mastodon - Link to source
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Is #mastodon becoming an echo chamber? This post from @carnage4life has me questioning our community. The Mastodon team is finally getting some traction, the product improvements are increasing, The #UX is improving, yet people posting on multiple platforms are making comments like this. It's confusing.

I *know* people here don't want this to be a classic social media-clone but we'd *like* journalists to be here right? They aren't coming with examples like this!

#Mastodon #ux @Dare Obasanjo

Evan Prodromou reshared this.

in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Scott Jenson

As this conversation is spiraling a bit I want to make a few things clear:
1. I'd like Mastodon to be MORE inclusive and bring in more voices
2. Some people don't seem to want that
3. This is core problem to solve: How do we let more in, but not "pollute" your feed?
4. The solution is NOT "gatekeeping", revelling in the fact that AI journalists aren't welcome
5. This is the same reason we lost "Black Twitter" when it came over in 2022

Yes, a lot of you don't want AI posts in your feed (or pick any other topic) but the solution isn't to keep "AI People" from joining Mastodon, any more than it is keeping marginalized communities off of Mastodon.

in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Eugen Rochko

I’m not interested in following any “AI people”. That doesn’t make it an echo chamber. We don’t need equal amounts of people who love puppies and want to kill puppies, not everything needs to be equally represented.
in reply to Evan Prodromou

mastodon - Link to source

Trev

@cratermoon @Gargron

The thing with Mastodon that many people aren't used to wrapping their heads around anymore is that you can build your own "small web" community around at topic you care about. You could call these communities echo chambers if you like. At least we decide what we see.

You can take @evan's comment to heart and go create your own Mastodon instance dedicated to AI. That's fine! You can have your friends there and uninterested people can just ignore it.

@Eugen Rochko @Evan Prodromou @cratermoon
in reply to Trev

mastodon - Link to source

Scott Jenson

@trevdev @cratermoon @Gargron @evan

You didn't answer MY question. Have you read the replies to my original post? People are actively joyfully attacking AI, making it clear not only are they not welcome, they should not be here.

To be clear. I"M NOT ENDORSING AI. I just used them as an example of this tendency to police the culture.

@Eugen Rochko @Trev @Evan Prodromou @cratermoon
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Trev

@cratermoon @Gargron @evan

Welcome to the Internet? People here don't have to hold back their opinions or in many cases their emotional damage about anything.

Suppressing people in actual, popular algorithmic echo chambers is not a better Internet. Giving people space to heal and process is.

I'm also on LinkedIn where AI is shoved down my gullet in very misleading/harmful ways and I see why they feel that way.

If we don't like what people are doing here we stop listening.

@Eugen Rochko @Evan Prodromou @cratermoon
in reply to What's it to you?

mastodon - Link to source

Scott Jenson

@alltherum
social.coop/@scottjenson/11635…

Scott Jenson

2026-04-06 14:19:24

mastodon - Link to source

OK, this is going even MORE sideways so I need to make a few things clear:
1. I took a complex point and made it poorly
2. My goal was to ask for more inclusiveness
3. I am sickened by what happend to BlackTwitter and I don't want it recur
4. But I can't speak for BlackTwitter nor should I
5. I apologize to black mastodon users for making such a poor comparison
6. I'm not endorsing "AI Slop" they were a foil to make my point
7. I'm certainly NOT trying to compare AI bros to Black twitter (but, as I said, I can see how people made that connection. I'm trying to correct that here)

@What's it to you?
in reply to Evan Prodromou

glitchsoc - Link to source

apgw

Not sure if you are against food and water for humans or just think AI does good things for the environment?

"AI" as promoted by the big tech companies comes with a boost in energy usage for datacenters. They build new gas turbines...

One of the biggest tasks for the future of humanity is, to keep the planet in a livable condition... which means: Stop using fossil fuels. Reduce energy usage of unneccessary tech.

This entry was edited (4 days ago)
in reply to apgw

mastodon - Link to source

Evan Prodromou

@apgw

Datacenters are not endangering life on earth. That is an irresponsible exaggeration that detracts from the real threats to the environment.

AI (~0.1% of emissions today) is not an important cause of climate change. Fossil fuel use for transportation (15%), as well as beef (10%), cement production (5%), and rice cultivation (3%) are major contributors.

You can read about actual causes of climate change and their solutions: drawdown.org/

Home

Project Drawdown drives meaningful climate action by advancing science-based solutions and strategies.
Project Drawdown®
@apgw
in reply to cratermoon

mastodon - Link to source

trisweb

@cratermoon @Gargron This is a very rich ethics question hidden in a specific example.

Would you permit or allow any community with which you disagree to participate on a platform, even if you’re not forced to participate?

A shortlist of thought experiments, to broaden the perspective, some of which are already here, some not…
- The oil & gas community
- Forestry workers (logging)
- The cryptocurrency community
- Workers at a chick rendering plant
- The finance industry
- Adult content creators
- Religious communities

Is there a litmus test for topics that you can or can’t discuss on the fediverse? Specific servers sure, but the whole fediverse?

Does that align with the values put forth by mastodon or the fediverse in general?

I don’t have the answers.

@Eugen Rochko @cratermoon

Jeff MacKinnon reshared this.

in reply to trisweb

mastodon - Link to source

Spark Purcell (they/them)

@trisweb @cratermoon @Gargron my take is simple: make the community you want to live in. For me, that excludes bigots, trolls, advertisers, anyone that refers to themselves as "content creators" or "influencers" but I repeat myself... Those extroverted attention seeker types who have tons of "followers" but no real friends, and don't post anything but paywalled news headlines and don't actually talk to other people... people who think human connection can and should be quantified and measured and analyzed and commodified SHOULD NOT BE ON FEDI.
@Eugen Rochko @trisweb @cratermoon
in reply to trisweb

mastodon - Link to source

CM Harrington

@trisweb @cratermoon @Gargron by definition, no. Literally anyone can spin up a server and talk about anything/try to get more folk to listen…

But other folk have to want to listen to whatever they are saying. Servers and individuals can just decide not to. No one is guaranteed an audience, just the ability to speak.

@Eugen Rochko @trisweb @cratermoon

reshared this

in reply to CM Harrington

mastodon - Link to source

Cassandrich

@octothorpe @trisweb @cratermoon @Gargron This. The fake question framed as if not pandering to their "AI" fawning bullshit is "not allowing them to be on fedi" is bad-faith sealioning. If they don't come here because they know folks here don't want to listen to their shit, that's not our problem.
@Eugen Rochko @trisweb @CM Harrington @cratermoon
in reply to Cassandrich

mastodon - Link to source

Phil Dennis-Jordan

@dalias @octothorpe @trisweb @cratermoon @Gargron Yeah, I don't know what Fedi everyone else has been hanging out on, but there seem to be plenty of "AI" believers on here. I used to follow quite a number of them prior to their going off the LLM deep end. I have to maintain an extensive filter list to avoid having that stuff constantly surface in my feed.
This whole thing is just another variant of the tired old "free speech means you have to listen to my crap" argument.
@Eugen Rochko @trisweb @Cassandrich @CM Harrington @cratermoon
This entry was edited (5 days ago)
in reply to Phil Dennis-Jordan

mastodon - Link to source

Scott Jenson

@pmdj @dalias

That is the exact opposite of what I said. I'm saying the fediverse gives you the tools to follow/block/filter/ to your hearts content to create the space you want.

What is corrosive is people ACTIVELY going after people they don't agree with. Just look at the replies to my post to get small sample.

My point was, I thought, very simple, and very reasonable: we should be more welcoming of more opinions. If you don't like them, then don't follow them. That should be the fedi-way. To be clear, I'm NOT endorsing AI, it just used it as an example.

Instead I'm living the very point I was trying to make. I've been told to leave, called a racist, and had ad hominem attacks leveled at me.

Now to be fair, my original post was poorly worded. I've owned that
social.coop/@scottjenson/11635…

Scott Jenson

2026-04-06 14:19:24

mastodon - Link to source

OK, this is going even MORE sideways so I need to make a few things clear:
1. I took a complex point and made it poorly
2. My goal was to ask for more inclusiveness
3. I am sickened by what happend to BlackTwitter and I don't want it recur
4. But I can't speak for BlackTwitter nor should I
5. I apologize to black mastodon users for making such a poor comparison
6. I'm not endorsing "AI Slop" they were a foil to make my point
7. I'm certainly NOT trying to compare AI bros to Black twitter (but, as I said, I can see how people made that connection. I'm trying to correct that here)

@Cassandrich @Phil Dennis-Jordan
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Cassandrich

@pmdj No, we absolutely should NOT be "welcoming more opinions". "Diversity of thought" is NOT a value. Some opinions are wrong. They may have a right to exist, as long as they're not nazi opinions (those have no right to even exist), but that doesn't mean we have to welcome them. It's perfectly fine to tell people off for having bad opinions, to shun them, to let them share those bad opinions only with whoever is willing to listen to them and not in our circles.

If that causes them to leave fedi, that's not a bad thing.

@Phil Dennis-Jordan
in reply to Cassandrich

mastodon - Link to source

Scott Jenson

@dalias @pmdj

I'm making a post on my timeline that you can ignore. There is a BIG difference to getting in someone's mentions and correcting them.

This is my whole point. We are each on the fediverse and we say what we want. You can like, ignore, whatever.

I'm NOT getting in anyone's mentions, I'm not scolding, I'm ASKING that we are more inclusive because it's the more humane and helpful thing to do, but hey, you can disagree, that's cool.

@Cassandrich @Phil Dennis-Jordan
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Cassandrich

@pmdj It's not an "evil plot" it's just irresponsible growth hacking that capitalist social media platforms are infamous for. People with shitty opinions drive rage engagement, so encourage them to come! 🤮

As I said when I first engaged with this thead, yes "more open to new ideas" and "more tolerant" are BAD THINGS without further qualification. "Diversity of opinion" is NOT a value. It's freeze-peach bro shit.

Yes we should strive to be as inclusive as possible towards people born different from us who have not had the same experiences, privilegs, etc. as us and whose needs, concerns, ways of communicating, etc. might be very different from our own.

This does not imply we should also be inclusive towards people who want to kiss tech industy ass.

@Phil Dennis-Jordan
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

trisweb

@dalias @pmdj I think what you’re talking about is called “talking to each other about our problems and working it out”, which is the only option left to us when we have no technical means of preventing different types of people from joining in on a community.

Unfortunately, some people are not going to agree with you. Nor are they required to. You can’t control them or ask them to behave differently, quite frankly. You can only control yourself and how you deal with it.

@Cassandrich @Phil Dennis-Jordan
in reply to Scott Jenson

glitchsoc - Link to source

leah & flutters & nose, oh my!

@dalias @pmdj that's the thing about power on a federated platform. nobody gave us that power. nobody can give us that power. we found it for ourselves when we realised that nobody, and no algorithm, is forcing us to listen to abhorrent opinions.

anyway, this post is a rehash of every frozen peach's shitty arguments from the year dot. honestly, they're beneath someone who's presenting themselves as an advisor to the Mastodon board. the only thing you could have done to make it more stereotypical is dip into incorrect Latin.

@Cassandrich @Phil Dennis-Jordan
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

De_Minimis

@pmdj @dalias I'm with ya bro. Don't hear anyone complaining about ai application in the science fields. People are just focused on the slop side of things, not the tangible.


[edit]Came back to posit a real world example.

Simulating ALL 100 billion stars in the Milky Way for the first time (with the help of AI?!
- Dr Becky
youtube.com/watch?v=fFpW5W06kV…

Simulating ALL 100 billion stars in the Milky Way for the first time (with the help of AI?!)

Auf YouTube findest du die angesagtesten Videos und Tracks. Außerdem kannst du eigene Inhalte hochladen und mit Freunden oder gleich der ganzen Welt teilen.
Dr. Becky (YouTube)
@Cassandrich @Phil Dennis-Jordan
This entry was edited (4 days ago)
in reply to De_Minimis

pleroma - Link to source

LisPi

@De_Minimis @pmdj @dalias > Don't hear anyone complaining about ai application in the science fields. People are just focused on the slop side of things, not the tangible.

You haven't seen the reports about medical errors and the whitepapers about failing reliability & deskilling of professionals?

From the sound of it the video you're liking is a major case of the latter.

@Cassandrich @Phil Dennis-Jordan @De_Minimis
This entry was edited (4 days ago)
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

jz.tusk

@pmdj @dalias

"If you don't like them, then don't follow them. That should be the fedi-way"

I want people to build communities here. What you are proposing is what I've started calling "toxic individualism" - most Americans are taught this, and it's so pervasive that many of us don't even realize we are swimming in it.

But it prevents the many weak from coming together to protect themselves from the few powerful. I'm tired of being blandly atomized.

@Cassandrich @Phil Dennis-Jordan
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Phil Dennis-Jordan

@dalias So, the harassment via randos (or bots) in mentions/replies has been a problem for at least as long as I‘ve been on the Fedi. You absolutely need standards on how to behave, and those need to be backed by technological and social mechanisms or things devolve into a toxic mess. I think most of us are with you so far. However…
@Cassandrich
This entry was edited (4 days ago)
in reply to Phil Dennis-Jordan

mastodon - Link to source

Phil Dennis-Jordan

@dalias I think much of the reason you’re receiving a less-than-friendly response is: there‘s a rather bitter irony to the fact that reps for the Mastodon organisation apparently are wondering whether something should be done about it now it’s affecting people pushing for an ultra-centralised technological future. And not when marginalised groups have asked for better moderation tools and the ability to limit who can reply to/mention them for literal years.
@Cassandrich
in reply to Phil Dennis-Jordan

mastodon - Link to source

Cassandrich

@pmdj Those problems would be largely fixed by reply controls and a working* block function, but for some reason Mastodon team can't give us those.

(*) By "working", I mean a block function that detaches all past replies by the account you're blocking from your posts, so that you're not serving as a billboard for their opinions every time someone expands your toot.

