Don Hodges
Jeff JarvisI should share that I was an advisor briefly to Post.news, asked to put together an advisory board. I withdrew for various reasons -- disagreement about another advisor and about federation -- and have no ties to it now. I received nothing. I like Noam, its founder, and respect his work (Waze!). I'll watch Post. But I'm much more engaged here and want to study and learn about the potential of federation -- ActivityPub, Bluesky, Scuttlebutt -- as a model for public discourse.
Aris Teon@jeffjarvis some people seem to want to recreate a Twitter-style business model. But the issue is that the model itself is flawed, it's not just about Musk.
Onceler@jeffjarvis @aristeon I don’t see it as wanting to recreate Twitter, but we’ll see? One aspect that appealed to me was the micro monetization available to independent journalists. I support 3 individuals through Patreon, but love the idea of having access/supporting more.
DaveC-CO 
@jeffjarvis @aristeon Well said. I've been struggling to put that idea concisely. I do think that if Mastodon becomes massively popular with prominent US voices, there will be dramatic changes to the Fediverse governance, norms & business practices. Lots of uncertainty post Muskquito Twitter
Justice💙@jeffjarvis thx for your take. I signed up for wait list out of curiosity and a bit of social pressure. (I also just took my Twitter app off my phone. I want to be done there). I want one social media home. This feels good enough.
@jeffjarvis @justiceLICSW You may like the Metatext app for ios better
ProtectDemocracyEverywhere 🌊@jeffjarvis I’m skeptical of BlueSky because Dorsey was revealed to be investing in musk’s twitter.
Justin Maxwell@crutherford @jeffjarvis exactly. People keep missing that detail.
🇺🇸 Bewickwren 🇵🇹@Bewickwren @jeffjarvis and was sneaky about it! I don’t trust any of those guys at this point.
Robb Montgomery@jeffjarvis
OK. I still don't know why any of us would be interested in supporting any central command social media after seeing the abuses.
OK. I still don't know why any of us would be interested in supporting any central command social media after seeing the abuses.
@mojo Let many flowers bloom. And let them open their flowers to the pollinating bee of the Fediverse grove. (sorry)
LOL. Yes Obi-Wan-San. I bow.
vy@jeffjarvis @mojo Let 100 flowers bloom has an ominous history - I'm not sure if you can say "ominous history" but anyways.
@vy @jeffjarvis The parable of Johnny Appleseed always resonated with me since childhood.
Jackie Gardina@jeffjarvis I am curious whether you think a federated site can engage in the same mass mobilization of social justice movements that Twitter did globally. I am thinking of Arab Spring and the BLM movement in the summer of 2020.
NumbCat9 💜s trans folx 🏳️⚧️@jackiegardina @jeffjarvis of course it can. why wouldn’t it?
@numbcat9 @jeffjarvis I guess I haven’t quite figured it out yet. It was a serious and perhaps naive question. I saw more than I wanted to see on the bird site because of the algorithm. One benefit is that it did elevate global events. How would that work here?
@jackiegardina @numbcat9 I think that question -- what impact the algo had on spread of #BLM, @Metoo -- is worthy of study. I believe they could have broken out -- and perhaps did -- by the force of popular attention.
Jeff Yang@jeffjarvis @numbcat9 @jackiegardina @Metoo From the research I’ve seen (and done) it’s the combo of algorithmic trending and traditional media using “trending” as a signal of newsworthiness that leads to explosive attention capture by phenomena with a viral online component
That’s less possible on #Mastodon; an external trend tracker be built but it wouldn’t have as strong a feedback loop as on-platform and few media are on here
@originalspin @jeffjarvis @jackiegardina @Metoo also keep in mind that all of those things happened *years* after Twitter started. Twitter grew and those features evolved over time. Mastodon simply has not had the time to do these things.
@jackiegardina @numbcat9 @Metoo @jeffjarvis #Twitter was founded in 2006; Twitter launched the Discover tab in 2011 and was becoming a major part of news stories from then on. So that’s five years. #Mastodon was funded in 2014 and eight years later, it’s only now beginning to pick up steam…because of a flood of traffic from Twitter. Mastodon has had the time, it just has chosen NOT to pursue the goals of growth and media attention.
@originalspin @numbcat9 @Metoo @jeffjarvis Interesting observation. Mastodon instances can learn from the bird site. It appears to be a trade off - trending + media attention can bring needed attention to marginalized communities or events but it can also bring an incentive-based approach to posting and unwanted attention as well.
