"Musk’s site reported has 588 million accounts"
Yeah, right, sure. Could be true, but, doubt it.
this post was submitted on 23 Nov 2024
149 points (97.5% liked)
politics
19120 readers
2642 users here now
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Everyone should have left a long time ago. Musk allowed racist, transphobic and misogynist content to grow since he took over Twitter. Actually, “allowed” is the wrong word. He actively encouraged, posted and amplified it. But better late than never.
Musk is a pathetic dumpster fire of a human being and a perfect counterpoint to any argument that we live in a meritocracy.
Same as Facebook
Facebook is poorly moderated, and nothing I've reported gets removed. It doesn't matter how abusive it is
It's probably the main platform which is making people dumber at the moment
People don't like Nazis.
Sadly, way too many actually do.
Doomed to repeat the cycle because they learned the wrong lesson if any lesson at all.
Says a lot that people would rather move from twitter-like to twitter-like than deal with Mastodon.
Yes that's the part about them failing to learn the lesson. The only difference between Twitter and Mastodon is that it's not centralized and there is no Central algorithm telling you what to think or who to look at. They want to be led like sheep. And they will be.
Bluesky will promote only what ultimately profits them. Should the trump administration threaten them with retaliation or regulation. They will fold and block/blackhole whomever they demand. It isn't an if. It's a when. The only question is how long it will take them to realize.
They might come after Lemmy and the fediverse too. But they won't willingly capitulate and lick boot.
Eh, I'm not too worried about it. Ultimately, it's just the same pattern that has happened since the dawn of civilization. In any city, there are places where people like to hang out and congregate. And they wax and wane in popularity with time. Even some place like a local pub has a lot of the same lock-in/network effect you get with the social media companies. What do you do if you live in a small town where the pub is the default meeting place, but the pub owner turns into an asshole? Well, there's different options, but ultimately it is the same problem as social media lock in.
And I'm not sure the federating really solves it. Let's say everyone moves to fediverse. In theory, it would be good if no instance had a lion's share, but that's not how these things actually develop; people tend to join whatever instance is currently the largest. And if lemmy.world becomes run by assholes, and if they in turn stop federating with other instances, isn't that now just reddit all over again?
At some point, I just don't think technical fixes are the real solution. The real solution is that people need to come to realize that these platforms are ephemeral, and that they need to always be ready to jump ship if a platform goes down the road of enshittification. This Twitter->Bluesky migration may represent ultimately a solution far more sustainable than the technical fixes embodied by the fediverse.
Respectfully, no, just no. Outside of tiny isolated communities. There has never been this much tight hegemonic control over thoughts and opinions. Only now it's not just small isolated towns. It's Nationwide if not global. LLMs making it exponentially worse already.
Federation isn't some newfangled thing that we are only just now trying for the first time either. The internet used to be Federated. The news and media used to be Federated. This is a return to form. Not a revolution or an experiment.
Before the mid 2000s. It was extremely unusual for the majority of people online or otherwise to visit a single news site or media source. Or at least sources all centrally controlled by the same group. Shaping opinions facts and ultimately reality.
Papers used to be owned by separate families and largely local. Competing in their local markets to be the most trusted and reliable. Local stations used to be local. Owned local, run local. Not all owned by clear channel or Sinclair. Even network affiliates were only "network" in terms of national news segments and syndicated/prime time entertainment programs. But starkly owned and operated locally. Their reputation their currency.
Shit it's creeping closer and closer to 30 years. It's entirely possible for you to be to young to remember or understand at this point. And that's no shade.
Not that federation or anything is an ultimate solution either. But would you rather have your reality and community controlled by the media. Or your media controlled by your community and hopefully reality.
A key part of federating, at least notionally, is ease of migration. The local pub locks their customers because there's no alternative. Twitter locks their users because their "followers" aren't on the new platform.
The fediverse facilitates migration, all the way down to redirecting from the previous account. Doesn't look like there's a way to automatically update followers' following, and there probably shouldn't be, but follower count (including all of the inactive and bot accounts) is one of the tools commercial social media use to scare people into staying.
I think everyone sane is leaving from my view