mastodon.social is one of the many independent Mastodon servers you can use to participate in the fediverse.
The original server operated by the Mastodon gGmbH non-profit

Administered by:

Server stats:

354K
active users

Twitter somehow gets worse week by week--right now it is an unusable swamp of right wing conspiracy theory, wave after wave of racism (there is currently an "invasion" underway at the southern border that must be stopped by lethal force) crypto bros, and bots selling high-follower accounts. Amazing really.

G. Willow Wilson

I've been play-testing absolutely every twitter "replacement" (including Bluesky) and the general vibe I get is this: most former power-users want something exactly like Twitter but w/o the nazis and grifters. Bluesky is attempting to start conversations about federation now and users are not having it. They want a centralized platform w/a clear and consistently enforced TOS. Federation remains a very hard sell to the average person.

The vibe on Bluesky is classically leftist/socialist, so the bootstrappy libertarian message of federation (don't like the rules in this house? Go build your own house) is reaaaaallly rubbing people the wrong way. I'm glad those conversations are happening, frankly, bc that's an ideological barrier I don't think the apostles of federation anticipated.

I am not taking sides, btw; I'm just sharing what I have observed anecdotally. I'm going to try to grab some (anonymized) screenshots from Bluesky to show you what I mean.

Also, please, I beg you: do not respond to this thread with HOW IS FEDERATION LIBERTARIAN AND CENTRALIZATION SOCIALIST?? HUH?? HUH???? I do not speak for these people, I am nobody's therapist, I am not a political historian, I am just telling you what I personally have observed. I am not a customer service representative for Bluesky leftists.

@GWillow My experience with Bluesky has not been great! I feel like it's Twitter all over again, where dunking is what gets you the most engagement.

@skrishna
Agree that dunking gets huge engagement, although the high proportion of shitposts there also means there's lots of fun nonsense getting engagement too.

I feel like I've seen people asking not for centralisation but for BS to provide an experience on *their server* which enforces strong anti Nazi and anti Transphobe rules.
@GWillow

@_dmh @skrishna The majority of dunking I have seen has been on people perceived to be swerfs or terfs or similar. But yeah it's mostly just people shitposting, not substantive dialogue.

@GWillow@mastodon.social Whether or not your final point is true or false, Twitter power-users do not represent the average user by any margin.

@GWillow We're in a phase where a few people/companies are trying to jump into the void Twitter created, but it's generally short-lived. People need to forget about Twitter and decide what suits their needs instead of wanting a replacement (I don't think it's Discord). Past tech shows that copy/paste eventually fails. I think Mastodon has the best potential for a variety of reasons (tl;dr: avoids the failures of the past).

@GWillow kind of interesting to hear that about the Bluesky vibe, considering how I'd expect those people to be more likely to end up here, and not on Jack's Latest Project.

@bensaufley Why? Large central governments are essential to socialist projects. This "build your own server if you don't like the rules on someone else's" is a rugged-individualist proposition. It's antithetical to the idea of having everyone in the same tent with the same rights and responsibilities.

@GWillow Right, but Bluesky *is* still a federated proposition from day 1, *and* it's created by a libertarian douche, whom most leftists don't like. There's also an argument that federated "communes" are pretty well-aligned with leftist ideals, but I don't know how good of an argument it is.

@bensaufley Yes, and Bluesky-ers are hitting this brick wall as we speak. They went to Bluesky bc they didn't like the 'each server functions as its own HOA' model of Masto. And now they're having to reckon with the idea that by being on Bluesky they're functionally on Masto, under the aegis of an ex-crypto bro.

@GWillow Yeah and that's what surprises me. It seems people went there under false assumptions; it was never centralized. “decentralized" is in the first sentence of the Wikipedia page for it. It's Mastodon + a few "missing" Twitter features (?) + tech bro

FWIW I'm still waiting for an invite, hahah. I'm def curious about it, and I'll go wherever I find I get the most out of, probably, but I'd be disappointed if we ended up under Jack's domain all over again.

@bensaufley I don't think most people who are on Bluesky right now really grasped what was meant by decentralized. Bluesky is also far more open to nudity and overtly sexual content, which I think is also a big draw; Masto is seen over there as a platform for prudes and scolds. It's partially an image and messaging issue.

@GWillow That one also fascinates me: I've seen so many people talk about mastodon being a platform of scolds, but I've like … never seen anyone actually scolding. I believe it exists, but it's definitely not a universal experience. I suppose there's likely some tendency towards dogma among Masto users that is not as prevalent among Bluesky users by nature of the OSS/Jack divide.

