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It looks like I’m moving to Mastodon

simonwillison.net

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Re: It looks like I’m moving to Mastodon

#311

Post by FortiDude »

Kudos wrote: post #182
FortiDude wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We know many things about Musk because he's a well known public figure which has attracted the attention of plenty of investigative journalists. But what do you know about the owners of the Mastodon instance you registered your account with? Are they accountable? Are they sensible? Are they competent? Do they even have a real identity?

You say this like he's quietly minding his own business and some pesky journalists are revealing what a dickhead he is. That is not the case, he is outspokenly a dickhead. He wants to broadcast what a dickhead he is _so_ badly, that he bought the worlds foremost social network to control the medium.

What Musk says publicly is basically useless. All the truly important information about him has been the result of deep investigations through papers and documents and third party accounts.

So yeah, Musk gets investigated very often so we know things that he would rather keep hidden. Now what about your Mastodon admin with an anime profile picture?

Re: It looks like I’m moving to Mastodon

#312

Post by _Algernon_ »

tchaffee wrote: post #279
luckylion wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Taking action is the opposite of virtue signaling. No, you signal your virtue with actions. That action can be lots of things, from buying some brand, to protesting some policy, or hating some person.

You are wrong. The act or practice of conspicuously displaying one's awareness of and attentiveness to political issues, matters of social and racial justice, etc., especially instead of taking effective action. [1] And from the person who coined the term: British journalist James Bartholomew claims to have originated the modern usage of the term "virtue signalling," in a 2015 Spectator article. His 2015 formulation…

You went from "action" to "effective action" from the previous comment to this one. Important difference.

Re: It looks like I’m moving to Mastodon

#313

Post by tchaffee »

briantakita wrote: post #305
tchaffee wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source?

Project Veritas had some videos about Twitter employees declaring their politics & their willingness to censor political opponents. I don't think anyone on the accessibility team was interviewed but Twitter as a whole did have a political leaning. Banning people for political speech is an accessibility issue & for some reason it was allowed to continue.

> I don't think anyone on the accessibility team was interviewed

So you don't have a source to back up your claim.

> Banning people for political speech is an accessibility issue

It is not. [1]. You don't get to widen the definition of things to make them so broad as to include your claim.

Accessibility is the design of products, devices, services, vehicles, or environments so as to be usable by people with disabilities.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility

Re: It looks like I’m moving to Mastodon

#314

Post by newsclues »

rustybolt wrote: post #301
Aeolun wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m afraid I don’t understand how Twitter can end up with debt from Musk buying it. How does that even work? Twitter the company takes out a huge loan to pay the current shareholders a fortune (which is decided by those same shareholders, no conflict of interest there at all). But who the fuck would give them a loan like that (like you say, just to have Musk at the helm)?

How I understand the parent post: Twitter has cost Musk a lot of money. Musk will now have to get a lot of value from twitter, and that will probably be bad news for the user.

Just because the new owners paid price X doesn’t mean the previous owners weren’t extracting profits that were based on the value X of the business.

Basically it seems like some people are doing some mental gymnastics to justify disliking or boycotting Twitter because Elon bought it and doesn’t seem to be going along with the program.

Re: It looks like I’m moving to Mastodon

#315

Post by inglor_cz »

Isinlor wrote: post #39
TulliusCicero wrote: post #12

I think it'd be great for more decentralized platforms to supplant centralized ones, but they usually seem to struggle to acquire more mainstream users. Even if Twitter collapses under Musk's leadership, my hunch is that a (new?) centralized competitor is more likely to take most of their market share, rather than Mastodon. I know, I know, there's some obvious exceptions like email, or just the web in general, but it…

Even email is not really that decentralized - it's mostly Google + Microsoft.

Not everywhere is America. Most institutions in European countries run their own e-mail servers and deliverability is OK.

Re: It looks like I’m moving to Mastodon

#316

Post by FortiDude »

mcherm wrote: post #303
firefoxkekw wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just wait until people start realizing the privacy problems that Mastodon have unless you make your own instance. You don't like the new twitter moderation? oh wellcome to Mastodon where a 12 year old can be a moderator of a instance. Global guidelines for moderation? No in Mastodon since each instance can have their own rules, 10/10 if you love being in echo chambers. Created your account in a random instance? oh we…

I just can't get myself to see this as a genuine disadvantage. On Mastodon you can choose the server to use (and thus the moderation). Sure, this means you can choose a server run by a 12-year-old who moderates poorly. But if you don't want that... don't pick that server! The problem (no, ONE of the many problems) with creating good moderation is that different people have different definitions of what constitutes "g…

So let's say a lot of people think in that way and avoid instances managed by nameless accounts. Where does that leave us?

Well, maybe people will flock to the few instances ran by transparent, accountable and competent people. Maybe some apolitical non-profit? Maybe a group of passionate engineers with spare change?

In any case those instances would become pretty massive and the costs would skyrocket and......

well, we're at square one: few instances will have total control over your data, they will either inject ads or require payment to keep the servers running and nothing will have changed

Re: It looks like I’m moving to Mastodon

#317

Post by andsoitis »

Aeolun wrote: post #292
hristov wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main difference isn't really who but how much money. One uses a lot of goods and services in ordinary life. Generally speaking one hopes that the provider of these goods and services uses their resources efficiently to provide them for a reasonable price including reasonable profit. When a leveraged buyout happens (this is true for most leveraged buyouts) a large cost is put into the business that wasn't there be…

I’m afraid I don’t understand how Twitter can end up with debt from Musk buying it. How does that even work? Twitter the company takes out a huge loan to pay the current shareholders a fortune (which is decided by those same shareholders, no conflict of interest there at all). But who the fuck would give them a loan like that (like you say, just to have Musk at the helm)?

> I’m afraid I don’t understand how Twitter can end up with debt from Musk buying it. How does that even work?

This article explains: (a) how leveraged buyouts work, (b) how Musk's acquisition is different from a regular LBO, and (c) what debt Twitter now has due to the deal.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/elon-musks-twitter-d...

Re: It looks like I’m moving to Mastodon

#318

Post by inglor_cz »

tchaffee wrote: post #309
inglor_cz wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Twitter becomes interoperable with other services, this is literally the opposite of tech neofeudalism. Tech neofeudalism manifests itself as walled gardens where the cost of leaving is very high for the serfs.

> If Twitter becomes interoperable with other services, this is literally the opposite of tech neofeudalism. It's not interoperable. It's controlled by one person. Like Facebook. When that changes we can discuss it. But until then, it's just an empty promise.

It is a promise. Its value will be established sooner or later. It is too early to call any Twitter-related promise "empty". Even new governments traditionally have 100 days before it is considered fair to rip into them.

Re: It looks like I’m moving to Mastodon

#319

Post by neals »

Mastodon is too difficult to understand for the average user. I got on some page where I needed to select a room of some sort, most of it was in german and I couldn't find Trump or anybody I wanted to listen to. Is anybody actually believing that there will be some mass migration?

Re: It looks like I’m moving to Mastodon

#320

Post by glenstein »

FortiDude wrote: post #9

It doesn't seem sensible to invest yourself so much into Mastodon without having thorougly explored it. I too was fascinated with the fediverse, until I used it for more than a month and realized the people posting there were just as toxic and annoying as Twitters, not to mention the plenty of instances where the petty owners have made everything even worse

>until I used it for more than a month and realized the people posting there were just as toxic and annoying as Twitters,

Not even close to my experience as a Mastodon user and I've been on it for years. I guess this shows the limited predictive value of any single individuals experiences.

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