ShantyMinister 
@numbcat9 @jeffjarvis @originalspin @jackiegardina @Metoo
Hope folks are looking at what Dr Johnathan Flowers is doing and posting re: #Mastodon shortcomings (development approach), and considerations for not repeating other SM mistakes in platform building.
It can choose to make the right decisions, or will repeat the mistakes and biases of the engineers building on the platform.
Dr. Johnathan Flowers (@[email protected])
This shit demonstrates exactly some of the arguments I've been making here. The thing that I want to direct everyone to is this: "There is a fundamentally diferent culture here that you will need to understand or accept or you won't make it here... This is a world of builders.. you won't get anywhere by publishing social thesis or critiques." https://soapbox.midwaytrades.com/objects/0c9b5e2b-1673-408d-acef-e6e7024ff3f1
@shantyworld @numbcat9 @jeffjarvis @originalspin @Metoo Thank you. I will take a look. It is exciting to think about how to do it differently. I have only known the bird site so I haven’t thought about how the benefits of the site could translate to a different platform.
@jeffjarvis @originalspin @jackiegardina @numbcat9 @Metoo .. regarding a kind of #Fediverse charter of sorts (to avoid scaling problems, moderation, legal issues, unintended consequences etc), Blaine (orig twitter engineer) has posted this.
https://mastodon.social/@blaine/109378711322415343
It needs work, doesn’t cover moderation, input for a more diverse range of folks who are good at that kind of thing, but it’s something for ppl to start a framework.
@originalspin @jeffjarvis @numbcat9 @Metoo I appreciate the evidence-based response. Have you written up your research anywhere? It’s what I suspected but I don’t know and understand Mastodon to if and how it would translate here.
@jackiegardina @Metoo @numbcat9 @jeffjarvis sadly a lot of it was done for commercial purposes when I was working at for profit market research entities (The Futures Company, Sparks & Honey) but I’m now running the digital intelligence lab for Institute for the Future so hopefully will be releasing more public research!
@jackiegardina @jeffjarvis by following people, same as on Twitter. if you want to know about global events, follow accounts that post about them.
@jackiegardina I think we have already seen it in Black Twitter. Andre Brock's Distributed Blackness shows how Black Twitter existed on its own, not under white gaze, but broke out when it wanted to with #BLM et al.
Things can spread quickly across a federated ecology without centralized promotion.That's not how BLM grew; it grew emergently there & could here, I think.
One question is whether media would notice and bring their amplification in turn. We'll see if they're smart enough to join.
Things can spread quickly across a federated ecology without centralized promotion.That's not how BLM grew; it grew emergently there & could here, I think.
One question is whether media would notice and bring their amplification in turn. We'll see if they're smart enough to join.
@jeffjarvis Perhaps it was the combination of the algorithm plus media attention that I am puzzling over. The algorithm identified emergent themes that the media deemed worthy of amplifying. I am not sure the reverse is true but perhaps it is. I have no doubt that movements can organize and perhaps even more freely on a federated site but can they gain attention and momentum outside of the site is perhaps the right question.
Ali Van Zee@jackiegardina @jeffjarvis Twitter was of huge importance to the Arab Spring/Tahrir Square revolution. I began live-tweeting/amplifying as many voices as I could to help keep info flowing. It was incredible watching it all unfold in real time and Twitter quickly got #SpeakToTweet up and running to bypass internet shutdowns. Could mastodon do something like that?
@Alikat747 @jeffjarvis Wonderful example. (And thank you for doing that.) This is the organic part of the process. Mastodon is federated how would it be boosted across instances, especially if instances have blocked one another? This question is again based on my lack of knowledge.
@jackiegardina @jeffjarvis My lack of knowledge here is profound! Twitter was/is so completely intuitive and it has been very easy to find, vet and follow people. Here, e.g. I can only see ppl you follow if they’re on my server - don’t even know how I ended up on my server, either - which inhibits my desire to find people I’d like to know/hear from. In a disaster or growing movement, that stops a lot of ability to spread the word.
@Alikat747 @jeffjarvis Same! I chose this server because it was first on the list and I had no idea what it meant in terms of community or easy access to follow others. I have discovered hashtags as the way to find people with common interests. But to be honest, I have enjoyed the random enagement. Like this one.
@jackiegardina @jeffjarvis indeed! Thank you for following back, Jackie. I’m still maintaining my Twitter presence and I’ll look you up there, too.