@bensaufley I encountered quite a bit of scolding when I first got here, but I simply ignored it, which is the wisest course of action on any social media platform, centralized or otherwise.

@bensaufley @GWillow scolds maybe, but... anti-nudity? That's a very different Fediverse to the one I'm on! 😂

@Tattie @bensaufley The one I'm on is extremely anti-nudity (no NSFW content and/or if you post NSFW content without a filter you get banned on the first offense, calls to defederate servers that include NSFW content, etc)

@bensaufley @GWillow But it was never “decentralized.” It claims to be “decentralized” … but there’s still only one instance

We honestly don’t even know if it will ever be decentralized

@GWillow @bensaufley I wouldn't be surprised if there is some integration between the Fediverse and Bluesky eventually.

@llarian @GWillow I read that some people have already set up relays for that, but more official integration would def be interesting

@GWillow @bensaufley An ex-crypto-bro who likes federation because it removes responsibility for him/his company to take a hard line on fascists using the service. The whole point of federation on BlueSky is “if you don’t like the fascists move to a different server and block their server, it’s not our problem.”

@MisuseCase @GWillow I think that emphasizes a philosophical difference with Mastodon, which adopts federation *from the other perspective*: rather than "if you don't like it, leave," it's “people should be able to choose their own communities and create their own safe spaces”. Yes, it's the same thing under the hood, but when you start from the place of "protecting users" rather than “avoiding responsibility" you get different results

@MisuseCase @GWillow (which is not to say Mastodon gets it right, just that I am willing to grant the people who built and are building Mastodon a more charitable view as they *try* to get it right)

@bensaufley @GWillow Also the decentralized and federated nature of it actually means something. In a platform like BlueSky, which is under the control of a billionaire, it means only as much as he allows it to mean. He could probably spike any future instance on BlueSky that he wants to, whenever he wants to, for whatever reason. On Mastodon nobody can do that.

@MisuseCase @GWillow @bensaufley That's exactly what Mastodon is:

“if you don’t like the fascists move to a different server and block their server, it’s not our problem.”

Bluesky will end up looking just like Mastodon if the federation spreads. Right now a lot of people in Bluesky are from leftists group as said earlier, and they expect them to block everyone behaving badly.

Because let's be real, who else is feeling homeless now? Not the ones comfortably staying on Twitter!!

@proximacentauri @GWillow @bensaufley “Move to a different server and block the fascist servers” is fine in a truly decentralized platform, but BlueSky isn’t that. It’s ultimately owned and controlled by Jack, who is going to use the federated model to absolve himself from dealing with fascists, trolls, etc. on the server.

@MisuseCase @GWillow @bensaufley JACK IS BETTING ON NOSTR

I have followed, and!!! BLUESKY HAS WAR WITH NOSTR, it was declared today. Jack LINKED TO this in NOSTR:

fiatjaf.com/ab1127fb.html

THEN! HEAR THIS! DHOLMS who is BLUESKY DEVELOPER WROTE:

"nostr is like a hackathon project that someone builds about 6 months after discovering public/private keypairs & tcp connections. sorry we tried to build an actual social protocol"

IT'S OPEN WAR! JACK IS SIDING WITH NOSTR, and BLUESKY WITH FEDRATION

fiatjafBluesky is a scamBluesky advertises itself as an open network, they say people won’t lose followers or their identity, they advertise themselves as a protocol (atproto) and because of that they are tricking a lot of people into using them. These three claims are false.

@GWillow@mastodon.social @bensaufley@thefooty.club Bluesky is not a socialist commune but a capitalist for-profit company. People seriously expect something "different" from Jack? In this economy? Anyway, I find it funny that centralist leftists think that capitalism will be any kind of refuge instead of DIY, community-supported, bottom-up federation.

@GWillow @bensaufley the core tenet of socialism is public ownership. Bluesky is private ownership. A large corporation owning data & userbase is not socialism. Wanting a regulated (moderated) social media network is libertarian because that means the market is regulating itself. There's no government involvement. Rugged individualism is also libertarian. So you got confused people on both sides not realizing the main difference between centralized vs decentralized media is who owns your data 🤷‍♂️

@GWillow For me it's less about federation and more about open source. I don't like being beholden to any billionaire who helped cause all the previous issues. Maybe we're framing the conversation wrong? Federation is just a tool for having one less master.

Edit: I also wonder how that "Leftist/socialist" attitude (that I share) will survive at scale?

