who have the posting style of someone standing on street corners looking for a fight by abusing passers by.

I honestly just don’t have the energy for it anymore. So I just left.

Penn

Part of the reason Mastadon didn't really take off was because Twitter was place that pretty much has everyone in one centralised place, whereas some people started moving to Mastadon, but some were moving to other places. So many different options were being put forward, but also Twitter was still going, so nowhere became a legitimate Twitter replacement/competitor. People were setting up accounts on places like Mastadon more as a backup in case Twitter suddenly collapsed, but it didn't.

Considering that Twitter isn’t paying its rent in SF, that day could still come. Musk’s going to get bored at some point and he appears to be keeping the lights on though personal bankrolling. That’s only going to go on for so long - it’s a very expensive hobby.

kowloon

Does Mastodon also restrict the length of posts to not much longer than SMS?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120081701#Comment_120081701

500 characters. It’s significantly longer form than Twitter and you can edit posts.

kowloon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120081713#Comment_120081713

Honestly, that's my biggest gripe with Twitter and why I never joined. The character limit just turns everything into a shouting match with no substance. Any half-baked idea has to be set out in multiple numbered posts, and that's not for me.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120081617#Comment_120081617

Yup. This was me. I also left because of the posts in my timeline that were shared automatically because someone I follow, followed them (iykwim) and they were all generally very antagonistic and wound me up. I like being able to tailor my timeline, and I love not having ads. I donate a fiber a month to the mastodon.ie server and it's money well spent imo.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120081416#Comment_120081416

Mastadon isn’t capitalising because Mastadon isn’t capitalist. It’s not a commercial entity. It’s not selling it’s users life history for advertising.

Its absolutely not a clone of Twitter. It’s waaaaaaay better than that. It’s early days for sure, and hasn’t gotten into the public zeitgeist, but it’s well underway.

Cordell

They are not capitalist until they hit success and the acquisition or investment offers are on the table.

Virtually all successful open source projects went this way, and the ones which didn't don't exist anymore, they were either closed or forked into other projects who did. Nothing is free forever.

Tony EH

I'm not trying to speak for Pixelburp here, but what I think he meant by "capitalise" was an effort by Mastadon to take advantage of the opportunity afforded to it by Muck's dreadful handling of the good ship twitter and grow its own user base, rather than an effort to make money.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120082215#Comment_120082215

I pay for Mastodon, as do many others. Don't forget it cannot be acquired, it's not a normal centralised site.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120082288#Comment_120082288

Why should they? I don't mean that in antagonistic way, but what's the plus for Mastodon to attract users which would negatively affect everyone as there's a limit to what the servers can handle. They're not selling ad space or user info, it relies on the userbase to pay for servers.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120082183#Comment_120082183

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120082288#Comment_120082288

Correct Tony. I meant capitalise strategically: you couldn't move for the think pieces talking up Mastadon in the white hear of the Musk era's chaos.

We'll see how it does in the long term but that kind of user drop doesn't spell immediate success. It hasn't held the user's it gained.

Cordell

It absolutely can be taken over, don't be naive. Just look at any other successful projects including kernel.org, they were either aquired or effectively controlled by corporations who either hire key developers or take control of what components they need.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120082215#Comment_120082215

There’s nothing to acquire or invest in. It isn’t a commercial entity.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120082288#Comment_120082288

Mastadon isn’t looking to grow. It’s not a commercial entity. We need to get past the blind chasing of growth for growth’s sake.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120082331#Comment_120082331

But, again, what's the end game in your eyes? It's not a capitalist enterprise, so what's the benefit in chasing new members?

While you say they haven't kept the new user numbers, I highly doubt it's dropped down to pre musk usage. It's growth, but stable growth.

Tony EH

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120082330#Comment_120082330

Hey, I don't give a damn whether they should or shouldn't. I'm neither on Twitter or Mastadon. I don't find either platform conducive to anything approaching a meaningful or insightful discussion. I was merely trying to clarify what Pixelburp meant by "capitalise".

@AndrewJRenko

Mastadon isn’t looking to grow. It’s not a commercial entity. We need to get past the blind chasing of growth for growth’s sake.

See above...

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120082354#Comment_120082354

The end game is "I don't care". I thought it was curious that a couple of months after the explosion of Mastadon hype, the user-base shrunk again (didn't I read it's actually dropping now? Must go back and read it again).

Whether the comparison is apt or not the already mentioned Zeitgeist chose to put Mastadon's service against Twitter as an alternative flavour of social media in light of Musk's takeover. It'll be that same bubble that decides if Mastadon ramps up or not by dint of popularity. If it becomes more than a technical niche cool, if it doesn't, cool.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120082342#Comment_120082342

It's basically impossible.

"Because of the decentralized nature of Mastodon, it is highly unlikely that it would ever be bought out. Unlike Twitter, which is owned by a single company, Mastodon is run and maintained by its users. This means that if any entity wanted to acquire Mastodon, it would have to acquire each server individually— an impossibility"

https://www.makeuseof.com/who-owns-mastodon/#:~:text=Unlike%20Twitter%2C%20which%20is%20owned%20by%20a%20single%20company%2C%20Mastodon,each%20server%20individually%E2%80%94%20an%20impossibility.