@Phil Dennis-Jordan
in reply to Cassandrich

mastodon - Link to source

Phil Dennis-Jordan

@dalias Yeah, see my second post, I couldn‘t quite squeeze all the context into one.
I really don‘t understand what @scottjenson is getting at, or why this sudden concern. I mean, it‘s great if they genuinely want to improve quality of discourse, but “hey, be nicer to the people shilling for the tech oligopoly that’s eating up all of the world’s energy & computer hardware, undermining labour, & stealing all the creative works in the world” hints at questionable motives.
@Cassandrich @Scott Jenson
in reply to Phil Dennis-Jordan

mastodon - Link to source

Scott Jenson

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@pmdj @dalias
First, I'm using AI as an example, I'm not endorsing AI at all.
Second, and only as an example, there are open source people working on ethically trained local small language models. Again, I'm NOT endorsing them, but I can pretty confidently say that they would NOT be welcome here.

The same applies to journalism, there are VERY strong emotions here, basically telling them to fuck off (their words, not mine)

My point is that there is a pattern here: there are topics this community actively hates and "patrols" against. If that's what the community wants, cool, I'm not here to dictate anything. My point is that it might be nice to have a slightly more open way of sharing ideas: Follow, block, filter. You have the tools to make the feed you want (there are clearly more tools that would be helpful)

I'm just saying that focusing on your feed seems more healthy that attacking people whose opinions you don't like. Here, let me me give you an example of what I got 10 min ago

@Cassandrich @Phil Dennis-Jordan
in reply to CM Harrington

mastodon - Link to source

Patrick Loftus 🖖

@octothorpe @trisweb @cratermoon @Gargron I’ve personally seen a mix, certainly more heavily negative, on AI since I’ve been here. Time is precious. It’s a waste of my time to interact with an ephemeral LLM and I only want human interaction in a social context.

I do use AI at work and with local models to learn at home. My personal use runs on 3 GPUs that consume a max of 175, 125 and 35 watts. I find it interesting but I don’t expect anyone else to.

I would suggest the negativity is all on the LLM type of AI - I don’t personally see anyone being negative on the ML variants. Marketing LLMs as AI implies to me they’re pushing an AGI narrative which is simply false. These models lack cognition and are simply good enough at predicting the next token to fool many into believing they do.

@Eugen Rochko @trisweb @CM Harrington @cratermoon
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Matt Wilcox

@Gargron It already allows that. The culture simply isn’t permissive of it. But that has nothing to do with the technology.

Mastodon is a system which attracts certain audiences because of its values and choices. Those are different to other systems. That’s perfectly fine. That’s good.

We don’t need to seek an audience with the same make up as other services. We need to work on systems that have the values we care about. Nothing more.

@Eugen Rochko
in reply to Matt Wilcox

mastodon - Link to source

Scott Jenson

@mattwilcox @Gargron But that is a slippery slope. I realize this might seem contentious but I believe it's is exactly the same mechanism that chased away black twitter in 2022. If we celebrate our culture, to the point that we are happy we are excluding others, it can cut both ways.

"Being inclusive" is like being "ethical" it only matters when things get hard.

@Eugen Rochko @Matt Wilcox
in reply to Eugen Rochko

mastodon - Link to source

hko 😷🪁

@Gargron As a general observation, I think asking for "civility" is often the equivalent of a "code smell":

Sure, there are cases where it may be appropriate in the current context. However, I suspect that more often than not, it's a sign that one is brushing aside some oppression-related complaint (often from a position of relative power in the situation).

I think it's a good idea to always pause before writing about "civility", and let the matter bounce around in one's head for a while.

@Eugen Rochko
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Darby M. Dixon III

the ai community needs to have a reckoning with the fact that the politics and the technology are deeply entwined to the point of being inseparable

this isn’t “oh we don’t like it and they do,” this isn’t about matters of taste and preference; this is “we attempt to recognize the full extent of the politically, environmentally, and socially problematic nature of this project while they don’t”

Niels Abildgaard reshared this.

in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

CM Harrington

@Gargron There are no blockers with the software for any community, AI or otherwise.

What’s the definition of ‘thrive’? Federation means de facto, traditional metrics like ‘reach’ and ‘engagement’ won’t ever be on a scale like a monolith like Twitter/Bsky/Threads.

Mastodon is as open as it can possibly be… in fact, it is SO open, the scale of reach you can achieve with those other platforms is literally impossible. Millions of intersecting communities, at a more human scale.

@Eugen Rochko
in reply to Todd Sundsted

mastodon - Link to source

Demian

@toddsundsted @Gargron "AI people" is a very vague group. Quite a bit of AI discussion is hype and mis/dis-info and I don't think needs to be coddled here (just as we shouldn't tolerate puppy killers or fascists, even if they're from marginalized groups). Tho there are many shades of gray and I think it's also fair to say some AI discussion is non-hype/mis/dis-info. But my main point is that welcoming marginalized groups should be the focus, not opinions about AI
@Eugen Rochko @Todd Sundsted
in reply to Todd Sundsted

mastodon - Link to source

Scott Jenson

@toddsundsted @dgodon Too many people thought I was *defending* the entire AI industry and worse, comparing it directly to Black Twitter. Hey it's social media, posts are short, it's easy to connect the dots the wrong way.

My poor writing skills aside, my point was what I think you both are saying: it's a slippery slope. It's no secret that black twitter was not made welcome here (it's a very complex topic but there is some truth to it).

My point wasn't that techbros needed support or coddling but the idea that we "allow" people to be here based on some type of ideological purity test is guaranteed to bite us in the ass. Too many people here get holier than thou and feel morally obligated to harass people. It's short sighted.

@Todd Sundsted @Demian
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Danielle Foré

I do not want mastodon to become more amicable to right wing ideas. The more hostile this place is to Nazis and AI and the manosphere etc the safer it is for people like me. See the parable of the Nazi bar etc. This is an inherent concept to queer spaces. You cannot make a space safe that welcomes both sheep and wolves. Keeping the wolves out is a feature not a flaw
in reply to Cassandra is only carbon now

mastodon - Link to source

Jo - pièce de résistance

Exactly. AI harms marginalized and protected classes the most, including the environment and life itself. It’s not unreasonable to decide to not invite death to dine with us. It is poisoning the food.
It is literally a life or death decision people are making for the world to suffer or survive under. People need to take responsibility and have consequences for their carelessness to community. AI is anti-social in its current form. It must be stopped.
This entry was edited (4 days ago)
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

MrCopilot

@Gargron The people here that are knowledgeable on AI have interesting conversations. I share articles about it almost daily, however both of these situations are not what I would call enthusiast friendly. For that we should make no apology.

Having an audience with a known preference for human generated art, media and data is an important metric to be considered & it is a personal pleasure to see it reflected.

@Eugen Rochko
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

FeloniousPunk

@Gargron There is nothing, absolutely nothing, stopping anyone from creating and cultivating an AI community on Mastodon. Start a server. Knock yourself out.

But expecting to *farm acceptance* from a group of people, one which most members vastly dislike AI, is quite the hubris.

But sure, the community at large is the problem.

Clean up your kitchen and maybe folks will join you for a meal.

@Eugen Rochko

reshared this

in reply to FeloniousPunk

mastodon - Link to source

TheJen will not comply

@FeloniousPunk @Gargron Adopting an attitude of persecution as primarily white dude tech bros akin to the abusive experience of Black Twitter on Fedi is...a choice.

Crying that no one wants to play with you because the entire industry is abusive AF and literally nobody in the wider fediverse wants it forced on us is HILARIOUS.

Go away, weirdo.

@Eugen Rochko @FeloniousPunk
in reply to TheJen will not comply

glitchsoc - Link to source

'i am no man' Charlotte Eowyn!

@TheJen @FeloniousPunk @Gargron

The entire AI industry is built on:

*stolen art
*stolen literature (also a form of art)
*trying to get the benefits of labor without any obligation to labor.
*wallstreet techbro bullshit.

The Fediverse is INHERENTLY a space started by decentralized tech people, queer people, trans people, BIPOC people, disabled people - it has a lot, a LOT of marginalized people, a lot of artists, a lot of 'hey I am gay and marginalized in like 20 different ways' people.

Asking why we don't like AI is like going into the NAACP and asking why they don't welcome the clan. Or going into an Autism Self Advocacy Network meeting and asking why they don't like Autism Speaks. Or going to a 'No Kings' rally with a trump hat on.

THE AI BROS ARE THE ENEMY. They are indifferent to the suffering they cause at best and benefit from it at worst.

There can literally be no room for pop culture tolerance of AI anything. Give it an inch and it will literally destroy the world. (literally: AI has completely reversed all of our progress on global warming and because of what its done to the trendlines, we are on progress towards a hothouse earth at current.)

Probably not the response you wanted, but hey, AI isn't what we wanted, either.

@Eugen Rochko @TheJen will not comply @FeloniousPunk
This entry was edited (5 days ago)
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Ben Todd

"AI" LLMs have no benefit for the mass of normal people. They can't be replied upon, aren't intelligent, are killing the planet, have risen the cost of living and hobbies for everyone and are being used by billionaire narcissists to spread propaganda and kill real free speech and muddy facts. There is no room for commercial LLMs anywhere. They are only useful for research projects like cancer research etc.

@Gargron

@Eugen Rochko
in reply to Scott Jenson

glitchsoc - Link to source

Cogito ergo mecagoendios

@Gargron why do you feel that AI as a product has any special "too important to fail" property such that people who choose to invest in it are entitled to systemic protections that guarantee their product visibility and success in a place where most people do not want it? This is not gatekeeping a person, this is choosing not to buy a product. I like Obasanjo's writing just fine but making articles about a topic that I do not want to read is his choice as a professional.
@Eugen Rochko
This entry was edited (5 days ago)
in reply to Cogito ergo mecagoendios

glitchsoc - Link to source

Cogito ergo mecagoendios

@Gargron and the comparison with black Twitter is a huge false equivalency as black people cannot opt out of being discriminated, they write about their experience and organization, and being hostile to that writing is tantamount to being hostile to them as people. I absolutely affirm that happened in 2022. But "being an AI supporter" is not by any measure a type of otherized social group subject to discrimination. It is a PRODUCT and if your product doesn't sell you have to take it
@Eugen Rochko
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

root42

but no one disallows that…? Ever thought about the idea that people here don’t WANT this much AI stuff? I think people on Mastodon are generally more critical of AI and see it more nuanced than the current hype in mainstream media. And this reflects in the engagement. I have more engagement and more followers in my niche hobby topics here on Mastodon than I ever had on Birdsite. I think communities here form much more naturally instead of being shoved into your stream.
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Jan ☕🎼🎹☁️🏋️‍♂️

There's room for (almost) everyone on Mastodon. You want to have AI discussions it might be best to find a server that is into AI - like sigmoid.social ?

But yeah, many people aren't a fan of AI, myself included. Luckely we have the choices here 😀

@Gargron

Sigmoid Social

A social space for people researching, working with, or just interested in AI!
Mastodon hosted on sigmoid.social
@Eugen Rochko
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

marcink

@Gargron Those “AI people” are the exact opposite of a marginalized community. Backed by wealth and power, exceedingly well funded and amplified, as mainstream as one can be, and yet still taking offense at the idea that some corner of the world might be at best indifferent to them. You have no shortage of places to go. You can let this one be.
@Eugen Rochko
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Paul Chambers🚧

Shame on you for invoking "Black Twitter." AI People want their crap to go viral. Black Twitter wanted a community free of bigotry. Delete your account. Comparing "AI People" to other marginal communities by a "Product Strategy Advisor to #Mastodon Core team"... SMDH

Apparently, the "Product Strategy Advisor to #Mastodon Core team" doesn't understand its userbase, Mastodon's nor the fediverse. It's always been about personal choice.

FWIW, nothing is stopping "AI People" from joining Mastodon nor the fedi. Mastodon is part of the fedi, it's another selling point.

If their instance doesn't want them, they can spin an instance on their own.

No one can force a community to be accepted.

@Gargron

#Mastodon @Eugen Rochko
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Tock

@Gargron Mainly because imposing what Mastodon should and shouldn't be from the top down is "algorithm-talk". And AI Communities don't really exist without TINA imposition: remove all methods to mute, silence or disregard the subject.

Here, that isn't the case. You can have a Mastodon Server that is AI inclusive, but it won't be in the Mastodon Compact (let alone mastodon.art, who will likely disconnect on first blush). It would be on the "Island of Misfit Toys" between the leftists here and the Alt-Right "we took Mastodon, we didn't fork it" Truth.social.

AI is a neoliberal and right pursuit, period. The method it has spread, the efforts to continue to grow it, and the people seeking to use it for political reasons (billionaires) to disenfranchise the left have tried every trick in the book to force it down our throats. Including Mozilla, who wants us to accept "open-source AI" (which doesn't exist: models steal content, even when polished and made to look left-leaning) instead of their past role: the free and open web. They didn't see the light, the company was seized by right leaning opportunists.

TL;DR: if you want Mastodon to embrace AI, you're going to have to kick the entire world's "left", "solarpunks", and marginalized political groups offline first and shut us out of coming back.

On a decentralized social network? Good luck.

EDIT: yes, I'm aware of masto.ai. They didn't drink the alt-right Kool-Aid for the most part, so that's as close as Scott will get. And "technology is neither good nor evil, it is a tool" doesn't apply -- a tool that has been used to strip copyright protections and discredit artists can't "go back"... The illegality is the point: if you flush the training data and do it ethically, 1) as of now, damn near everyone with any sense would say no, with or without payment, and 2) without massive consumption of data nobody would call it intelligent.

@Eugen Rochko
This entry was edited (5 days ago)
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Mx. Eddie R

@Gargron
Nothing prevents AI boosters making community here any more than the CSAM enthusiasts or Gargron's hypothetical puppy killers are prevented. They can build community today if they want!

They'll be widely ignored, just like the CSAM people and the puppy killers, because a significant mass of folks here will ignore/block/mute them, like with other things we find distasteful.

Being blocked isn't painful, or harmful in any way. You might be blocked right now and never know!

@Eugen Rochko
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Eugene

@Gargron AI is shit and so too are people that worship these plagiarism machines. You can thrive in your little echo chamber of thieving hacks but don't expect the creatives and programmers your "work" is nonconsentually mooching off to be your friend.

Unlike most people in this thread I refuse to be polite about this. I'm glad this platform doesn't feel welcoming to people that are pro or even neutral to this garbage tech.