@GWillow None of the social networks that don't have a wide range of communities will succeed (I mean grow the company making it). The lesson of Twitter is that it failed financially because it wasn't setup for success.

@GWillow

100% And frankly, I think it's the wrong message.

The correct message is:

"Hey COMPANIES. You see all this dumb Eli-Lilly, blue checkmark BS that Elon caused?

Note how you don't HAVE to deal with this crap when it comes to your own website and email. You just OWN YOUR OWN or pay someone good.

That's what Mastodon/The Fediverse is -- like Twitter, but you can own/run your own thing, or use whichever one YOU want."

@GWillow I feel like "centralized social media site with a userbase in the millions" and "moderators who you can rely on to share your values" are mutually exclusive goals.

I hope people find a site they like, but as somebody who remembers the days of Prodigy, CompuServe, and AOL, and what a relief the open web was by comparison, I feel like centralization *is* the problem and we've repeated a lot of the mistakes of the '90s in going back to that model.

@Thad @GWillow

I remember those days fondly as well -- but ultimately I *could not disagree more*

From my POV, Twitter/social media of a few years ago has already done more good than all of those services combined.

I love being an internet nerd, but it took crass public social media to e.g. do what the Rodney King video couldn't.

For me, the natural next step is to make this place the new "Twitter but much better"

@jrm4 I don't deny that Twitter did a lot of good, but it did a lot of harm, too.

Up to and including that time a sitting president used it to organize a coup attempt.

I don't think you can count on a large centralized service to have benevolent leadership. And even if it does now, there's no guarantee it still will in 5 years.

I think "Twitter but better" is a good goal. But I don't think that's possible without community moderation. Which doesn't necessarily mean federation, granted.

@Thad 100% agreement.

What I think is *naive* is an idea I see of "I just like smaller spaces and that's all I care about"

I think it's clear that there will always be a demand for something like Twitter, and this place is the best place to capture that.

@Thad @GWillow yeah i'm finding having an instance with like minded people a much better source of moderation than one huge company trying to make one size fits all moderation decisions largely driven by how much shit advertisers are willing to accept

federation did seem like libertarian nonsense to me at first but quarantining the Nazis works way better than having them on your huge platform and constantly testing how far they can go without being banned

@waitworry And as somebody who's been a moderator on a small site, I think effective moderation is really only possible if the moderators are members of the community, not strangers in an office somewhere who get called into the middle of a conversation with no context to try to figure out what's going on.

Abusive posters will always try to (1) skate right up to the line without crossing it and (2) weaponize the report system against the people they're bullying.

@waitworry (And as somebody who's been a moderator on a small site where the owner and the admin team developed some irreconcilable conflicts and the community ended up having to find a new place to host the site, I think being able to pull up stakes when you can't reach an agreement with management is an important feature of community moderation, too.)

@GWillow thanks for sharing your observations of these different platforms, including the update on Twitter. I usually love observing user trends like this but just can't invest the time or brain space right now.

@GWillow I’m reading How To Be Perfect and it gets into the difference between Kant and Scanlon and I see it here. Mastodon is contractualism (this is the minimum we can all agree on and start from there), Bluesky seems to be Kant (here are the universal rules, don’t break them). Neither is good or bad, just different.

@GWillow It's wild to me that this is where the conversation is at (in two senses) when folks are there *because* we were all on a central service that was never great and also changed hands for the worse. 😔

I know people don't generally see the value of federation but also it feels like the sketchy design with public blocks added extra backlash to the idea.

@GWillow My biggest issue w/ Bluesky is those whack-a-doodle terms and conditions.

@scentedmeat Their TOS is fairly standard across extent social media platforms. The problem is 90% of users never read the TOS on their extent social media platforms.

@GWillow That is truly a fascinating dynamic. I guess I never really saw the federation concept as being inherently a libertarian snub of government, so much as a snub of corporate-controlled social media; it's fascinating to see people come away with such a different understanding/impression?

@GWillow I get, my wife understands absolutely no part of “federation” but we’re in the demographic where a lot of us are just on Snapchat and group texts.

@GWillow The reason why I love Mastodon is I don’t want anyone interfering with what I choose to see. “No algorithm” is the best way to protect me from the corrosive effects of social media.

@GWillow
this is intriguing to me, as “well-regulated Town Square” (referred to in the screencap downthread) to me implies a public service, not a privatized commons like Bluesky—wouldn’t socialists and leftists generally prefer a nonprofit collective or co-op over a capitalist project, even if their first choice would be a public enterprise?