Jan Wildeboer 😷1d ago

My current way to interest people to join us: The Fediverse is more like local politics, with small communities discussing things. Centralised networks like Twitter, TikTok, instagram etc are more like national politics, with loud mouthpieces shouting over everyone else.

This mental image helps me in understanding why the influencers fail here and they of course think that means that the fediverse must be a lost cause while we commoners happily chug along and enjoy our little street parties ;)

Show threadEvan Prodromou1d ago
@jwildeboer so, this is where your friends and family are?
Show threadJan Wildeboer 😷1d ago
@evan I'd say the social distance between participants of the Fediverse is far shorter than on centralised social networks, yes. I definitely found friends here. Friends as in people that are willing to work together on positive things. On centralised networks my experience always was that people connect based on being AGAINST something. Here, more often, people band together FOR something.
Show threadEvan Prodromou22h ago

@jwildeboer That's a really interesting question! This is actually a measurable quantity -- mean path length between nodes in the graph. It's the famous "six degrees of separation" metric. Meta showed a mean path of ~4.5 hops on their network in 2016:

https://research.facebook.com/blog/2016/2/three-and-a-half-degrees-of-separation/

I have no idea what it is today, or what it is on the Fediverse -- I think it would be a really interesting calculation to do!

Three and a half degrees of separation - Meta Research | Meta Research

In honor of Friends Day, we've recalculated the classic 'Six degrees of separation' statistic for everyone who uses Facebook and determined that the number is actually 3.57. Each person in the world (at least among the 1.55 billion people active on Facebook) is connected to every other person by an average of three and a half steps.

Meta Research
Show threadEvan Prodromou22h ago
@jwildeboer That said, I don't think "I've found friends here" is the same as "my friends and family are here".
Show threadEvan Prodromou21h ago
@jwildeboer Also, the idea that people on the Fediverse are *positively* instead of *negatively* motivated is interesting. I've always thought of it as the opposite -- that people get started on the Fediverse because of their disillusionment with siloed social networks, and that it's hard to maintain that motivation long enough to actually make a home here. I think there may be some survivorship bias, though: people who have been here a while have found something here that gives them meaning.
Show threadOpen Risk8h ago

@evan @jwildeboer

There is a self-selection that gives the fedi a particular culture. E.g., I am here because I find targeted adtech social media disgusting human torture chambers.

But to think of the fediverse as "positive" oriented is strange. There are recurring episodes of toxic attacks on anybody expressing an opinion that doesn't fit the echo chamber and that's just my limited graph.

Being open source, decentralized etc is not a magic wand that fixes inherent limits of online worlds.

Show threadJan Wildeboer 😷8h ago
@openrisk I'd say there is no "the" fediverse. The experience people make is more self-determined compared to centralised, algorithmic networks. You can decide to block out the toxicity, or you can decide to let it in to your timeline. A little bit of curation delivers far better results here than on the other side. @evan
Show threadOpen Risk

@jwildeboer @evan Blocking out toxicity is easier said than done. I am becoming aware of it because people in my small network are boosting threads that exhibit it, which implies it has gone "viral". We don't need algorithms do create virality, the boosting mechanism and people's need for affirmation, belonging to in-groups etc. are sufficient.

Anyways not an expert on social network malfunctions 🤣, just thinking that knowing exactly what design causes what behavior would help the fediverse

7:49amWeb