Discussion
When what you're used to is centralised platforms, run on proprietary software, controlled by billionaire manbabies, the open social web is *weird*.
It's a confusing stew of unfamiliar names, some of which are software projects, some are protocols, some are organisations, etc. Names float around of people who appear to be influential, but it's far from obvious why they are, at least until you've been around for quite a while.
This communication problem holds us back. How to solve it?
(3/3)
I'm sure Annalee has figured this out over the last couple of years. But PixelFed is not a "site", FunkWhale is not a "service", and there's no "there" where anyone can set up a Mastodon server.
What she says about Mastodon being freely available software for anyone to use is just as true of PixelFed and FunkWhale. So that can't explain why it's the most commonly-used server software in the fediverse.
But all this confusion is totally understandable.
(2/?)
When what you're used to is centralised platforms, run on proprietary software, controlled by billionaire manbabies, the open social web is *weird*.
It's a confusing stew of unfamiliar names, some of which are software projects, some are protocols, some are organisations, etc. Names float around of people who appear to be influential, but it's far from obvious why they are, at least until you've been around for quite a while.
This communication problem holds us back. How to solve it?
(3/3)
"Mastodon’s moderation system is more mature. Rochko maintains a list of curated servers open to all comers, whose moderators have pledged to uphold the 'Mastodon server covenant'.”
#AnnaleeNewitz, 2023
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/05/social-media-centralism-fediverse/674041/
Annalee clarifies this a few paragraphs later, but this list has absolutely nothing to do with the way the fediverse is moderated. Which is each server moderating its own members, and filtering what comes in from the rest of the fediverse;
"[Dan] Hon, the Code for America adviser, suggested that this could be an opportunity for shared-revenue models, in which servers offer micropayments to people whose posts are displayed next to ads."
#AnnaleeNewitz, 2023
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/05/social-media-centralism-fediverse/674041/
Gross. Why can't most people seem to imagine a media system not funded by ads? Advertising, like carrier pigeons and telegrams (text messages transmitted by morse code and printed on dead tree), is a relic of a bygone media economy. Time for it to die.
"... every great community—even a nation—begins as an experiment, an idea that grows stronger the more we write and talk about it. Even if the Fediverse fails, it’s still worth doing. Annalee Flower Horne, a founder of the Wandering.shop Mastodon server, told me: 'We look at communities and say that if they end, then they’ve failed. But a community doesn’t have to be permanent to succeed'.”
#AnnaleeNewitz, 2023
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/05/social-media-centralism-fediverse/674041/
This! Nice ending Annalee, way to stick the landing : )