@Eugen Rochko
in reply to Scott Jenson

glitchsoc - Link to source

katzenberger

There's "communities" for nearly everything on the #Fediverse. It is a strange misconception that a server software like Mastodon was something like a centralized #server #instance that was required to "allow" for anything, or could "prohibit" it, for everybody.

On the Fediverse, your server instance can allow or prohibit anything, just like any other instance. When your topic is hated on most other instances, there might be good reasons for that, though.

Still you can even run your very own instance fully dedicated to ShittyTopic™. It's just that nobody is obliged to listen to you, or to say friendly things about it, or to never block your instance.

@Gargron

#server #instance #fediverse @Eugen Rochko
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Ben Evans

@Gargron What does "allow" mean in this context?

If you want to have a community that's *provably* the intellectual and moral equivalent of "pro-ana" forums (c3.unu.edu/blog/the-echo-chamb…), then go right ahead. No-one else is obligated to help or indeed pay any attention whatsoever.

The Echo Chamber in Your Pocket - UNU Campus Computing Centre

Two landmark 2026 studies from MIT and Stanford show AI chatbots don't just flatter us — they erode our grip on reality and our willingness to repair relationships.
Ng Chong (UNU Campus Computing Centre)
@Eugen Rochko
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Peter Jakobs ⛵

How is that "not allowed"?
My feeling here is: people are more critical of the AI hype, that limits the spreading of AI related content, that is normal, I think.

Would you walk into a pub, find that there is not enough car talk in this pub and then declare there's something wrong with that pub?

Maybe, AI topics just don't work quite al well, if not algorithmically amplified?

@Gargron

@Eugen Rochko
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

GJ Groothedde 🇪🇺

@Gargron Mastodon is the first and only social medium where users themselves, and nobody else, determine what they want to be shown. If Bluesky and Threads seem to show more interest in matters AI, there's no way of knowing whether that interest is real or a result of algorithms force-feeding timelines. Echo chamber? More like the real world. I don't like to eat excrement and would block people who'd advocate that. That may be an echo chamber in your book, but it really isn't.
@Eugen Rochko
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Leo Schuldiner🤘🏼

@Gargron because it is SOCIAL MEDIA. Remember how were things when it begun? So-cial. I think you are old enough to understand we need human relationships and much less AI garbage, automatized advertising that use you as a number, and toxic algorythn that explodes depression, disinterest and fiction models such as "american dreams" to fuck everyones lives.
@Eugen Rochko
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Nick Foster

@Gargron literally no one is stopping you from forming an “AI community” here. There is no algorithm and no shadow banning.

If no one likes your ideas here, maybe it’s because… no one likes them 🤷‍♂️

People blame platforms for muffling them all the time, and it’s a real thing that happens… on other platforms. Here all you’re getting is an authentic reaction from people who aren’t buying what you’re selling

@Eugen Rochko
in reply to Scott Jenson

hometown - Link to source

ArmageddJen

@Gargron until AI stops scraping everyone's data without their consent, they have no business being anywhere, much less here.

And before the whole "if you're not paying for a service, you're the product", I DO pay to use Masto bc I can afford to kick my radmin some $ to do so. But that wasn't always the case. Poor people shouldn't be siloed and forced to have their original thoughts/works used to train a device that will either poison their community, cause a drought in their community, just straight STEAL their work (and yes, that IS what it is) or a combo of the above.

Also, why should ANYONE be excited about interacting with a person who is not creating a tool to make life and work easier, but one in which the people in charge of said tools are absolutely GIDDY at the possibility of forcing folks into poverty via job elimination?? What benefit is that to folks here on Masto, or to the community at large really?

@Eugen Rochko
in reply to Matt Wilcox

mastodon - Link to source

Matt Wilcox

This is a space that lets anyone say anything. It is a space that doesn’t give benefits to engagement farming techniques. It is largely *human centred* and free. Soooo… baring more controls for people to be safe as an ongoing problem causing misrepresentiaon of some peoples; why is it a problem if we don’t see bitcoin grifts here? AI grifts? Business accounts? Etc? The values simply don’t align. (2/2)
@Gargron @scottjenson
@Eugen Rochko @Scott Jenson
in reply to Matt Wilcox

mastodon - Link to source

Matt Wilcox

@Gargron Put more simply; I care about mastodon being equal opportunity, and improving ease of access for all.

That does not mean the audience segmentation should match other places. Those other places have their own biases skewing their own audiences. I sure as hell don’t think mastodon ought to have the same representation of fascists as twitter does “to be fair”, for example. That place grows those, we do not.

@Eugen Rochko
in reply to Eugen Rochko

mastodon - Link to source

Robert Kingett

@Gargron Thank you and the above comment equating AI users with marginalized users is one hell of a stretch if you ask me. I don’t understand this desire to have contact with AI journalists or AI people for that matter. Then again, anybody that uses echo chamber on ironically really doesn’t understand the understanding why some of us are frankly tired and we don’t want everybody to have access to talk to us on social media. There’s a reason why I never even entertained the notion of comments on my blog. The Internet has proven time and time again that it will harm marginalized users and if marginalized users can carve out a safe space online, then why can’t people work on neighborly relationships rather than wanting everybody to be clustered into one social media room? I don’t understand why everyone wants everyone else to be clustered into one social media room when there’s more than one way to keep in contact and follow marginalized users outside of social media. Lastly, how come it’s extremely confusing for others to understand that I don’t want to follow everybody
@Eugen Rochko
in reply to Wouter 🇳🇱🇧🇷🇧🇪

mastodon - Link to source

Mr. Lance E Sloan (IRL) 👤

@AccordingtoWouter @bp
You responded to a post from a person, then that person disagrees with you. They want to argue with you, but they're not good at arguing. Instead, they see the German flag in your display name and they have an Israeli flag in their display name, so they make gross generalizations about you, then bring race, ethnicity, & religion into an argument where it doesn't belong.
@Wouter 🇳🇱🇧🇷🇧🇪 @Benny Powers 🇮🇱🦁
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Sean Wolter

I really appreciate you advocating for a flexible and inclusive platform. I don't know what to do, but I support the mission. I'd love to see everyone on for-profit social media take collective ownership of their platforms. I'd love Mastadon to be welcoming to all sorts of people.

Based on your replies (including the founder of Mastodon!) I'm not optimistic that this platform will ever grow beyond niche microblogging for losers.

in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

txtx 🇪🇺

One reason I'm not on Threads/Bluesky anymore is that they both feel like an echo chamber, just a very large one. I've heard it expressed by others here: the other platforms have a strong US presence which is hard to steer clear of.

There's a certain "type" of post that gets boosted a lot. It's hard to describe but it's a style that runs across the US spectrum but it isn't particularly relevant to me.

in reply to Scott Jenson

pleroma - Link to source

rakoo

wowowo please don't turn things around. AI people are _not_ marginalized, it's the exact opposite. AI people are rich, white, male tech people who see the increase in personal comfort as more important than others' actual life. Those are the people who are _anti-black_. By letting AI people in you are not learning the lessons of the past. You are specifically repeating the mistake, letting racists, sexists, ableists in, pushing away the people who made activitypub what it is today.

Please think better about what "marginalized" actually means

in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Proto Himbo European

@devlord "Inclusivity" isn't a fix-everything word. It's like "discrimination", which usually meabs unfair discrimination; after all, if you don't want to be friends with active, unrepentant child molesters and refuse to share their posts or go to their parties, you are discriminating; just not (arguably) unfairly.

"Inclusivity" is similar. It has implicit targets/subjects that communities explicitly or implicitly shape and agree on (or not). Not everyone and not everything should be included in every community, even the super-friendly "inclusive" ones. For example, someone might argue that the Jostens corporation (they make class rights, yearbooks, etc.) should be "included" in my kid's middle school and high school community by allowing them to send kids and their parents weekly marketing emails. I deeply disagree.

Throwing "inclusivity" around as if it were an absolute value with no limits is getting you some challenging and even angry responses here.

@Aaron Lord
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Diogo Constantino

my feed is created by me. I follow people and topics. I either don't follow, quite or block does I don't want to follow. There's not risk of polluting my feed.

As I see it, Mastodon is mostly composed of marginalized communities. Can it, and should it have even more? Sure!

People don't have to like AI and engage with people who like AI, or with that topic, for people who like AI to be here, the same goes to any other topic.

in reply to James Wallbank

mastodon - Link to source

Scott Jenson

@lowtech That's a very thoughtful point, thank you. I'd argue the majority of the 'negative replies' I've been getting such as equating anyone wanting to discuss AI as scumbags actually feeds into your point. These people strongly feel there is a "community standard" that needs to be upheld and enforced. Its critical, in their minds, that we chase people away that aren't part of our 'authentic community'.

I tend to agree with you, there is no such thing as that. We clearly want there to be safety and there are basic rules that should be enforced, but "Subject matter" tests of what is allowed and what isn't feels like an impossible goal.

It's actually why I made my post, I know these people would come out of the woodwork. I just wanted to see how they'd frame their arguements.

@James Wallbank
in reply to Jeff Atwood

mastodon - Link to source

Scott Jenson

@codinghorror You're absolutely correct. Part of my method (which I'm fairly transparent about) is that I make these provocations just to test the waters, see what people say, and how the conversation flows. It's basically research for the blog post.

I've gotten some extremely thoughtful comments that have made me rethink several of my original points.

I've even been accused of "baiting" some people which isn't entirely unfair either. It's helpful to 'poke the bear' occassionally 😉

@Jeff Atwood
in reply to Irenes (many)

mastodon - Link to source

Scott Jenson

@ireneista My comment had literally nothing to do with AI, technology, or technology news. It was about inclusivity and I just used this one post as an example of someone getting 'tone policed' by the Mastodon community.

I really don't care what your opinions are on AI, that's not my point my point is that you should be encouraged to have any view you want! for Mastodon to thrive all sorts of people need to come and find their own communities. I'm against people thinking they need to sharp who comes here. It's horribly short sighted.

@Irenes (many)
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Bernie the Wordsmith

When I see discussions about numbers here, I always think about the admins and mods. Are they being empowered with the proper tools to manage that kind of growth? Many instances go invite only because Nazis and transphobes are very good at what they do and they will twist and turn any code, rule or measure to let themselves in. Keeping this at bay requires work that in many occasions is underappreciated and unpaid. Are the right tools at their disposal at the present time?
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Siph

I don’t know how to word this in a less inflammatory way but comparing the organic rejection of techbros who feel entitled to treat social media as some sort of stock market they can manipulate and growth hack and whatever so they can make money off of people (plus: who will have forgotten their grift in a year or two. how’s their NFT collection going?) to actual racism harassment is, frankly, despicable
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Viktoria D. Richards/Uddelhexe

1/2

I really have a problem with putting groups of marginalized humans in one group with tech-people who love Ai.

The one thing is a core human thing, not an interest or a hobby, while being a fan of Ai stuff is a choice and an interest and the fact that the fediverse, albeit filled to the brim with tech and It Nerds, seems to have not much interest in this, is not gatekeeping. I
t simply shows that most people here are interested in other stuff.

in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Gavin

Interesting reference to black twitter in regard of AI. You know there's a whole documentary about how blinkin' racist AI systems are?

Coded Bias it was called. Perhaps you should check it out. codedbias.com/about

Please don't use the term inclusivity with regard to AI people. I'd argue that welcoming AI people would make Mastodon less inclusive.

About — CODED BIAS

CODED BIAS
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Security Writer

a few points to consider, I suppose.

1. What if the voices aren’t welcome because of what they say being antithetical to the values of the Fediverse?

2. Why is *more* always the goal? I have more human interactions on here with <10k followers than I do on other platforms with 100k+

3. Most people are welcome here, it isn’t pollution because there’s no algorithm to present those people to me. It’s far from perfect here, but is natural that smaller, more ideologically driven communities are more politically-minded, and prepared to stand on principle if they disagree with someone’s politics.

4. Journalists unquestioningly hyping a failing technology aren’t in journalism, they’re in marketing

5. Maybe that technology isn’t welcome in real communities because it is inherently harmful, built primarily on theft of our labour and creative output, and only serves to enrich the Big 4/5/6 etc. Many of us moved here to get out of their orbit.

6. I hope you didn’t just compare people not wanting to listen to corporate mouthpieces to marginalised communities being mistreated. Truly through the looking glass if so.

This entry was edited (5 days ago)
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Peter H. Fröhlich

Which part of "federated" has your precious Apple-trained and AI-fawning mind not been able to wrap around? Go ahead and build a community of prompt fondlers. You can then all sit around and fondle prompts in your timelines. It'll be great. And the rest of this federated mess IS TOTALLY WITHIN THEIR RIGHTS to block your prompt fondling instance. Like we block nazi instances. And Trump instances. And whatever-the-fuck-else instances we don't want nothing to do with. It's FEDERATED. You not getting that in your head is your fault alone. 🤷
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

YinYin Falcon

the solution would be focusing on harm reduction when responding to AI topics

this is one of those classic problems that cannot be solved with tech - only with community and communication

(also your comments around this topic eerily remind me of X acting entitled to their previous advertisers - nobody is stopped from joining and sharing their stuff, but also not entitled to engagement on it)

mastodon.online/@YinYinFalcon/…

YinYin Falcon (@YinYinFalcon@mastodon.online)

incredibly important video on harm reduction from LLMs on an individual/interpersonal level https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y85nqc2zm7M
YinYin Falcon (Mastodon)
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Tristan

AI people are going to gravitate to platforms with dopamine fueled algorithms that are easier to manipulate people using their AI tools for engagement. The organic nature of Fedi's self curated feed is antithetical to algorithmic hype and going to be of very little appeal to anyone trying to market their AI products here.

I have seen numerous people spamming their AI stuff here, what I haven't seen is anyone giving them any attention, which they seem to think theyre entitled to.

in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Red Oak

I want to push back on a couple of things. first, the idea that "this is the same reason we lost Black Twitter" - to me they aren't really comparable at all. This example you led with, is a person observing that Masto doesn't meet their goals from engaging with social media professionally. That's very different from the combination of access, lacking mod tools & culture friction that repelled early Black adopters and made bluesky the path of least resistance.

