Your Organization should run its own Mastodon server • Hacker News Board

Re: Your Organization should run its own Mastodon server

#161

Post by TeMPOraL » Mon, Nov 07, 2022, 7:24 PM UTC

thebooktocome wrote: post #132

TeMPOraL wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes seem to be writing sarcastically and I'm not sure why. Because it's hard to write any other way when people are losing their minds over a storm in a teacup. Literally nothing meaningful has changed about Twitter in the last few months. This is an entirely self-induced panic, based on a couple cases of someone maliciously misinterpreting a tweet here and there and everyone else amplifying it, and fueled by irrat…

> Literally nothing meaningful has changed about Twitter in the last few months. But things probably will change meaningfully in the near future. You’d have to ignore everything the new CEO is saying, in order to believe otherwise. People trade futures options all the time.

> You’d have to ignore everything the new CEO is saying, in order to believe otherwise.

Thing is, he isn't saying that much. Most of what people are reacting to are people's interpretation of what Musk said, and then further interpretation of those interpretations, etc. That's what strikes me as completely bonkers.

Re: Your Organization should run its own Mastodon server

#162

Post by jimbob45 » Mon, Nov 07, 2022, 7:25 PM UTC

afavour wrote: post #152

jimbob45 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before Musk's takeover Twitter was reliable, predictable and somewhat boring It was none of those things and was widely regarded to be the worst-run company in tech not named Theranos or WeWork, including on this very website. It's fine to dislike Musk and it's fine to dislike the moves he's made but this revisionist history has to stop.

Maybe you can explain to me the way in which Twitter was deeply unpredictable before Musk took over because I don't really see it. I agree that it was a badly run company but in a way that meant it didn't really change very much about its product in the last few years. That's what I mean about predictable and boring. If you looked at Twitter as product in 2017 and looked at it in 2022 you wouldn't see a whole lot of…

Take your pick between employees acting as agents on behalf of foreign governments[0], suspending POTUS for rules not uniformly applied to other users[1], introducing a fact-checking system with poor community reception[2], changing the core feature of the product (post length)[3], or improperly collecting data and accruing fines such that the US FTC now has the company under tight investigation. All done before Musk ever owned the company.

[0]https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/former-twitter-employee...

[1]https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/suspensio...

[2]https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/25/22248903/twitter-birdwatc...

[3]https://techcrunch.com/2022/06/21/twitter-to-expand-into-lon...

[4]https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/twitter-pre-musk-data...

Re: Your Organization should run its own Mastodon server

#163

Post by EricE » Mon, Nov 07, 2022, 7:27 PM UTC

afavour wrote: post #156

EricE wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Before Musk's takeover Twitter was reliable, predictable and somewhat boring. In what ways? And in what ways do you think federated servers that don't agree on what rules to apply and lack any sort of mechanism for global, centralized control will make Mastodon reliable, predictable or even somewhat boring?!?

> In what ways? Twitter's product has been static for years, barring perhaps the introduction of Twitter Spaces, which has barely made a dent in usage (as far as I can see, anyway). I personally regard this as a negative: I think that they should have been innovating more. But if I were a major brand looking at my advertising commitments I'd probably be fine with it. > And in what ways do you think federated servers…

>But if my organization sets up its own Mastodon instance I'm free to ignore what the larger Mastodon ecosystem is doing, if I want to.

You have the same tools to block on Twitter. There is literally no difference.

Re: Your Organization should run its own Mastodon server

#164

Post by pessimizer » Mon, Nov 07, 2022, 7:28 PM UTC

valboa wrote: post #8

Quoted post unavailable.

They're also not serious about it. Decentralization is a "disinformation specialist's" nightmare, because people might be able to say things to other people that couldn't be edited or deleted by third parties.

That being said, I'd be overjoyed if the Fediverse took off over this. There's just not a chance in hell, because it's a worst case scenario for the three-letter agencies and the administration that are pushing this outrage. Just the observation of how aggressive they've become over Musk's ownership, a guy who's completely in thrall to government insider cash, tells you that they wouldn't tolerate a competitive, mainstream Mastodon for a second.

This is just trashing the company as an indication that they can destroy the company. A company that Musk vastly overpaid for, so now is stuck with the obligation to make profitable. Making Twitter profitable was probably always impossible. An intense government push could easily destroy it. That's why he's explicitly aligning with Republicans, who can't attack Musk without alienating their base.

Re: Your Organization should run its own Mastodon server

#165

Post by trs8080 » Mon, Nov 07, 2022, 7:30 PM UTC

mberning wrote: post #30

If the idea of federated Twitter was so good and so important why did everyone seemingly only get interested in it right now? Charitably it would seem that this is just the topic du jour and "top of mind" for many people due to recent changes at Twitter. But if running your own Mastodon server is a good idea today, surely it was a good idea two weeks ago. Cynically, it seems that many of these people seem motivated b…

> After all, these people were perfectly happy to keep using and promoting Twitter when it was ideologically captured by their in group. Now that Elon owns it, well, now it sucks and is bad.

Conservatives weren't satisfied with Parler, Truth Social, Gab or Gettr and now also own Twitter. It seems fairly obvious that people would seek alternatives because they're not interested in participating in a right-wing platform with no moderation.

Re: Your Organization should run its own Mastodon server

#166

Post by EricE » Mon, Nov 07, 2022, 7:30 PM UTC

parrellel wrote: post #150

EricE wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And because it's federated, it will never work in any of the ways they are pissed off at Elon for changing in Twitter. You just can't make stuff like this up - it's amazing to watch!

