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!

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.

@scottjenson 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.

@Gargron That is a personal choice and one which I totally respect. But I do think Mastodon should be big enough, and open enough, to allow an "AI community" to form, even thrive.

Too many people in my replies don't seem to agree with that.

@scottjenson @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.

@FeloniousPunk @scottjenson @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.

@TheJen @FeloniousPunk @scottjenson @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.

@FeloniousPunk @[email protected] @Gargron Scott's cognitive dissonance is on display. A photo at a "No Kings" rally while demanding we all kowtow to the same people creating that whole situation via donations and technology

@FeloniousPunk
@Gargron

Seriously, @scottjenson 's attitude here seems to really boil down to "Our technology based largely on theft is owed acceptance and adoration".