In fact, the post in your OP doesn't seem like a gatekeeping problem at all, to me. It sounds like the dude just didn't find the engagement he wanted here, and therefore chose to invest energy otherwise. Only an issue under the assumption that a space has to be for everyone (big assumption!)

if I said "yknow there's just not a lot of response on bluesky to my cranky too-online autistic anticapitalist ravings" would that feel like an accusation of untenable gatekeeping?

in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Jennifer Moore 😷

racism, LLMs, disagreement about framing - CN allusion to chatbot-linked suicide & other deaths

Sensitive content

in reply to Scott Jenson

glitchsoc - Link to source

Tattie

your fifth point, comparing prejudice against "AI people" to prejudice against Black people is, frankly, shocking.

Evangelising about AI is a choice you make; you're willingly embracing an industry that's destroying the planet and the internet, and enabling an increasingly fascist capitalism.

I will judge that, I will call that out, and then I will block anyone doing so.

"AI people" are not a "marginalized community", and pretending that "this is just like racism" is a false equivalency which misappropriates and trivialises the centuries-long battle for racial equality and justice.

Get a fucking grip, actually learn something about social justice, and stop thinking that being called out for something is in any way comparable to the oppression that Black people face on a daily basis.

in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

I know nothing, still.

mastodon IS inclusive. You can write about pretty much anything you want, whether people want to read it, is their choice. No algorithm is forcing your views on anyone, so if the engagement on a particular subject is low, it just means that people either people don't care about it or haven't seen your post/profile yet. It can take weeks/months for some posts to get some engagement, generally following some unrelated engagement that gained you new followers.
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

gainfullydozy

Mastodon is as inclusive as you want it to be. All you need to do is to set up an instance, and leave the doors open to the sloperators and bot-lickers. You'll be drowning in "content" in no time.

Nobody owes their eyeballs or attention, and there's no algorithm anyone can abuse to force us to give either of those things.

It's funny, it seems like anytime "market forces" cut the other way, they're suddenly a bad thing and we need to "fix" them.

No. We don't. It's fine.

in reply to Scott Jenson

glitchsoc - Link to source

jeremiah

You know, personally, I like that I don't see a ton of Bitcoin people here.

AI folks can feel free to spin up their own instances and their admins can choose to defederate and block folks they see as hostile.

Also, incredible take to compare AI boosters to marginalized communities. Just chef's kiss.

To be clear I think Mastodon's racism problem is real but I don't think AI boosters not finding an audience here is the same problem.

in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Peter Bloem

Speaking as an "AI person", it's worth distinguishing between the uncritical AI boosters, and the AI experts (including journos) who may just have complex opinions.

I pick a lot of people up on poor AI criticism. Not because I think AI is so great and we should embrace it, but because we need a better class of criticism.

It can also be tricky when Mastodon expects perfect purity. I'm very AI critical, but not always. If that's not good enough, we're on a dangerous road.

in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Digital Mark λ ☕️ 🚀 🌗

1. There is no "AI", only LLMs.
2. LLMs are not people.
3. People promoting LLMs are goodlife* meat puppet scam artists.
4. NO. Fuck off & die in a fire.
5. Equating excluding grifters to racism is so sick & fucked up only a machine would've written it.

* (Go read Fred Saberhagen's Berserker stories. That's what you're promoting.)
#butlerianJihad

#butlerianjihad
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

C. R. Collins 🌳 🐸

Who is stopping them from joining? My understanding of the fediverse is that anyone can join or create their own server. They might have more problems building a following here, but that's a different thing.

Incidentally, my one experience with an "AI person" was one inciting others to dogpile on my friend for being an "AI bigot." Not exactly an example of a desirable community member. 🙄

in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Estarriol, Terrorist Dragon

the problem is the dude in your example, expects, indeed demands engagement and finds clock bait and shitposts do worse here, so they have to actually work for engagement, which as a social media influencer, because that is all they are when they boast of 'engagement' and 'shitposting' is read and forgotten, he makes no mark, then whines.
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

The Fulcrum ⚒️ ⛓️‍💥 🏴‍☠️

@rolle
Speaking as a journalist, if news peeps don’t like the Fediverse as is, they can fuck off the same as anyone else. The fediverse is for communities not the masses. And news is not journalism as all this AI shit demonstrates daily. And comparing black people to tech bro cunts won’t win you any black friends. Give nostr a try.
@Roni Rolle Laukkarinen
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

None Hitwonder

I think the biggest stumbling block to increasing inclusion here is technical, not cultural. I'll use myself as an example:

I joined my first instance in 2017, and the biggest issue then is the same one I face in 2026, and that is finding people to follow, and following them.

My method was to find someone who already seemed to follow users I found interesting, and see if I wanted to follow any of them myself, but that would often mean having to load the remote instance first just to see who they follow, and then copy-pasting usernames into my own instance to add them, or otherwise having to reinvoke my own instance from theirs every time I want to add a new follow. That's already more work than the average user is going to want to go through just to branch out of their own instance, assuming they understand how any of this works when they first get here.

It's not race or gender or politics or AI interest that consistently keeps people off Mastodon; it's that Mastodon works differently in a way that no other social network overtly seems to work, with no real explanation of this to a casual user, and makes one of the most fundamental features of a social network -- networking with other users -- one of the most complicated parts of the process. Most people think it's reasonable to assume that, if they see a post they like and want to follow the person who posted it, they'll have to click one, maybe two buttons to make that happen; that is not a foregone conclusion on Mastodon.

It's like if I had an email address, but out of the box could only see how to email other users on the same domain, and there are six other steps to follow to JUST EMAIL MY DAD on a different domain, and nobody mentioned those steps or made them easily accessible.

I like to tinker and have some technical skill with computers and a great deal of patience. That's the kind of person you get on here with barriers like we have. To broaden the spectrum of users, the ability to more easily and seamlessly connect users across instances would need to exist.

As it stands now, the reason you feel like you're in an echo chamber may be because the distance between chambers is still too high.

This entry was edited (4 days ago)
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Kristoffer Lawson

I’m with you on this one. I hope you don’t get discouraged by some vicious comments. #Mastodon is very much a particular kind of bubble, and honestly it gets quite tedious for that. It’s nowhere near as friendly as people like to claim (step outside the bubble…). I too find myself glancing elsewhere as I would like to see a multitude of viewpoints.

The reason I remain is that this is the only truly decentralised social media that sort of works.

#Mastodon
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Dan Dean

This is honestly SO WEIRD.

Nobody is keeping "AI People" from joining Mastodon. There just isn't a gate to gatekeep. AI-booster discourse doesn't have traction here because individuals have better control over what's in their feeds, so we can easily filter it, and as a result, they get less traction.

I blocked the person you link a few months ago because their AI-booster content was overwhelmingly annoying and I didn't want to see it anymore. Now I like my feed more!

in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Dominykas Blyžė

we live in a world where using lightbulbs is probably fascism (because electricity can come from carbon based sources and materials to make them are probably also sourced unethically and factories in China abuse workers). Hell. Using a fork is probably oppression, because capitalists manufacture them.

I'm glad I'm in a position where I can block people and move on and I'm sorry for those who can't easily do that because of the work they are trying to do. It must be hard.

in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Willem Janssen

There are valid concerns with engagement on Mastodon. But using AI as an example was a mistake: it’s the opposite of a marginalized community (by using literal billions to shout at everyone, and your original quote even shows that it’s disliked on every platform). Complaining about getting replies while speaking as an official Mastodon strategist does not seem fair. Getting unsolicited replies while in a marginalized community is an issue, but that’s not helped by 1/n
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Mark Down

If you want this network to be more inclusive, you will need to start from a place of inclusion.

Your words were entirely the wrong way to try to make this place more inclusive. You launched the conversation by attempting to label critics and assholes with the same category, you presented your prescriptive solution instead of asking the folks who don't like ai to hear their concerns.

Share your perspective, sure, but start off from a place of curiosity, not dictating change.

in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Mister Dave

If you want people here, start an instance. It’s a free network.

As a free network, you may find other network operators choose not to federate with your instance. This has happened in the past. This is not an exclusion of the instance, it is simply a failure of that instance to find its audience.

In brief: The people here will include you when you bring something that they want to have in their community. Some people here have found journalists (on journa.host or elsewhere) to be something they want in their community. but that’s per-instance and per-user. "Mastodon" the network (inasmuch as there is such a thing) doesn’t have a mechanism to grant what you’re asking.

in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Elton Cora (Honorary)

maybe community composition and inclusivity is just an emergent property of a networked feedback mechanism that looks something like immunity, and while we’d all like to think that we’re smart enough intervene to make it do what we want, that is just our arrogance filling in for understanding.

Maybe all-inclusive is a fantasy. Maybe it’s not the existence of exclusion that is problematic with social networks, but the specific properties of instances of exclusion. Maybe a community that welcomes everyone without *any* standards is not a community at all. Maybe the people who stay here today see the immune system that has emerged as a feature.

Maybe humans can create things that take on lives of their own, maybe we’ve seen obvious failed experiments where ecosystems collapse into a toxic yet stable goo, and mastodon, imperfect as it may be in catering to the whims of everyone, is at least welcome not-hot-lava to those who have otherwise almost given up on other social media.

This project has more in common with terraforming than with software design. I’m hopeful people have read enough speculative fiction to understand what that means for interventionist efforts.

Besides, I think the case has been made that the needs of AI journalists and fans are met when other platforms are considered. The comparative advantage of the Masto community lies elsewhere. Is that not something to be proud of? What does masto have to gain from trying to be the miracle whip to their mayonnaise? Surely there are more essential targets for effort.

Besides, one thing we have learned from the development of AI/ML is that fully connected networks underperform at best and lead to collapse at worst. When I look around, the common denominator I see in expressed suffering as nourished by contemporary social networks is too much connectivity rather than too little.

This entry was edited (4 days ago)
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

dasgrueneblatt

Who are you to tell me that I should be more interested in any topic? Who are you to tell me that I'm not supposed to mute, block or defederate from any topic?

It seems that you are deeply misunderstanding the federated nature of the Fediverse and Mastodon.

There's thousands of instances, each with its own moderation and federation policy, and millions of accounts who chose their instance because of those policies, and now individually curating their feeds based on their very personal preferences.

Who is the we in "we let more in"? Where is the gate to gate keep?

I've already told you that comparing "AI people" to marginalized people is vile. There's something very fundamental about human dignity that you are not getting here.

in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

ceb

The "problem" is that e.g. AI enthusiasts, right-wing loons, fascists, &c. &c. fundamentally just aren't very popular people. In polite society they end up shutting up. It's the algorithms on commercial sites that make them seem popular (aka divisive and engagement-generating). If you judge mastodon against these engagement-generating sites then you're judging against a skewed idea of what "normal" looks like.
This entry was edited (3 days ago)
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

saxnot

mastodon was build by marginalized people. I was there in the beginning when it was pretty much the norm to be trans or gay on mastodon. That's one of the reasons why it's decentralized and has strong local moderation build in.

Now people who want to write about AI join the platform and compare themselves to marginalized communities: a comparison which is pretty disgusting tbh.
There are many popular writers out there.
perhaps the AI is just not that interesting to the people here

in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Patrick H. Lauke

threads and bluesky are single monolithic platforms. masto federated. so would likely depend on which masto server someone's posting on i'd guess as a starter...

also, purely anecdotally/for my own part, there's less of a culture of boosting/liking/trying to make things go viral for the algorithm. lack of apparent engagement may not signal lack of people actually reading posts/following links/etc.

This entry was edited (6 days ago)
in reply to Patrick H. Lauke

mastodon - Link to source

Patrick H. Lauke

"we'd *like* journalists to be here right? They aren't coming with examples like this!" if they're only coming to see number go up engagement metrics... they may have a hard time. maybe they should come here to, oh i don't know, spread information? have targeted discussions with specific folks (rather than hoping for drive-by engagement)?
This entry was edited (6 days ago)
in reply to Patrick H. Lauke

mastodon - Link to source

Scott Jenson

@patrick_h_lauke So is the only alternative "number go DOWN" metrics? I'm not trying to be snarky, I'm trying to find a way to have both be possible: how can we keep our soul but still have a diverse community.

My concern is that your comment uses the "we don't want a number go up mentality" argument to hide the fact that our community is a mono culture.

@Patrick H. Lauke
in reply to Scott Jenson

hometown - Link to source

pixx

@patrick_h_lauke

The short answer seems very strongly to be "it's irrelevant because that's not what people here want"

Mastodon and fedi in general are very much countercultural. Most people who come to these platforms do so to get away from other platforms, many of which are more inclusive of mainstream voices.

So by its very nature, mastodon has a selection bias for people who do not want inclusivity.

@Patrick H. Lauke
in reply to pixx

mastodon - Link to source

Daniel Brotherston

@pixx @patrick_h_lauke

This take...makes no sense. "Countercultural" is almost never anti-inclusive. Counter-culture knows what it's like to be excluded.

The idea that "mainstream" voices are being "excluded" is ridiculous...mainstream voices are never excluded...it's actually a decent definition of "mainstream".

But the original thread is not better...the idea that "number go down" is not something I've seen supported (but neither have I seen it opposed) but the idea that more interaction = more diversity is just weird.

I dunno...earlier in the thread there's a suggestion "oh there's less people feeding the algorithm" and I'm not sure OP even knows how Mastodon/Fediverse works.

@Patrick H. Lauke @pixx
in reply to Daniel Brotherston

hometown - Link to source

pixx

@danbrotherston @patrick_h_lauke

> Counter-culture knows what it's like to be excluded.

Sure. It does not follow that counter-culture is not also exclusive, that makes no sense.

> The idea that "mainstream" voices are being "excluded" is ridiculous...mainstream voices are never excluded...it's actually a decent definition of "mainstream".

Yes, they're not excluded _from mainstream spaces_; people come here _to avoid those spaces_ and thus as a direct rejection of the people _who are in them_. This argument also makes no sense.

Fedi can reasonably be defined by what it is _not_. It is absolutely hostile towards corporate actors, engagement farming, and much of "normal" / "mainstream" culture.

