Jose MarichalNov 12, 2022

So I hear introductions are the thing to do:

I'm a political scientist. I've been studying the effect of tech on politics (particularly discourse and political identity for 15 years). I wrote a book about Facebook and Political Identity in 2012 (too early) :) I do work on too many things, but one thing I'm interested in is how political discourse in a federated system is different than in a context collapse environment.

Show threadMike BNov 12, 2022
@JoseMarichal
What is a 'context collapse environment'?
Show threadJose MarichalNov 12, 2022
@MBNashTN It's like Twitter or Facebook where everyone is thrown together in conversation.
Show threadMike BNov 12, 2022
@JoseMarichal
Given that we aren't using hashtags.
You and I chatting on our local instance. Anybody on our instance can see it and join.
Anybody who follows any of us who joined the chat from a different instance can join.
(obligatory Kurt Vonnegut citation) And so it goes.
Facebook would be friends, friends of friends, et cetera.
Twitter would be followers of either of us, plus key word search.
What I'm getting at is: where is the difference? Am I just horribly missing something?
Show threadJose MarichalNov 12, 2022
@MBNashTN right, but as I understand Mastodon, each instance/server sets its own rules for membership/discourse... so yes, ppl from other instances can follow and we can join in to other instances, but we have to be accepted into them, then can be restricted? IDK, I'm still trying to get a handle on Mastodon's structure... u may be right that at the end of the day, no difference
Show threadMike B
@JoseMarichal This is a tad more complicated than I first thought. Here we throw ourselves into conversations by choosing who or what to follow.
The algorithms of the others look at who or what we follow and throws us into conversations. And then adds other conversations on subjects that it considers related.
I can see this turning into a rabbit hole.
Nov 12, 2022 at 3:25pmWeb