Facebook: Friends are always mutual, and require a request. You can choose which posts are publicly available, and which are for friends.
Twitter: All posts are public, unless you have set your account to private, and then followers will need to request.
Mastodon: Private or public accounts. Every post has one of four privacy levels, which can't be changed later, and there is a multidimensional matrix that describes what posts can be seen by what users from where at what time.
This combined with the complexities of federation and I'm honestly surprised that it's garnered such an audience.
@impiaaa Because it Just Works™ unless you want to get into the details, public toots are public and replies don't show up in timelines for the most part
@elomatreb those "details" and "most" are unfortunately important enough for me to have to consider them constantly
@impiaaa I'm curious, where and when? I'm sorry to say that I very rarely consciously click the visibility button (except maybe for DMs), maybe I'm just missing the problem
@elomatreb things to consider: Is this a reply? Who is this a reply to? Who else is in the conversation? Who of them have been blocked or muted by whom else?
From those, will it show up on the public timeline? Can it be boosted? Can it be seen on the web interface?
@impiaaa Maybe I'm a Masto-noob, but how do I need to consider who blocked who? The only thing I do with replies is untag people when a conversation moves on, I usually just leave it on whatever clicking the reply button got me.
Boosting is a valid concern, hadn't considered that
@elomatreb If someone in the thread has you or your instance blocked, muted, suspended, or silenced, they can't see your reply (but again, there's an exception, if they follow you).
But the untagging thing brings up another interesting point, that replies without a mention act as less-than-unlisted, since they also don't show up to mutual followers (something I've seen on emojidon)
Twitter has oddities like this, but they are mostly documented, and none of them are front-and-center.
@impiaaa I thought this was a joke post
@Gargron That's where they get ya, ain't it
@Gargron and I was serious about this part. I intentionally wrote it as a joke. If you want to make a point, make it comedy. That way people pay attention. It's why satire works.
@impiaaa Do you believe Mastodon was better when:
a) it was all-public
b) it had the extra "unlisted" option that was account-wide
c) it had the extra "unlisted" option granular for posts
d) it had the extra "unlisted" and "private" options granular for posts but private posts didnt leave your server
e) i am tired of making this list
@impiaaa tldr the current system has been a journey and every change was wanted and demanded (sometimes quite aggressively). i think the most confusing artifact is the "unlisted" option but i cant say it doesnt have a use. if i removed it people would be upset, i am sure
@impiaaa and here is the documented matrix: https://mastodon.social/media/t3KPzBNOPBuELLxrgrU
@Gargron "public" does not post to public timelines if it is a reply (unless it is a self-reply with nobody else in the conversation)
@impiaaa That is absolutely not an effect of the status privacy, but the fact that some public timelines have additional filters added for readability. Such as not showing reblogs because it'd be a lot of duplicate content. I concede that this makes the unlisted option useless for replies in practice, but Mastodon's default public timeline filters are not everything. Forks or other platforms may choose different content curation strats.
@Gargron Ah, I did not know that public timelines are simply filtered of that.
@Gargron "of that"? Not sure what autocorrect was going for there
@impiaaa I just realized I used absolutely twice in a row in both toots. Sorry about that.
@Gargron Sorry, sorry, I'm not trying to start anything. I know the rationale behind many of these options and issues. I just wish they were either more consistent, better documented, or somehow more obvious. I'm glad that, as a Twitter alternative, someone can mostly just sign up and get going and not worry about it.
@impiaaa There absolutely is a consistency in it. Consider these elements:
- Mention of someone
- Follow relation
- Local/federated/hashtag timelines = public timelines, i.e. not-home-or-profile-timelines
A direct post goes out only to mentions. A private post is a level above: mentions AND followers. Unlisted is a level above: mentions AND followers AND your profile. Public is a level above: mentions AND followers AND your profile AND public timelines.
@impiaaa the multidimensional matrix is existing in #hubzilla.
You can sort pll in different groups, like friend, family, friendly ppl, assholes I just want to send some love content into their streams..etc.
Depending on what you write you descide for whom that content is visable.
Also you can encryot messanges and encypt with a passwort, which might just you and secret friends know.
Like that you can have public and private in one post.
This matrix AFAIK is not documented anywhere in full, and is hard for users, even long-time ones, to learn and understand.