Twitter remains a much more mainstream space; many people are here specifically to avoid it _and the people on it_. Which continues to be, well, most of them.

@Daniel Brotherston @Patrick H. Lauke
in reply to pixx

mastodon - Link to source

Daniel Brotherston

@pixx @patrick_h_lauke

Oh no....we're hostile to engagement farming and corporate PR departments.

No, you're right...we're inclusive of people...ONLY people.

People in "mainstream" places are not excluded here, neither are mainstream viewpoints and opinions nor mainstream ideas.

The only thing that is being excluded then is financialization and corporate capture.

I call that "inclusive".

It's the equivalent of the paradox of tolerance. Being tolerant of intolerance is intolerant. Being inclusive of grifts and PR is exclusive.

I am not here to avoid the PEOPLE on twitter...I'm here to avoid the grifts, bots, and nazis--ooh...woops, you're right...we are not inclusive of Nazi's either. I guess you have a point.... 🙄

Honestly, I find this take bizarre...this place has it's problems, but it's vastly more inclusive than Twitter or Bluesky.

@Patrick H. Lauke @pixx
This entry was edited (4 days ago)
in reply to Daniel Brotherston

hometown - Link to source

pixx

@danbrotherston @patrick_h_lauke

Fedi is very inclusive of traditionally excluded people, and very _unfriendly_ to normies, even if it's not actively hostile.

There's also a very, very obvious political bias, which is just as extreme (but in different directions) than mainstream platforms, and one which is not particularly welcoming of normie opinions either.

@Daniel Brotherston @Patrick H. Lauke
in reply to pixx

hometown - Link to source

pixx

@danbrotherston @patrick_h_lauke

Example: I have very strong negative opinions about AI. I also know that _almost everyone_ I've encountered IRL has at least found it _cool_. At least one friend has said they only avoid AI because they know _I_ don't like it.

Anyone talking about AI in anything resembling a positive light is probably going to have a bad time here. That's a _lot_ of normal people right now.

There's a lot of things that are normal that probably shouldn't be that people here do not like. This does not change that they are normal.

Normal people coming here and talking normally _will_ receive harassment because of it.

@Daniel Brotherston @Patrick H. Lauke
in reply to pixx

mastodon - Link to source

Daniel Brotherston

@pixx @patrick_h_lauke

I dunno...I have a nuanced and not entirely negative view of AI, and I don't have a bad time here.

Having my ideas challenged isn't "a bad time"...and if I really wanted to, I could find people who did feel differently. There's over a million people on here, not all of them feel the same way.

That said, I have never seen the harassment you speak of, and certainly I cannot imagine that someone would be harassed for "normal" actions and opinions.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

@Patrick H. Lauke @pixx
in reply to Daniel Brotherston

mastodon - Link to source

Daniel Brotherston

@pixx @patrick_h_lauke

As for Fedi being unfriendly to "normies" ... I've seen conversations here explicitly discussing how to be welcoming to new people from other platforms.

But there is an inherent complexity to a distributed network that simply doesn't exist for a centralised corporatised network.

I do think that people will find a difference here between the intentionally algorithmically addictive feed from Twitter vs. the chronological feed here, just as any addictive experience is different from a neutral one.

@Patrick H. Lauke @pixx
in reply to pixx

snac - Link to source

khm

also completely overlooking the "you can use two apps" hole in the side of this logic boat

we lose nothing by crowding out the content farmers, because we can just go sign up for content-farm platforms if their bullshit is for some reason important to us. nothing is stopping anyone from using all of these platforms, except good taste

CC: @scottjenson@social.coop @patrick_h_lauke@mastodon.social

@Scott Jenson @Patrick H. Lauke
in reply to Patrick H. Lauke

mastodon - Link to source

Scott Jenson

@patrick_h_lauke The metrics are clear, people are leaving mastodon, our daily actives are going down. I agree that pursing follower count is not what Mastodon should be about, we likely agree on many points here. I'm just trying to say 'being more welcoming of other points of view' shouldn't be controvertial. Yet so many replies have been "we don't want them here!" which feels very head-in-the-sand to me.
@Patrick H. Lauke
in reply to Patrick H. Lauke

mastodon - Link to source

Scott Jenson

@patrick_h_lauke Good point, I didn't mean to shift the goal posts! Part of my goal here is to understand the problem better. The original post was superficially about engagement but it was really about how a journalist isn't welcome here on Mastodon. (and people seem to be quite happy about that!)

So yeah, my argument is likely shifting with the replies I'm getting. But I can't believe that asking for 'a big tent' is considered a bad thing.

@Patrick H. Lauke
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Thib

Mastodon is 100% an echo chamber in my experience.

Some topics are taboo, and there is very little tolerance for everything that is not the accepted opinion.

I think Mastodon is the platform where I’ve seen the smallest diversity of opinions on any non-technical topic.

Yet I want the fediverse to succeed as a platform to liberate the general public from monopolistic and toxic platforms.

in reply to Thib

mastodon - Link to source

Bloodymirova

@thibaultamartin I think for many people it’s important to mostly be able to discuss what is interesting to them without feeling judged. We’re all looking for a good time and we mostly don’t like conflict - except for trolls just looking to get the rise out of people. So I see how you wouldn’t spend much time on a platform that unanimously disagrees with your views and opinions.
@Thib
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Ben Hardill

But I get pushed US politics all day by the main stream media & I'm not even in the US & current politics (here & there) is heavily slanted towards manufactured wedge issues.

AI is a similar, for me the moral and environmental arguments against are plenty before we get into the rest, yet as I work in software it's impossible to get away from.

So I come to a place where I can choose not to engage with it, I block/mute very little, I mainly ignore it if it ends up in my feed.

This entry was edited (6 days ago)
in reply to Ben Hardill

mastodon - Link to source

spiegelmama

@ben So, a little context from a former journalist: I asked my boss if I could start and manage a mastodon account for my publication, and she advised that we would have to conduct a study to justify the use of my time - a company asset - by measuring traffic that mastodon drove to our site. Because this is a respectful space, there was no real way to track clicks, so I couldn't justify it and I ended up deleting the account I had already started. It's often not a matter of the journalist's lack of imagination or excess of ego, but their need to meet metrics.
@Ben Hardill
in reply to spiegelmama

mastodon - Link to source

J Miller

@spiegelmama

Thank you for sharing your authentic experience. My snarky side says "Were they that circumspect in the early days of Twitter? I bet not."

But you point to a very valid issue for journalists that I believe also extends to nonprofits. It's not the whole answer, but we who want journalists and nonprofits may need to actively hit the like button a lot more.

@spiegelmama
in reply to J Miller

akkoma - Link to source

stefan (stefbun)

@JMMaok @spiegelmama tbh it does not seem tooo hard to me to measure "engagement" atleast for the number a link is clicked (which could be used as a measure on how much "traffic" a presence on masto brings you).

You can do analytics like this in a very unintrusive way not even much needed.

A german publication and NGO that fights fake news uses a simple UTM parameter in the links they share here by attaching "utm_source=mstdn" which could give you a hint on where visitors are coming from when they click a link. Should not be to intrusive tbh. And analytics software can track this.

> by measuring traffic that mastodon drove to our site. Because this is a respectful space, there was no real way to track clicks, so I couldn't justify it

So tbh this seems more like a skill issue more than "there is no way to track this stuff". using a simple parameter is not intrusing privacy all that much tbh and may be deamed acceptable.

Obviously a discussion with the community of where the account posts if this is fine.

@J Miller @spiegelmama
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Robin-Yann Storm

I do not think it is becoming an echo chamber as much as it was literally built to be one. We're all on these separate federations, and only if you put particular effort into it do you see posts from other federations.

I bet if I posted to mastodon.social, I would get more traction on some of my posts. But also, I would not be able to have any kind of readable local timeline.

I bet I could manually edit a deck together for both but... even I don't, because UX.

in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Robin-Yann Storm

Sure: I use the 'deck' view of mastodon. I have a home column, a local timeline column, and a notifications column.

I do not have a simple + button on the right side of these columns to then add more columns such as timelines from other servers. I know there is another gamedev server out there, and I would like to read their posts too. And I would like for them to read mine. But there is no way for either of us to easily do that, so we just stay blind and confined.

in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Osma A 🇫🇮🇺🇦

Anecdotally, the last few times I have seen a Bluesky user mention Mastodon it's been to complain they see "trolls over the bridge". Screenshots refer to servers I never see on fedi actual.
1) there's a lot more diversity on ActivityPub than is visible
2) it may be the kind most mainstream fedi servers block as trolls
@scottjenson @carnage4life
@Scott Jenson @Dare Obasanjo
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Matt Wilcox

Errr. I don’t see a problem with this at all, frankly.

No. I don’t particularly want them here. I don’t mind if they are, but I won’t see them. This isn’t a space where I want the typical stuff that I can see anywhere and everywhere else. I like here for precisely what *isnt* here. No chasing clout, no engagement farming, no monetary driven agenda. But nothing is stopping such people from being here except *it doesn’t work well here*. And that’s good. IMO.

This entry was edited (6 days ago)
in reply to Matt Wilcox

mastodon - Link to source

Scott Jenson

@mattwilcox but our numbers are steadily going down. We are NOT in a steady state. You won't be able to have this place if we just keep going the way we are.

I"m a bit surprised that asking for "big tent mentality" is considered a bad thing! I thought we wanted diversity? I thought this was meant to be the place where we all could come? This gatekeeping is not a good look (or a healthy one)

@Matt Wilcox
in reply to Matt Wilcox

mastodon - Link to source

Luca Sironi

@mattwilcox
in my humble opinion the nazi bar analogy does not work.
A bar is a small room and the noise of a particular group of people can become overwhelming.

Here, no topic is pushed, and if I'm not interested in something, I have the tools to keep it out of my timeline and out of my users one.
You can speak of that something, but not to me.

Fediverse is a social infrastructure, I am not dictating what people can say on the telephone

@Matt Wilcox
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Rosy

mastodon has a reputation for being filled with tech bros and linux guys. this drives other types of people away. I use linux myself but if you join some instances, it seems like that's all people ever talk about, and it can be very boring, if not incomprehensible for people not familiar with technobabble. more diversity is needed, both in terms of demographics and interests, but I don't know the best way to reach out...

I think trying to appeal to the small/indie web crowd might be a good idea, they're not traditionally techy but they skew young and lots of them have made their own sites on neocities, etc. "make your own social media site" seems like the next natural step.

in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Evan Prodromou

so, I find this discussion disappointing for a few reasons.

The biggest one is this: all three platforms that @carnage4life calls out are connected via ActivityPub. They are on one inter-network.

In theory, he should not need three different accounts, with three different follower groups. He should have one account, and all 103k followers (minus duplicates!) could be part of the same conversation, on whatever server platform they use.

In practice, few people do this today.

@Dare Obasanjo
in reply to Evan Prodromou

mastodon - Link to source

Evan Prodromou

on the topic of AI, I find the abusive conversations on the Fediverse pretty dispiriting. People I like and respect have worked themselves into the position that use of AI is an inexcusable sin, and that anyone who uses AI merits harassment and abuse. Given that 85% of developers use or plan to use AI (Stack Overflow poll), that means a huge number of tech people getting brigaded by our anti-AI squad.
in reply to Evan Prodromou

mastodon - Link to source

Evan Prodromou

I've tried to mitigate that a bit by sharing my own experience with AI as a development tool. I know there are other people on the Fediverse who talk about how and when they use AI, with or without misgivings.

cosocial.ca/@evan/116206693774…

Evan Prodromou

2026-03-10 20:10:27

mastodon - Link to source

I use Claude and Thaura for search in my daily life.

I use Claude as a rubber duck for coding. I also let it review my code for errors or make recommendations. On occasion, I'll let CoPilot or Claude add a few lines of code directly. I don't "vibe code".

I enjoy both uses. I don't feel guilty about either.


in reply to Evan Prodromou

mastodon - Link to source

Evan Prodromou

The media in this post is not displayed to visitors. To view it, please go to the original post.

I've been privately sharing this link to a post by @MozillaAI , an Open Source non-profit announcing an Open Source AI project to make development with AI safer, more efficient, and less costly. They got brigaded in a pretty threatening way, and people I know and respect jumped in to join the dogpile.

mastodon.social/@MozillaAI/116…

mozilla.ai

2026-03-23 15:30:07

mastodon - Link to source

Agents shouldn’t have to figure everything out from scratch.

Right now, they do.

cq is a Stack Overflow for agents, where knowledge is shared and improved over time.

Less repetition. More reliable outcomes.

See how it works: link.mozilla.ai/cq-stack-overf…


cq: Stack Overflow for Agents

cq explores a Stack Overflow for agents, a shared commons where agents can query past learnings, contribute new knowledge, and avoid repeating the same mistakes in isolation.
Peter Wilson (Mozilla.ai)

@mozilla.ai
This entry was edited (5 days ago)
in reply to Evan Prodromou

mastodon - Link to source

Dare Obasanjo

@evan @MozillaAI Mastodon as a community is quite hostile to AI and anything that isn’t a criticism of AI is viewed with skepticism at best and typically with hostility as the default.

It’s unfortunate because, as in your Mozilla example, there is still time to shape how AI is used in our industry. It’s better to engage and try to influence it versus stick your head in the sand and have the change thrusted upon you.

@Evan Prodromou @mozilla.ai
in reply to Dare Obasanjo

mastodon - Link to source

manchicken

@evan @MozillaAI I’d probably be less hostile toward a harmful technology if it weren’t costing me and my friends so much of what we built, just so those who have disproportionately benefitted from our labor could take more short-term profits.

Nobody should be expected to apologize for standing up for themselves, their friends and colleagues, and what they’ve built together that is being poisoned.

@Evan Prodromou @mozilla.ai
in reply to Dare Obasanjo

mastodon - Link to source

Mikalai

@evan @MozillaAI
.... as a community, ....

Can we pause for a second. Why do we automatically lump people with different thoughts, perspectives into one group?

When you talk to AI-one-shotted person, check if they are also more suseptible to this shortcutting simplification human bias. It may be one of the factors.

There are tons of different not-pleasant-to-AI-fanatics perspectives in this federated space. "Community" brush stroke erases nuances. Please, don't.

