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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

#391

Post by acdha »

woojoo666 wrote: post #203
stefs wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's exactly elons problem now. every unpopular action will be pinned on him personally. https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/28/23428132/elon-musk-twitt...

I wonder how Steve Jobs avoided this. Perhaps by being less political I guess

That’s mostly it. He got his share of criticism but it was almost entirely for what he did in his official capacity at Apple and he didn’t seem to crave the limelight or expect to influence works affairs anything like Musk, Zuckerberg, etc. do. The changing the world talk was mostly about making computers people wanted to use, and if you disagreed on whether they did that it wasn’t something which you needed to spend any time thinking about.

Re: It looks like I’m moving to Mastodon

#392

Post by kcplate »

jdub wrote: post #378
kcplate wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No one who understood verification thought it was a status symbol. Doesn’t matter what the “in the know” understood, it’s what the blue checks perceived it to be. To them it was a hard to get item that only folks with some degree of “celebrity” received.

But even they didn't view it as a status symbol. A bunch of weird, ignorant, mostly right-leaning jerks did.

I disagree. It was a wide gamut, not just one political ideology. Just the commentary in the last week shows it was across the board. Fox News personalities to AOC to Steven King to a few other Hollywood celebs bitching about it. Wide range of political leaning, common thread…all celebrities.

Re: It looks like I’m moving to Mastodon

#393

Post by sidibe »

inglor_cz wrote: post #318
tchaffee wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> Its value will be established sooner or later. It is too early to call any Twitter-related promise "empty".

By default I can't take any promise from Elon seriously, nor do I understand how anyone believes anything he says. He underestimates every problem and never has any plans until after he makes announcements. I can't believe how many "eventually" promises people will still believe from one guy who obviously makes them off the cuff with no thought whatsoever for what is involved. Half of HN seems to give way too much credit to hot air from this guy, he's announced (and taken money for!) many many things coming imminently years ago.

Re: It looks like I’m moving to Mastodon

#394

Post by gnuj3 »

I dont really understand how Mastodon works. I tried to search for this guys profile (our of curiosity, I dont know who this is) and it doesnt come up in search results even if I search by his handle directly. Why is that? Do I need to be on the same server as him or something?

Re: It looks like I’m moving to Mastodon

#395

Post by dools »

inglor_cz wrote: post #299
dools wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s why I deleted my account. Musk and the rest of the PayPal mafia are hardcore neofeudalist libertarians, a movement that has gradually infected more and more of the tech world.

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.

I don’t mean he’s a tech neofeudalist, I mean he is an ancap small government libertarian. Like he wants to do away with government (except for enforcing property rights) and have crypto currency instead of a real currency with no taxation and everything privatised/user pays.

Re: It looks like I’m moving to Mastodon

#396

Post by acdha »

exodust wrote: post #104
joeevans1000 wrote: post #69

As someone who cares for a blind father, I can't stomach the decision to eliminate the accessibility team. I am myself moving to Mastodon. I was amazed in doing this that the UI/UX of Mastodon is much better than Twitter. I feel better.

What would a team of "accessibility engineers" occupy themselves with every day anyway? Did they build features that will fail unless someone is there to handhold? " Day 2: still accessible? check. Day 3: still accessible? check. ".... Accessibility is important, but once you build a wheelchair ramp into a building, the ramp builders have nothing more to do. Likewise, Twitter remains fairly static, with only minor ch…

> Accessibility is important, but once you build a wheelchair ramp into a building, the ramp builders have nothing more to do

Okay, now see how well that wheelchair user can use the elevators and bathrooms. Do you have braille signs everywhere someone goes? Does your building have ambient features which are difficult for people with sensory processing issues? Are there controls which are hard for people with limited motor skills or only one hand? Did the market change and now people are using motorized wheelchairs which are larger than you designed the ramp for?

Accessibility is like performance or cost optimization: there isn’t a point where you’re done and everything you do affects it. An accessibility team should be working with the developers closely to make sure that their changes don’t impact accessibility and working with users to identify where they could be doing better. Some of that requires fairly deep skills (e.g. screen reader proficiency) where it makes sense to have dedicated specialists to help everyone else understand challenges and evaluate trade offs.

Re: It looks like I’m moving to Mastodon

#397

Post by gonehome »

slaw wrote: post #110
gonehome wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WhatsApp is encrypted end to end for what it’s worth. They just retain chat metadata that signal does not.

Is there a proof that there is no backdoor in WhatsApp? Client code is not released. By default it does unencrypted backup to cloud. You don't know if encryption keys are leaving device.

I think you’re thinking of iMessage. WhatsApp backups are encrypted: https://faq.whatsapp.com/1192377921246090/?locale=en_US&refs...

I don’t know if there’s proof, but I have a friend that works on the team that I trust. I’ve also seen the tools for analyzing the metadata for police warrants and they only deal with metadata (because content is encrypted).

Re: It looks like I’m moving to Mastodon

#398

Post by gonehome »

Tepix wrote: post #103
gonehome wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WhatsApp is encrypted end to end for what it’s worth. They just retain chat metadata that signal does not.

That data includes everyone's phonebook.

For signal - phone numbers as IDs allow them to retain no other info on their servers. They don’t have your phone book (though if someone gets your device and forced you to unlock it that’s different, but then they’d have your contacts anyway). There’s a reasonable tradeoff here imo to retain as little as possible server side. Signal is also working on a non phone ID option iirc.

Re: It looks like I’m moving to Mastodon

#399

Post by tchaffee »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #374
tchaffee wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Their business should be providing the platform That's not how capitalism works. Their business should be doing whatever they think will generate the most long term profit for the owners. It's an advertising platform. Advertisers don't want a platform where users get to decide what the truth is. Advertisers don't want their advertisement next to some anti-vaxxer nutjob or a vocal racist. This is common sense.

That's not how capitalism works. Their business should be providing value to their users, which, in turn, would make their platform attractive for advertisers. Trump provided a lot of engagement and popularity to the platform, so banning him was igealogy-driven and was very much against their business interests. Now, advertisers come from different parts of the political spectrum, and if some advertiser would decide…

> Their business should be providing value to their users

Yes, their paid users being the advertisers. The end "users" are the product.

> Trump provided a lot of engagement and popularity to the platform

Can you please give a source for your engagement figures?

> banning him was igealogy-driven and was very much against their business interests.

Again, please provide a source for this. Evidence of this could be grounds for a class action suit on the part of share holders.

Re: It looks like I’m moving to Mastodon

#400

Post by timeon »

ChildOfChaos wrote: post #158

'Twitter’s priorities are no longer even remotely aligned with my own.' Since when were they? The mistake was perhaps to ever think that they were. It was twitters 'priority to sell themselves to Musk, hence why they took him to court to ensure he bought them. This is a somewhat crazy, knee-jerk reaction to some news headlines, the author has no idea of what is really happening, i'm not saying that i do, but for exam…

> Since when were they?

>> particularly struck me was that he laid off the entire accessibility team. For me this feels like a microcosm of the whole situation. Twitter’s priorities are no longer even remotely aligned with my own.

Since you have ignored those sentences - you had to make "crazy" assumptions.

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