This is great news. Algorithm optimized social networks are poison to society.
If algorithms are are not the default option and are not designed to generate profit for platforms and advertisers, then perhaps they could be a healthy way to discover new content
Also Need to allow some level of user customisability.
I’d run my own frontend aginst the API that ranks a large number of posts from the last 24 hours in terms of personal relevance
Every social network uses algorithms to show you content. Even mastodon
The Algorithm is such a nebulous term. All programs are algorithms, all it means is a set of unambitious instructions. I don’t think half the people that use it even really know what they mean by it except whatever big tech are doing.
I am kinda sad that the word has now been tainted this way and wish there was another word for a content recommender that’s only goal it to keep users on the platform for as long as possible so as much money as possible can be made from them.
Shall we work on writing the algorithms to making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? That’s always a fun one to explain the concept.
That would be a procedure
It’s kind of frustrating because people who don’t understand programming or how the internet works are using algorithm to refer exclusively to the ones used by big tech, with machine learning based on user choices and whatever data they feed it to trick users into staying engaged longer.
Though algorithms are any program or sorting routine, however most people don’t understand this and they just think (even if they’re not willing to tell you) that algorithm just means magic or something like that because they’re imagining the machine learning ones they don’t understand that the simple algorithms like sorting by new or most popular are still algorithms.
This is an amazing sign. Governments joining a particular social media is an underrated sign of platform success. People want to reach and hear from their government officials. I don’t think it will be long before this will no longer be big news
The EU itself also has a Mastodon instance with the funny, overly clear name of https://social.network.europa.eu/
But only the institutions of EU, not for EU residents.
I like this idea because it becomes very easy to verify authenticity especially now that verification badges on X is just subscription badges without verification. You simply set up a subdomain of the form social.country.tld (much like the German parliament did) and you’ll know forename.surname@social.country.tld is an authentic representative for a political party or whatever. No money involved other than running the instance, which will be a tiny cost for something as niche as one offering a voice for the parliament alone.
So I hope this takes off even more around the world. It is certainly a more democratic way to do social than paying some dude in America that runs his personal garden to have badges.
Good, fuck Twitter, that fucking piece of shit platform. Fuck Elon Musk too.
And no, I’m not calling it X, or whatever bullshit name they come up with next.
Obligatory fuck Phoney Stark.
What is attractive for many organisations and agencies on Mastodon, is that they can better control their own message, and can be sure that on their sites there won’t be something embarrassing to them right next to their posts
What?
They have their own instance. That’s their own website.
Sure, you can subscribe to them. But that’s different from being the the algorithmic soup that is Twitter.
Thanks. I guess I need to go read about it some. I don’t understand how that works.
The way Matstodon works makes it a very different animal. Just recently they started rolling out more robust search too, so it’s continuing to improve.
You can even follow lemmy with Mastodon if you choose too. Depending on your client, and what you follow, it might be noisy to do so though!
Another cool advantage of a organization or government hosting their own instance is that every user gets
name@official-url.tldso no one can impersonate them. No blue check mark systems required.But Mastodon also has a simple system to verify an account by linking a profile to a website too.
Anyway, I’m just doing a nerdy info-dump now. I’ll leave it at that.
Anyway, I’m just doing a nerdy info-dump now. I’ll leave it at that.
Well, thanks for taking the time to try and explain it. I’m trying to learn as much as I can. I’m between jobs right now and want to try to get into some sort of software development.
Haha I think they might be talking of how Mastodon doesn’t insert ads or bought posts right next to your own posts, so a professional institution like a parliament no longer risks having erection pills or a crypto ad that fakes association with a celebrity next to a post by a political party leader.
Well I finally did get an invite to Bluesky, so I’m using that… Just need it to open for more people, because shit is barren right now. Let’s hope either that or Mastodon blow up soon. I’ve really been enjoying Bluesky, the layout is so similar to Twitter.
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