@Evan Prodromou @mozilla.ai
in reply to Dare Obasanjo

mastodon - Link to source

Diogo Constantino

Hi! I hope you don't feel discouraged by assholes.

Loving, hating AI and everything in between is ok. Even caring and not caring about AI.

About engaging with AI. Being AI something great, or whatever, keep in mind that AI is being shoved into people's throats, both on their loved tech, and on every f*in public conversation regardless of what they think or feel about it. So harsh reactions are to be expected, and some will also be unacceptable.

@evan @scottjenson @MozillaAI

@Scott Jenson @Evan Prodromou @mozilla.ai
in reply to Evan Prodromou

mastodon - Link to source

Evan Prodromou

We have access to platforms through open APIs that have no gatekeepers. We could have MCP or RAG interfaces to servers that we own and operate. We could use them to ask questions like, which of my friends need some support today? Who have I had good conversations with in the past, that I should keep up with better? Who should I follow to help with my career? What volunteer opportunities in my area align with my values?
in reply to Evan Prodromou

mastodon - Link to source

Evan Prodromou

Lastly, and carefully, maybe we should put some technological speed bumps in the way of random abuse of strangers. Mastodon experimented with an AYS pop-up when replying to a stranger. I don't know what the results of that experiment were, or if any others are planned.

blog.joinmastodon.org/2023/11/…

Improving the quality of conversations on Mastodon

In our most recent Mastodon for Android release, we’re testing a new feature aimed to curb unneccesary negativity that comes from being on the Internet.
Mastodon Blog
in reply to Evan Prodromou

mastodon - Link to source

Demian

@evan sure, let’s take steps to prevent abuse and make this a more welcoming and inclusive space, but let’s stop pretending that “AI users” are a marginalized community. It’s like arguing that cops or Republicans are a protected class. Center actual marginalized groups in these discussions! If they feel welcome then there’s a better chance non-hype AI users will too
@Evan Prodromou

Aaron Lord reshared this.

in reply to Evan Prodromou

mastodon - Link to source

Nelson

@evan @panos Two things can be true at the same time:

- Using LLMs is unacceptable
- We should not abuse individuals for using LLMs, both because that is ineffective at stopping LLM use, and because everyone does harmful things to survive capitalism

The real problem is when people deny the harms, or decide to ignore the harms because of "inevitability" etc. It's understandable that you want the thing you're doing to not be harmful, but wishing won't make it so.

@Evan Prodromou @panos
in reply to Nelson

catodon - Link to source

panos

I don't think that using LLMs is unacceptable. I don't buy the "built on stolen property" argument for this, every developer ever has searched for how to do something in stack overflow etc, I don't know why LLMs shouldn't be trained the same way in order to automate work for us. I get the climate impact argument, but again, flying with airplanes has much more of an impact, but it is normalized by now, practically nobody will tell you it's unacceptable to visit a foreign country by plane. @evan@cosocial.ca @carnage4life@mas.to @scottjenson@social.coop
@Scott Jenson @Dare Obasanjo @Evan Prodromou
This entry was edited (5 days ago)
in reply to panos

mastodon - Link to source

Nelson

@panos @evan This is what I'm talking about. You're both minimizing/denying harms and saying they don't matter. This is one of the biggest problems with LLMs, they turn people into apologists for the fossil fuel industry because they don't want to think they're helping destroy the world.

*If* flying is more harmful, that's no excuse. There's always something more harmful until you reach the top, and then the excuse will be it's too important or too difficult to stop.

@Evan Prodromou @panos
in reply to Evan Prodromou

mastodon - Link to source

Nelson

@evan @panos I do not concede that LLMs are "orders of magnitude" less harmful than flying. Also I do not fly.

Anyone dismissing LLM harms doesn't understand the scale of the climate crisis or of LLMs. Sadly, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!” I can't force this understanding onto anyone in a few toots, they would have to want to understand, when the industry requires LLMs if you want to eat.

@Evan Prodromou @panos
in reply to Evan Prodromou

mastodon - Link to source

idlestate's garrulous side

@evan
@skyfaller

this is whataboutism

Air travel is a relatively mature industry, but putting "graphics" cards in data centers, and not just graphics cards but the highest end ones that use approximately All The World's RAM is quite new in comparison & whose growth is being flogged at the highest levels.

so, that 0.3% is an addition to our carbon use. I doubt airline carbon use has grown anything like that in a similar time frame.

@Nelson @Evan Prodromou
This entry was edited (4 days ago)
in reply to idlestate's garrulous side

mastodon - Link to source

Evan Prodromou

@emittingstate @skyfaller it's not whataboutism. We are in the middle of a real climate crisis. The things that are causing this crisis are not AI -- they're gas cars, red meat, rice cultivation, cement production. Telling people that AI use is singularly unacceptable because of its effects on climate change, but accepting all these other behaviors, is a lie.
@Nelson @idlestate's garrulous side
in reply to Evan Prodromou

mastodon - Link to source

senna.apk

@evan I agree. I would rather talk about how we can improve LLMs and their applications than post anti-AI memes and shame people who use LLMs.

For example, let's use more voluntary training data, let's make smaller, more efficient models, let's do more quality control with the output, let's protect authors and artists from having their work stolen, let's not over-rely on LLMs or use them for things they are bad at. These are actionable steps we can take to improve the world with LLMs in it.

I do not believe that the "LLMs are categorically evil" approach is going to have any good results. The genie is out of the bottle, people find this technology very useful in certain ways. We might as well try to reduce the harms and improve the outcomes of using LLMs rather than chase after a cultural or legal prohibition which will never really be effective.

@Evan Prodromou
in reply to senna.apk

mastodon - Link to source

Evan Prodromou

@earth_walker
One thing we don't talk about, when we talk about AI, is that, for hackers, AI-assisted software development threatens our livelihoods and lifestyle. It undermines the special position that we hold in the social and economic order.

No amount of lowering power consumption, careful training data provenance, or decentralised deployment will help with that.

@senna.apk
in reply to Evan Prodromou

mastodon - Link to source

Mastodon Migration

@evan
Just dropping in to point out that the reason many people do not open the gates to multiple social media platforms is their respective Terms Of Service. When all platforms except Mastodon essentially claim a license to all content and employ people's posts and data for LLM training that is a very good reason not to participate on their platforms.
@Evan Prodromou
in reply to Evan Prodromou

mastodon - Link to source

Mastodon Migration

Agreed. Certainly many people have decided to accept these TOS terms. Just saying that for a lot of people here it is a valid reason not to be on those platforms.

When you raise concerns about cross platform interoperability, there are legitimate reasons, other that cultural, to decide to avoid the corporate platforms.

This entry was edited (4 days ago)
in reply to Mastodon Migration

mastodon - Link to source

Evan Prodromou

@mastodonmigration Of course. And there are valid reasons to not federate with platforms, too.

I am most concerned about why someone would keep 3 different accounts on 3 different services. We technically have federation between all those platforms, and more, but @carnage4life finds it better for some reason to spread out his presence across different accounts.

I can't make someone not do that, but I'd love to make federation interfaces smoother so if they don't want to, they don't have to.

@Mastodon Migration @Dare Obasanjo
in reply to Evan Prodromou

mastodon - Link to source

Josh

@evan @mastodonmigration
Maybe somebody should ask people/groups like @georgetakei @ProPublica and @msfreepress how they thrive driving content and engagement in the Fediverse because they all maintain both dedicated Mastodon accounts and dedicated accounts on other platforms.
@Mastodon Migration @George Takei 🏳️‍🌈🖖🏽 @ProPublica @Mississippi Free Press @Evan Prodromou
in reply to Orca 🌻 | 🎀 | 🪁 | 🏴🏳️‍⚧️

mastodon - Link to source

Evan Prodromou

@Orca

I am one of the authors of ActivityPub, the current maintainer, and the research director for the Social Web Foundation.

Bluesky is connected to the Fediverse through BridgyFed. fed.brid.gy/

I'm aware of the opt-in federation in Threads. It is still connected and uses ActivityPub natively.

@Orca 🌻 | 🎀 | 🪁 | 🏴🏳️‍⚧️
in reply to Evan Prodromou

misskey - Link to source

Orca 🌻 | 🎀 | 🪁 | 🏴🏳️‍⚧️

I don't believe it's proper to say "Bluesky is connected to the fediverse" just because "a 3rd party bridge exists", but you do you.
Also that bridge needs to be enabled explicitly, too.

Partial connection problem with Threads and 3rd party bridge tools makes getting genuine statistial results very hard, because now "what kind of people enable bridges/opt-in connection features so they may interact with users on the other sites" will seriously affect the result Dare Obasanjo presented in his post.
If you saw on BlueSky that "Most consistant engagement with politics being most viral. Dislikes AI." (Quoting Dare Obasanjo's post here). Can you concludes that the whole fediverse is like that, just because Threads and Bluesky are partially connected to the fediverse? How many users enable wider connection? Among these users, how many of them advocate for political ideas, how many of them hate AI? Do these users faithfully represent "rest-of-fediverse" (Threads users + classic fediverse users that uses Mastodon/Pleroma/Misskey/etc) as a whole? If so, how are we supposed to use that part of data?
You should have known the answers to these questions better than me.

in reply to Orca 🌻 | 🎀 | 🪁 | 🏴🏳️‍⚧️

mastodon - Link to source

Evan Prodromou

@Orca

I think we're saying the same thing. I agree, the connections between these platforms is not smooth enough that most people feel like they are all part of the same network.

If you read the rest of the thread, I say, "As technologists we need to do more to smooth those junctures and make them less of a barrier."

@Orca 🌻 | 🎀 | 🪁 | 🏴🏳️‍⚧️
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

William Smith

If you're all about the likes, boosts, and replies, I'm not here for you and won't follow. Same if you boost/post excessively to get attention.

If you're here only to drive traffic to your website, there's a good chance I'll mute or block you.

If you'e not using hashtags, I'll have a hard time discovering you.

If you're posting to start a discussion and participate in that discussion, you've got my attention so long as I find the topic and discussion interesting.

This entry was edited (6 days ago)
in reply to Scott Jenson

sharkey - Link to source

Dæmon S.

From my experience, it's a phenomenon far from just Mastodon.

As a bit of context, I mostly interact (or at least used to until a few weeks ago) with other Fediverse platforms such as those comprising the threadiverse (e.g. Lemmy, Piefed, MBin, etc.) as well as Mastodon and others, having been settled on a Sharkey/Calckey instance as my Fediverse daily driver. I got accounts across a few different platforms such as PixelFed (where I mostly post my own arts) and Mastodon (which I mostly use to federate my posts from both platforms).

I'm also quite eccentric, I don't really have a "tribe" or circle because I don't really fit labels. If I were to label myself, I'd be a rebellious, solitary Lilith-centered occultist because that's exactly who I've been lately (since roughly 2 yrs ago). This context is important bc what I'm recounting about my online experience may be biased due to this eccentricity of mine.

This said, the part of the Fediverse I've been slightly "successful" in interacting with is the threadiverse. By "successful", I mean threadiverse is where I tend (it's far from a certainty) to afford the most conversations (albeit extremely limited to the scope of the thread).

Outside the threadiverse, my experience is a complete vacuum.

My PixelFed posts, for example, got absolutely no replies whatsoever. At best, "numeric reactions" (upvotes and reposts), which feels hollow for someone whose (artistic and/or ritualistic) content tries to actually talk to people (you can quite notice that on this very reply I'm writing, in all of its length and verbosity), hoping to find those who hold similar beliefs (because the religious/esoteric aspect of my existence have been extremely meaningful to me).

Mastodon used to have a global feed where I got to see and to be seen from outside my "solipsistic bubble"... until mastodon.social suddenly decided to turn it off. To illustrate its importance, your post, for example, reached me through global feed (Calckey's). So it's not a bad thing as I hear people saying about the global feed sometimes.

A year ago, I used to have a Bluesky, too. Something similar used to happen: few (if any) textual interactions, higher numeric reactions, something that led me to delete my Bluesky account. Other social platforms I (used to) use (were/)have been even more devoid of the "social" aspect.

In the end it feels like the entire Web is turning into some kind of "Dark forest" from the "Dark forest hypothesis", the one that states that we don't see extraterrestrial civilizations because they're hiding themselves amidst the cosmic darkness and silence, out of fear that other civilizations would be hostile. Perhaps there are still humans on the Web, but they're too afraid of what they'd find at the other side of the online connection, so they end up retreating: that's Earth, that's us, the Pale Blue Dot fading into radio silence amidst the loud screech of our machines.

in reply to Scott Jenson

ktistec - Link to source

Todd Sundsted

i think it's a bigger problem than most people realize (or care). i joined in 2017. at that time it felt like everyone was excited when one more person came on board. i feel the vibe now is for walls to keep people out. (to be clear, i'm not talking about mastodon specifically—i'm talking about the fediverse more generally.) my feeling about networks is you grow if you accept diversity and are willing to support multiple communities, or you shrink down to a monoculture.
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Ivan Sagalaev

I'm astonished you're trying to make generalizations based on basically one data point. Sure, the followers numbers are statistically meaningful, but these are all people following one specific person. It's not representative of any one network.

As a counter-example, my corner of Mastodon is *very* political. Nothing lukewarm about it.

reshared this

in reply to Ivan Sagalaev

mastodon - Link to source

Mx. Luna Corbden 🐸

@isagalaev @devlord I can guess at a sample bias as well. If they're posting positively or neutrally about AI, they're likely not getting the kinds of politically active people in my bubble, who, like me, tend to unfollow or tune out that POV. I'd guess that folks positive towards AI might be more satisfied with the "status quo" (if you can call it that) or current direction of politics, because it's going their way right now, and perhaps be less likely to engage politically or have their outrage buttons pressed.
@Ivan Sagalaev @Aaron Lord
in reply to Mx. Luna Corbden 🐸

mastodon - Link to source

L'égrégore André ꕭꕬ

@corbden @isagalaev @devlord A part of the sample bias is the self selection of the interactions: on fedi the are quite a few who do not boost/repost images without alt text _as part of their political stance_, and from what I've seen @carnage4life pretty much never use alt even when others provide it for him.
So it's a path of anti-interaction that could easily be changed to get more engagement.
@Ivan Sagalaev @Dare Obasanjo @Mx. Luna Corbden 🐸 @Aaron Lord

reshared this

in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Jorge Vaz Nande

actually, Mastodon in Brazil has been getting less tech-centric as it grows. But I do believe that the people who come to the platform, and stay here, are willing to trade less engagement for more real engagement, and that is not enough to sway big influencers (and by that I include popular authors, journalists, etc.), that truly require the algorithm to get big follower numbers. It's just a different logic. I think something might change if more outlets open an account here and they think of their instance as a kind of Verification mark. Like an "AndersonCooper@cnn.social", for instance.
@carnage4life
@Dare Obasanjo
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Jonathan Schofield

I too would greatly like Mastodon to be more inclusive but network effects are emergent properties and a particular stance towards AI is likely to be one of them on a platform that skews nerdy.