@Alikat747 @jackiegardina You can see people from any server. Hope this helps:
https://medium.com/whither-news/on-joining-mastodon-d539eed5e41a
https://medium.com/whither-news/on-joining-mastodon-d539eed5e41a
@jeffjarvis @jackiegardina well, that’s going to be difficult for me as I’m not on a computer, only my iPhone. But, as an example, I can’t see who you follow other than a few people.
Aaron Ross Powell ☸️@jeffjarvis
It's deeply frustrating watching my friends who ought to know better—journalists, tech policy people, etc.—acknowledging that Twitter's on the outs, but then getting excited about moving to yet another closed, proprietary platform.
It's deeply frustrating watching my friends who ought to know better—journalists, tech policy people, etc.—acknowledging that Twitter's on the outs, but then getting excited about moving to yet another closed, proprietary platform.
Adam Gurri@arossp @jeffjarvis have either of you successfully joined a Scuttlebutt community? I haven't heard of the other two Jeff mentioned
@adamgurri
I haven't tried. My poking around made it look like stuff built on it isn't quite ready for regular use.
@jeffjarvis
I haven't tried. My poking around made it look like stuff built on it isn't quite ready for regular use.
@jeffjarvis
@adamgurri @arossp Planetary is the one @rabble started. It's an iOS app so far and I'm an Android rebel. I will try to dig in there next.
@jeffjarvis @arossp @rabble I got it and followed a few people and servers and my home feed has never updated. I check every so often to see if anything's changed
rabble@adamgurri @jeffjarvis @arossp we’re currently beta testing a new community server (room) that will make discovery and syncing much better. We’re also testing a rewrite of the core p2p engine which is faster and more efficient.
No Country For Old Boomers@rabble @adamgurri @jeffjarvis @arossp Dumb newbie question here: will this platform you mentioned be on Mastodon?
@Fred_Hymans @rabble @jeffjarvis @arossp It won't be, it's an alternative approach. Though @rabble can correct me if I've misunderstood that.
@adamgurri @Fred_Hymans @jeffjarvis @arossp we use the scuttlebutt protocol which is peer to peer instead of federated. There is lots of interest in a gateway between mastodon (fediverse) and planetary (scuttlebutt).
danbri@rabble @adamgurri @Fred_Hymans @jeffjarvis @arossp where is the gateway/interop discussion happening?
Axel Rauschmayer@rabble [If you have time for a question]
I find Scutlebutt quite intriguing (especially how well it supports offline operation). My impression is that it works best for smaller groups. What are your experiences with scaling it up?
Fábio Costa 🐇🕐🎩☕@rabble @adamgurri @Fred_Hymans @jeffjarvis @arossp I'm a little away from scuttlebutt, as I've lost my keys... I'll need to rejoin again
overbyte@adamgurri @rabble @arossp @jeffjarvis app based social media platforms, especially ones limited to a specific OS are now and always will be a terrible idea. Social media only works when everyone has access
wb x64@adamgurri @arossp @jeffjarvis scuttlebutt is cute and I love it, but I would only recommend it to people who find themselves away from the grid for significant amounts of time. (Yurt dwellers, seasteaders, etc.) For those of us who get upset when the wifi goes out, activitypub seems fine.
@adamgurri @arossp @jeffjarvis oh I forgot a third category: people who don't want to trust any third party and don't want to run their own "server" but still want to feel like they're interacting with a twitter-like service
Howard Cheng@arossp @jeffjarvis Dare I ask which one are they moving too? Not Truth Social, are they??
@Howard @jeffjarvis Post and Hive
@arossp @jeffjarvis Ahh I've heard stuff about them, but not really able to see much without signing up, which I don't want to do from what I've read so far lol.
Melinda@Howard @arossp @jeffjarvis
I am on Post….people keep saying on Twitter how great it is. I don’t like it. Mastodon is much better and easier to use. IMO of course.
I am on Post….people keep saying on Twitter how great it is. I don’t like it. Mastodon is much better and easier to use. IMO of course.
@melindajean @arossp @jeffjarvis Of course, YMMV etc. But it's good to be able to get some kind of feedback. What is it that you prefer on here vs on Post?
@Howard @arossp @jeffjarvis
Seems too basic.
Lots of bugs.
No notifications.
Seems less interactions for smaller accounts
In a weird way, seems cliquey.
No freestanding app.
Some of these might be solved down the road because it is still in beta.
Seems too basic.
Lots of bugs.
No notifications.
Seems less interactions for smaller accounts
In a weird way, seems cliquey.
No freestanding app.
Some of these might be solved down the road because it is still in beta.