Eh, so long as the walled garden collapses, no?

What's hilarious is they are mad *their* walled garden collapsed. Fleeing to a federated service isn't going to help them build a new walled garden - watching them figure that out has been very entertaining, to say the least.

Re: Your Organization should run its own Mastodon server

#167

Post by trs8080 » Mon, Nov 07, 2022, 7:34 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #161

thebooktocome wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Literally nothing meaningful has changed about Twitter in the last few months. But things probably will change meaningfully in the near future. You’d have to ignore everything the new CEO is saying, in order to believe otherwise. People trade futures options all the time.

> You’d have to ignore everything the new CEO is saying, in order to believe otherwise. Thing is, he isn't saying that much. Most of what people are reacting to are people's interpretation of what Musk said, and then further interpretation of those interpretations, etc. That's what strikes me as completely bonkers.

Did you miss the news that he laid off half the company, including the content moderation team? That says plenty.

Re: Your Organization should run its own Mastodon server

#168

Post by slg » Mon, Nov 07, 2022, 7:36 PM UTC

googlryas wrote: post #154

slg wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Let's assume that Elon decides to burn 44 billion instead of running a mostly successful business like he's generally done in the past with his other businesses. Why set up this false dichotomy? Elon might burn down his $44b investment in an attempt to run Twitter as a mostly successful business. Running a car company and running a social media company are not the same skill set. It is entirely possible, and seems m…

I don't think it's a false dichotomy because based on the statements of 85% of the people on hacker news, you would think that they have all the right answers for running twitter, and Elon is simply not following their advice. So if he fails, even if it is well intentioned, it is only because he is boneheaded enough to not listen to the geniuses on hacker news and reddit. Elon has successfully run more than just a ca…

>I guess I set up the false dichotomy because based on the statements of 85% of the people on hacker news, you would think that they have all the right answers for running twitter, and Elon is simply not following their advice. So if he fails, even if it is well intentioned, it is only because he is boneheaded enough to not listen to the geniuses on hacker news and reddit.

But that is still a false dichotomy because I don't need to know the right answer to recognize boneheaded management. Any independent observer can see that Musk is going back and forth on certain decisions: saying "comedy is now legal on Twitter" then banning parody accounts for mocking him or laying people off then immediately asking them to come back. These are self inflected mistakes that I recognize as objectively bad management without knowing the specifics of how to properly manage Twitter.

>Elon has successfully run more than just a car business in a wide variety of fields.

And none have been a media company let alone a social media company. Building cars, rocket ships, and tunnels are all relatively similar from a management perspective and are very different from running a social media company. Running a social media company requires a much more complex understanding of people and social systems. It isn't as simple as just building a good product. Twitter's technical product was never the primary issue with the company. The problems Twitter faces are all human problems. Musk hasn't shown an ability to fix those type of issues.

>There are free apps that let you archive your Twitter feed, and there are free apps that let you find messed it on users from their Twitter account. I'm sure those tools would get even better and easier to use if the writing was on the wall that Twitter is going down.

Those apps are generally worthless at the scale we are talking about. Twitter has 450m monthly users. Mastodon has 1m. Retaining 0.2% of your audience when transferring platforms doesn't provide much value.

>What you say about personal investment is true, but it is true about literally everything. If you personally invest in Macedon, I messed it on fails, then you have wasted your time and all of your work is worthless.

Yes, the point it that it didn't seem like Twitter failing was a likely situation a year ago. Today it seems like a realistic possibility.

Re: Your Organization should run its own Mastodon server

#169

Post by pessimizer » Mon, Nov 07, 2022, 7:36 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #80

CJefferson wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes seem to be writing sarcastically and I'm not sure why. You are right, I, like many people, believe Elon is going to ruin Twitter, possibly bankrupting it. Therefore it is worth looking at alternatives. The ruining of Twitter makes alternatives more attractive.

> Yes seem to be writing sarcastically and I'm not sure why. Because it's hard to write any other way when people are losing their minds over a storm in a teacup. Literally nothing meaningful has changed about Twitter in the last few months. This is an entirely self-induced panic, based on a couple cases of someone maliciously misinterpreting a tweet here and there and everyone else amplifying it, and fueled by irrat…

> This is an entirely self-induced panic,

> it were not saturating the media channels 24/7.

You're accidentally making the Cultural Studies mistake of seeing the choices of a very small number of individuals at massive corporations that are broadcast to the general public as an expression of the general public themselves. It's not a self-induced panic, it's a media-induced panic that requires a media trust (in the antitrust sense) to sustain.

Re: Your Organization should run its own Mastodon server

#170

Post by afavour » Mon, Nov 07, 2022, 7:39 PM UTC

EricE wrote: post #163

afavour wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In what ways? Twitter's product has been static for years, barring perhaps the introduction of Twitter Spaces, which has barely made a dent in usage (as far as I can see, anyway). I personally regard this as a negative: I think that they should have been innovating more. But if I were a major brand looking at my advertising commitments I'd probably be fine with it. > And in what ways do you think federated servers…

>But if my organization sets up its own Mastodon instance I'm free to ignore what the larger Mastodon ecosystem is doing, if I want to. You have the same tools to block on Twitter. There is literally no difference.

Of course there is. On Twitter someone could sign up, pretend to be a member of my organization, pay $8 to get a verified checkmark and there's very little I can do about it. If I own my own Mastodon instance I can kick them off (or stop them from signing up in the first place)