Fwiw there is no shortage of politics in my feed here.

As with Twitter, I find journalists in social media spaces to be among people who like to broadcast more than to engage or publicly self reflect.

I don’t know that this predicament has a solution

@carnage4life

@Dare Obasanjo
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Ciara

I'm not sure this is the best example of Mastodon gatekeeping. I suspect the person you cite (I won't tag him, to not bother him. I follow him. He doesn't follow me) has a different definition of 'engagement' than many on Mastodon. He has 19,000 followers. He follows just over 200. He never ever engages with anyone. He posts one-way toots. He never uses Alt Text. The Fediverse is a chatty place full of engagement, if you choose to take part yourself, to chat, to boost, to reply.
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Chris Armstrong

I love Mastodon because it feels like “old” twitter, a bunch of clever people sharing stuff they’ve made or found or figured out… not to build a “following”, but because they’re passionate about it.

That said, lately I’ve noticed my feed getting filled with more negativity around certain topics, and people I respect getting radicalised in one direction or another (signs of an echo chamber).

Rather than muting entire people or topics, I kinda want to mute the negativity itself.

in reply to Scott Jenson

hometown - Link to source

Dr Kim Foale

i have been feeling a lot like this. i think theres 2 phenomena here:

1. people here don't seem to be able to distinguish between "capitalism" and the vague and general concept of "AI" - i sense most people are libs/centrists

2. mastodon is 80% programmers. programmers as a class have spent the last 3 decades taking everyone elses job. now its come for theirs they are perhaps unsuprisingly a bit touchy about it (see point 1)

its logical fallacies everywhere rn tho

This entry was edited (5 days ago)
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Brad Macpherson

The assumption that we care if journalists are here or not is quite a large one. I couldn't care less if journalists are on here as a group - if someone is interesting, not an arsehole, and a journalist then sure, I'm happy to follow them and happy they're here.

The ones who don't match that description, I'll mute anyway and reconsider the follow that saw them in my feed 😂

in reply to McNeely

mastodon - Link to source

McNeely

I think the real question here is how is the Mastodon team defining success? Are you chasing usage metrics? Because we know from the last decade plus how that experience goes.

Or are you looking at some other sort of metric and using THAT as the goal. I vaguely remember something about launching some new number of instances as a goal. Perhaps that's a better metric. We know people select the Fediverse to get away from Big Social. What does the team think is important to focus on?

in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Scott Jenson

OK, this is going even MORE sideways so I need to make a few things clear:
1. I took a complex point and made it poorly
2. My goal was to ask for more inclusiveness
3. I am sickened by what happend to BlackTwitter and I don't want it recur
4. But I can't speak for BlackTwitter nor should I
5. I apologize to black mastodon users for making such a poor comparison
6. I'm not endorsing "AI Slop" they were a foil to make my point
7. I'm certainly NOT trying to compare AI bros to Black twitter (but, as I said, I can see how people made that connection. I'm trying to correct that here)
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Cassandra is only carbon now

I'll suggest that you reflect on what the implications of including (2) in the list are when you've made it very clear that you see "inclusiveness" as demanding that people are more tolerant of AI.

Especially by placing (2) above any actual apology for your earlier comparison this reads very strongly as your doubling down on the claim that Mastodon being "inclusive" should necessarily put exploitative and extractive tech products over the marginalized people hurt by those products.

This entry was edited (4 days ago)
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Jennifer Moore 😷

Thanks for this.

To engage with your original point: I'm struck by a contrast, and I have some curiosity about it.

When I look at @carnage4life's original post on its own, my reaction is something like
"oh, interesting to have the 3-way comparison from someone experiencing all 3 places firsthand", and then "yeah that makes sense".

I'm not surprised that "tech topics" were "getting the most replies and likes" here, because there are loads of techie people here. Many of @carnage4life's followers on Fedi probably clicked "follow" primarily for the tech commentary in the first place.

I was a little surprised to see the Fedi described as "lukewarm to politics", because I follow a fair number of people giving political analysis - but I realise the post was a kind of holistic impression, not a comment on every single person here.

I'm also not surprised that someone posting similarly on all three might have fewer followers here than on Bluesky or Threads, as an absolute number, because iirc Fedi has fewer people _overall_ than the other two. But 18k is still a chonky number!

So when you say "has me questioning our community" and that journalists "aren't coming with examples like this"... I'm like oh, that's very different from how I parsed the same info!

What is it about the original description that, for you, means journalists wouldn't come?

@Dare Obasanjo
in reply to Jennifer Moore 😷

mastodon - Link to source

Scott Jenson

@unchartedworlds Thanks for that thoughtful reply. It was a bit of a knee jerk reaction to be honest. I've been talking to LOTS of folks, trying to figure out how to get more people to join the Fediverse and journalists are fairly reluctant to join. If you follow some of the replies to my post there is a healthy "yeah, and we don't WANT you!" feeling.

I'm all for people not wanting to have journalists here but there is a surprising vitriol to let them in at all. I keep hearing over (and over (AND OVER)) that anyone can spin up a server but that's completely missing the point. If people don't want you here, having your own server accomplishes nothing.

My point isn't that anyone should want anything. I'm just surprised people don't want to, you know, let journalists at least TRY to do something here?

My BIG mistake was picking someone in AI, that just set everyone off on the wrong path. I did not want to "push" AI on anyone.

@Jennifer Moore 😷
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Jon

my reaction is similar to @unchartedworlds' ... in fact I'm puzzled by your framing of this whole discussion. Dare isn't a journalist, so what does his experience have to do with whether or not journalists are welcome here? And yes of course somebody like Dare -- a US-based product manager who is well-known for his work at Meta (and before that Microsoft) -- is going to get more engagement on Threads and Bluesky than on Mastodon. What does that have to do with Mastodon being an echo chamber?
@Jennifer Moore 😷
in reply to Jon

mastodon - Link to source

Osma A 🇫🇮🇺🇦

Besides, there's no attitude against journalists here. There may be against PR shills, but some of my earliest follows from October 2022 are active and doing well. Fedi isn't their exclusive channel, but for many it is the insurance strategy. Hat tip to @molly0xfff on documenting that path and @mike and all of @Flipboard on holding the flag high. The journalists are too many to list here but @FediFollows has a "starter pack" for any niche.
@jdp23 @scottjenson @unchartedworlds

FediFollows

2026-03-22 19:39:53

mastodon - Link to source

By request, some #InvestigativeJournalism accounts to follow:

🌐 WORLD
@404mediaco (main) & @feed (blog) - Investigative journalism on cybersecurity, tech, consumer rights, privacy etc
@Bellingcat - Investigative journalism & open source intelligence group
@cijournalism - Practical training courses for investigative journalists

🇪🇹 & 🌍 ETHIOPIA & HORN OF AFRICA
@ZekuZelalem - Award-winning freelance journalist covering conflict in Ethiopia & Horn of Africa

🧵 1/4


@Molly White @Jennifer Moore 😷 @Scott Jenson @FediFollows @Flipboard @Mike McCue @Jon
in reply to Osma A 🇫🇮🇺🇦

mastodon - Link to source

FediFollows

@osma

There are also lots, lots more news accounts listed on my website at fedi.directory/news-media/

For anyone unfamiliar with the site, you can follow a listed account by copy-pasting its Fediverse address into the search box in Mastodon etc. This will bring up its profile on your server, where you can click follow.

News & Media | Fedi.Directory – Interesting accounts on Mastodon & the Fediverse

Interesting accounts to follow on Mastodon and the Fediverse
FediDirectory (Fedi.Directory - Interesting accounts on Mastodon & the Fediverse)
@Osma A 🇫🇮🇺🇦
in reply to Mx Rey (Fuck ICE) 💜 🏳️‍⚧️

mastodon - Link to source

unlofl [Promoted Toot]

@rey Scott just wants to gloss over why anyone has ethical issues with AI, and frame this as being mean to people.

I think AI is bad and people promoting it are willfully blind and causing real harm to society.

The reasons matter, stop trying to just tone-police your way through these very real concerns.

@Mx Rey (Fuck ICE) 💜 🏳️‍⚧️
in reply to Cassandrich

mastodon - Link to source

Dare Obasanjo

@dalias All social media apps are filter bubbles either based on who you choose to follow or what content is recommended to you.

The apps themselves are filter bubbles. X and Truth Social are right wing. Bluesky and Mastodon lean left. Threads leans left as it’s also a Twitter/X refugee app but less so than the latter two.

@Cassandrich
This entry was edited (5 days ago)
in reply to Cassandrich

mastodon - Link to source

Cassandrich

There's nothing keeping the Twitter journalist class off here as long as they want to come here and follow the basic rules about consent, abuse, and hate speech (something some of them seem rather poor at though, for example treating transphobic hate speech as "just asking questions").

But we sure as hell don't have to kiss AI bros' asses trying to convince them to come here. Much less nazis'.

in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Alessandro Corazza 🇨🇦

I don't understand why growth is a metric on this inherently non-capitalist platform. It doesn't need to get bigger - it just needs to be fun and useful for the people who use it.

Niche communities used to be everywhere, without expectations of growth. If I was on a forum for VW Golf owners, the admins didn't complain that we needed to attract Ford Focus owners too.

in reply to Scott Jenson

hometown - Link to source

⁂ L. Rhodes

I'm not sure what the problem is supposed to be here. The fediverse has about 1/10th the MAUs of either of the other two platforms, so 18k is a proportionately high number of followers. Lower engagement makes sense with fewer followers, but without more info, it's impossible to know if that engagement is disproportionately lower. And particularly given Meta's forays into AI bots, there's a good chance that more of Mastodon's engagement is authentic. If anything, I'd say that post speaks comparatively well of Mastodon's embrace of journalists. Our big sin is just not being as populous as the corporate platforms.
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Bogdan Buduroiu

I think Mastodon will never be that though, and that's by design of how ActivityPub works rather than gatekeeping. I'm trying really hard to curate AI content from instances that specifically gather people that discuss ML, NLProc, etc. I still find it hard to understand what's going on.

Frontends like #Phanpy help with 'catchup' features, but I think the entire ecosystem is ill suited for engagement. Maybe that's a good thing, idk.

@carnage4life

#phanpy @Dare Obasanjo
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Jen 🏳️‍⚧️

I think you're missing the point. Mastodon is, intentionally or not, designed to resist "viral" anything.

Value here is largely expressed in the quality of the relationships, not in "follower count" and market saturation (aka "going viral").

If you're here for any of that, to position yourself as a so-called thought leader in any sense, you're in the wrong room.

in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

MaineC

in my response I'm using AI synonymous to contemporary media use of the term.

From the screenshot all three platforms seem at most lukewarm to AI.

I would expect to find less AI enthusiasts who would react positively to AI posts on Mastodon as the federated network explicitly advertises feeds in publish date order as a feature. So no surprise there.

For things like politics and tech I'd be interested more in click through data than on platform engagement as for

in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Jimmothy Baggins

Are you serious ? While I won’t argue most people on here lean on a particular part of the political spectrum. I will challenge you on calling AI dissonance an echo chamber. It’s universally agreed that anyone who isn’t trying to make a profit off of it genuinely hates it. Corporations, venture capitalists and social “influencer” grifters are choosing to ignore it. But I can promise you from across the land from Mastodon to Instagram most people hate anything involving AI.

Introducing any form of algorithm or any form of AI to drive content would fundamentally destroy the very thing Mastodon was built for.

What you’re asking for already exists on X, Facebook and even BlueSky. Go back there with your venture capitalist buddies and concoct more ways to milk dry what you can before the next tech bubble bursts. And the rest of clean up the mess.

in reply to Jimmothy Baggins

mastodon - Link to source

Jimmothy Baggins

Moreover should all voices be heard ?

Nostr a crypto cess pool allows AI and bot accounts rampantly. The first post I saw when I choose to look at an instance? (one that was featured on the main page)

“SuperJews: why we need to get them under control “
Does that sound like content that better enriches people ? I think it sounds like pointless hate for hate sake.

Are you trying to make social media your job ? Are you trying to make money from your posts. Then go some where else. Mastodon is for connections and community not profit …

in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Shrig 🐌

no: godforsaken.website/@Shrigglep…

Shrig 🐌 (@Shrigglepuss@godforsaken.website)

Hot take: Journalists already have websites and blogs and newspapers and magazines and TV and podcasts and newsletters to report in, is it essential that should cross into social media as a publishing platform when social media is (or should be?) inh…
Shrig 🐌 (this godforsaken website)
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Celia Valdeolmillos

when I post about tech, I get the most engagement in Mastodon. And I write in Spanish, go figure. Much much more than in Bluesky, where you seem you can only talk about politics. But you have to know what to say and the kind of people in here. People in here seems to have more deep tech and programming expertise, are more open source savvy and won,t give all their data to the big tech "a la mode" in a given time. And we (I myself included) are quite skeptic about AI.
in reply to Celia Valdeolmillos

mastodon - Link to source

Celia Valdeolmillos

not about the AI that has been in use for decades in R+D (good), but with the generative one, that has caused many creative people to loose it's job. Also with Copilots, GOTs and things like that, that are also seen as gotos for people that want to ask a machine everything in their life's. Acritically. Also about the LLMs and systems backed by companies that are hemorrhaging money and have caused a RAM and SSD shortage, apart from the energy consumption.
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Lea

So somebody wrote a brief statement for each of 3 platforms stating their conclusion about the people on each feel about politics, tech, and AI (without nuance).

So from that you conclude that Mastodon is becoming an echo chamber or monoculture, but not the other two?--even though they were also summed up as having a particular attitude toward each topic? Or are you saying, yes the other two are monocultures but Mastodon shouldn't be?

The other problem I see with your conclusion is that you assume his yardstick (# of followers and likes) for measuring how the vast majority of people on each platform feel about the topics is an accurate and reliable way to describe the platforms' overall attitudes and cultures.

in reply to Lea

mastodon - Link to source

Scott Jenson

@leadore

Have you read the replies to my post? People are actively, joyfully stating that AI should not be here. That is my cultural point, that instead of using the tools of federation to get the feed you want, people are actively chasing away people they don't like.

To be very clear. I"M NOT ENDORSING AI. I just used it as an example of how sensitive people are and how willing they are to go after people they don't agree with.

Why is asking for 'a bigger tent' seen as such a negative thing?

@Lea
in reply to Scott Jenson

friendica - Link to source

silverwizard

@Scott Jenson @Lea I think it's possible to keep your points in context though.

That dude specifically went from a dude I'd see around and go "oh, he's got some ok points but not worth following" to "that dude just fell down an AI rabbit hole. That's embarrassing for him."

Your post is using the specific anecdotal experience of a person who is the poster child of a person who is losing all of their clout because they are toxified by an ideological alignment to a single technology.

If he'd starting mostly posting about his support for democrats, republicans, tanks, smelling farts, or F-35 planes there's a good chance he'd have lost a lot of his engagement. His network wasn't interested in the topic, and found it uncomfortable/unpleasant, and most importantly, annoying.

@Scott Jenson @Lea
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Mark Down

Scott, if you find it confusing that folks here are unenthusiastic, ask your LLM to explain to you the differences between federated social media and corporate controlled. Create your own server, post all you want, and use hashtags, filters, and block lists.

Your safety is not the issue here, making the comparison to marginalised communities is not apt. Your LLMs can explain it all to you. Get a summary of the replies to learn all the perspectives you're ignoring.

in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Flipper 🐬🏳️‍🌈

I think you're right, in that many people on Mastodon are hostile (occasionally somewhat unreasonably so) to AI, but there are a couple of things that you don't consider:

1. AI is a hot-button topic right now. Between the widespread plundering of worker value (books, code, etc) and the environmental damage and the ongoing assault on the internet by slop generators, it can feel that AI is a threat to things that people hold dear. Coming into this with a "but look at the cool thing I did, bro" attitude that tech journalism can have is a little insensitive.

2. I don't know about anyone else, but I came to Mastodon to avoid being peppered with what is essentially marketing from large companies. AI is so bound up in big money, it's hard to tell the marketing from reality at times. So I self-select out.

(Also, as a bunch of people have already pointed out, antipathy toward AI is not the same as harassment of Black people).

in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Christoff, the human

for me, it's folks putting themselves as the first to repost a news thing someone else did like they're a fancy RSS aggregator that I find very unwelcoming.

Sure, have opinions and let's discuss it with humans. If you're just just another news feed, perhaps consider your audience and expectations around it... that different from normal humans seeking to converse with a few others.

I think carnage4life isn't a typical example and isn't what most people I know want.

in reply to Scott Jenson

gotosocial - Link to source

Frederic Thevenet

I know people here don't want this to be a classic social media-clone but we'd like journalists to be here right?


I'm sorry what? Ain't that guy a senior manager at Meta or something??
I mean good for him, whatever, but can you really not distinguish an actual journalist from a random clout-chasing tech bro??
In what universe should I care what how many followers that guy has?? I just don't even get your point (provided that it was made in good faith).

in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Chinga la migra! 🍉🌈

Seems like the biggest problem is that the posts are boring. I did 3 full page scrolls and found nothing interesting. "A.I." is boring, and the political takes are as hot as ranch dressing.

Are you into anything else? Do you have a dog or cat? Do you have hobbies? Eat anything cool recently?

Speaking for myself here, I don't want to see the same thing you would post to linkedin. I want to see who people are when they are not working.

in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Mike Fraser

Reporters want to broadcast as oppose to engage. Mastodon simply isn't built for broadcasting as it has no algorithm. Also it's far less bot laden than the other networks so if you're using likes as an engagement meter without an analysis of who is liking your content you're not getting valid results. One other thing Mastodon is engagement driven so you need to have a followers to follow ratio that is as close to even as you can get, most reporters don't cultivate that
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

william.maggos

being the most decentralized, it's the most open network. everybody should be here. I get that some don't want that but then be very selective in who you federate with. but the unique potential here is big fedi. universal. the more people we have ,the less it will feel like we have a certain culture re AI or anything else. I'm against algos and ads and think that's justified, but what also slows our growth is not focusing our moderation mostly on unwanted tagging.
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

David Njoku

He's a large presence on multiple platforms so we should listen to him. I'd always thought/assumed that Mastodon provided the most engagement, but I'm willing to accept that I was wrong about that.

Personally, while I enjoy Dare's posts, I never actively 'engage' with them. He never enters into conversations with people, and conversations are what I come to Mastodon for.

in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Miss Gayle

If they're only interested in likes & boosts (not actual conversations), they need to read the room & post things that resonate w/ Fediverse culture. If they're just posting the same old political news literally everybody else is posting, and lots of "yay cloud, yay Microsoft, yay Google, don't look at Palentir behind the curtains" garbage, they should just go away. That crap isn't going to fly here. They're trying to hype predatory capitalism. They can buggar off.
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Nik

"we'd like journalists to be here right?"

Depends what they're posting.

Since you mentioned @carnage4life@mas.to I grabbed bsky.app/profile/carnage4life.… as an example. It's the kind of low-effort "look at the line go up" post that's essentially stenography instead of journalism and the sort of thing that made me block him here in the first place.

Compare with the work Ed Zitron is doing: bsky.app/profile/edzitron.com/…

in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Proto Himbo European

Let's see how this holds up for something else:

"This journalist reporting on the popularity and markets for red MAGA hats gets lots of engagement for their content on X and Threads, less on Bluesky, and very little on Mastodon. This is The Fediverse 'gatekeeping.' This shows the fediverse is an echo chamber. This is anti-inclusion; don't you people value inclusion? This MAGA Hat Journalist is being blocked from the fediverse. It's the same thing that happened with Black Twitter."


Note: careful reading will show that I am not accusing the person in the screenshot of having any MAGA sympathies. Some points I hope this illustrates (at least a little):

  • Even if you're a journalist of some kind, nobody has a moral obligation to follow you or engage with your content, and you are not owed a certain number of followers in one domain if you have them elsewhere
  • Lack of popularity is not evidence of discrimination, anti-inclusiveness, or gatekeeping
  • Discrimination based on preferences for what one wants to read is not the same as discrimination based on identity-linked characteristics like race (god, I hope not; I have muted or blocked several porn accounts specializing in kink that does not appeal to me)
  • This is not a real discussion about inclusivity or gatekeeping

Hm. Maybe this is a clever engagement gambit; ragebait tailored to the fediverse.

in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Chris Hayes

Personally I don't think “hates AI, lukewarm about politics” is a problem that needs fixing. We're the most decentralized platform, of course we hate big tech.

But, I still think there's a conversation to be had—

Mastodon has strong opinions on some topics. I agree on most of those, but it can feel like we're fostering a culture where blocks and defederation are necessary tools against users who do not align with my worldview.

It can feel like we're assuming the worst in others.

This entry was edited (4 days ago)
in reply to Chris Hayes

mastodon - Link to source

Chris Hayes

TechConnections' toot from 2024 feels relevant to this discussion:

“And while I'm grateful for all the supportive replies I get here, there's sincerely about a 1:1 ratio between those and replies which push me away.”
Source: mas.to/@TechConnectify/1129953…

He still posts new videos to Mastodon, but it seems like he spends more time on other platforms now.

Technology Connections (@TechConnectify@mas.to)

Look, I'm gonna lay this out on the line: This place is fucking shit for my mental health. It's that simple! And it is *not* helped that any time I voice this, I get replies which one way or another make it clear it's my problem to solve.
Technology Connections (mas.to)
in reply to Scott Jenson

glitchsoc - Link to source

Thankful Machine

Got here from a boost, seems like you have a lot of replies, so I hope it’s all right to add my 2 cents.

One thing that strikes me about this post is the assumption that Mastodon needs to be “big”, needs to have as many people as possible, needs to be this universal medium in which all participate. I cannot understand this.

My thesis here is that:

- Like in real life, local cultures form
- Local culture is not a bug
- Having a culture means having norms and, yes, that means conflict among and between groups
- Conflict is not abuse
- Exchange between cultures is good
- Evil people do exist, we can describe them, and we don’t have to give them time or space
- I think I can speak for everyone in saying that “we” want as much freedom as possible, except the freedom to conquer, oppress, and enslave, for example. That is, we can generalize our inclusion, but only up to a point.

Just to give you an example, I don’t like AI and I don’t like people who use it, and I especially don’t like people who develop it. I think it’s an antisocial device that turns social topology into a star shape, pointing to one thing controlled by amoral billionaires who don’t care about our wellbeing. Therefore, I don’t welcome people who are involved in that.

Same goes for fascists, monarchists, authoritarian types, greedy people, racists, amoral software developer types, and the like. The reason is because those kinds of people destroy trust at every turn. They actively make life worse. They take agency away. They don’t care about learning, or empathy, curiosity, or progress. They push. They conquer. They take. That’s it. It’s way different and on a completely different scale from having “different ideas”. Those people don’t belong in modern, civilized societies.

I believe people gravitate here because they’re aware of that and there is nowhere else to go that isn’t drowning in chaos and sucking every last bit of value out of everything we do and say. Hell, I’m not even sure why I’m on here, except out of a sense of desperation to find my people.

If you want a completely universal, neutral communication medium, sorry, but this is not it. I don’t even think it makes sense to presuppose that such a thing exists. Mastodon isn’t even a true pub/sub system because it allows boosts, quotes, global feeds, replies etc. It’s also not a real social medium because it doesn’t foster real mutual concern. I mean, can you imagine putting a sign out front, quoting a neighbor’s bad take and then adding your own thoughts to it, for people driving by to just passively observe? Truly insane shit. But hey, I’ve seen weirder things in the last five years.

If someone wants to shape this local culture in a positive and _proportionate_ way, I say go for it! Expect conflict. Not to presume you would want any of those above people in here, but if you or anyone else did, I would want them to leave, and I would want them to take it personally.

I really hope for your mental health that you stop wanting Mastodon to “win” or “gain support” and focus instead on who specifically you want to be here, why you want them here, how they can contribute, and bring them in. Simply adding more people is not going to help anything.

in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Jonobie

I’ve been following this today, and was thinking that it would be really helped by community blocking that people can subscribe to. (Composable blocking, I think Mekka calls it?)

I suspect if groups of people could say, “we collectively are A People that want none of This Topic, and we trust our people to remove it”, there’d be a lot less yelling at people to stop talking about That Topic. It would just be invisible to most.

You can do that via a server today of course, but that’s a super blunt tool. It’s not post-specific, and it’s a handful of mods trying to do it for all topics for all their users.

Versus saying “If any of these 40 people tags someone’s post as NoAltText, I just won’t see it”. Or possibly a higher threshold with something like “if 30% of these people said it’s AIHype, I’ll skip”.

This entry was edited (4 days ago)
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Dale

I don't understand this post and especially your replies.
This carnage4life guy is (at least a self-described) journalist, and is on mastodon.
Before I blocked off trending page, I've seen posts from that account there, so not that it's defederated or server-wide muted (at least only on my instance)

So, based on this anecdote: journalists are here, and they post their stuff (not to say that public here likes said stuff much).
What is the problem that you want to discuss?

in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Robin Adams

This thread has been going on a while now and - I'm still not sure what the problem is supposed to be. I see that the audiences on the three platforms have different preferences. Mastodon's numbers are lower than Threads and Bluesky, but we knew that. People have fixed on the "hates AI" part, but why would that make journalists want to stay away? Does "Much less on tech topics" mean Threads is an echo chamber?
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

Lutin Discret

i've just wanted to be sure you are aware that, as a mastodon user, i discuss AI and llm on dedicated fediverse groups like @localllama, we even have @db0 working on public IA service. I agree that there is a vocal community againsy AI but let's acknowledge people coming sharing knowledge about the topic can be here. It's just 90% of content on twitter is engagement farming for SaaS
@db0 @LocalLLaMA
in reply to Scott Jenson

glitchsoc - Link to source

Mike Johnston

if I pretend I can unpack everyone's brains lol I think the problem with a take like this is that two people doing basically the same thing might have wildly different experiences on Mastodon. Maybe because of the tech, federation, time of posts, reach, luck, who knows. Partially, I also feel like it's because here no one is trying to "social media" the "right way" if that makes sense. On other platforms there is a lot more conformity as people try to fit in and get followers and be popular getting likes etc. here people don't care as much?
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

billy joe bowers 🗽

There are two different issues here getting conflated; not engaging with things you don't like, and driving away things you don't like.

The latter I kind of hate about Mastodon. I just made a post about the stupid idea that this is a "community" and people who try to drive out anyone that doesn't fit their community, like this is a small bulletin board. Delusional.

At the same time I'm going to block things I don't want to see, and that is the proper response.

in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

sofia

if you really want journalists on mastodon, you have to win over the institutions first

you need mastodon 3.11 for workgroups

you have a bit of a success story in social.overheid.nl/about — how can you make that happen in more places, more governments, more brands

social.overheid.nl - Mastodon Overheid

Berichten van de overheid. Voor iedereen.
Mastodon op social.overheid.nl
in reply to Scott Jenson

mastodon - Link to source

jablkoziemne

I doubt on if we even can compare those metrics like that.

These are three different platforms that work in totally different ways. They have different reach, and different algorithms for showing posts to the users.

Anyway, I feel like tags are havely underutilized (in my feed), dont really provide good filtering options for blocking (they may be not used, or be different to what you have set up) or discovery (only work for viral things, and still may have different variants)

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