EU politicians are still paying money to this guy, to use the social medium he controls, where his algorithm decides which voters they reach or do not reach.
Mastodon is a software, not an instance. If you want hardcoded platform-wide moderation, you wili get another Bluesky, thank you very much.
If you don't like Mastodon (as I don't), you have a plethora of platforms, including my favourite #Friendica and some novelties like #bonfire or #ghost.
But fediverse and centralised moderation won't go together.
@tofugolem While I think that is a welcome and sound ambition, if we look isolated on what creates growth in the social media space, I think Mastodon primarily needs more visibility.
Most people I ask her in Denmark have never even heard of Mastodon — and our population is very online.
I want to contribute to this, so it is my ambition to make a video about the need for and importance of Mastodon.
@mastodonmigration Mastodon is not likely to pick up steam without big changes to moderation. Bluesky pretty much took the wind that should've been in Mastodon's sails.
And further, I really want a competitor to YouTube. YouTube is super fascist-friendly, and I am getting sick of it.
@arek @mastodonmigration Would rather an entirely different platform. YouTube is a Nazi safe-space with multiple “pipelines” designed to herd people into fascism.
@tofugolem Do you know on what instances people don't feel safe? Are those the larger ones like mastodon.social or smaller instances? Genuinely curious what your findings are. @schmaker @mastodonmigration @randahl
@alterelefant It doesnt matter as moderation is reactive and hosts easy to spin up (and the biggest instances being open registration). A lot of the harrasment is invisible to other people as well, like happening in DMs or being moderated before you see it. But it doesn't really matter that much that things are moderated if you already received and saw the harassment. And defederation is also not an option because that's basically suggesting segregation as a solution.
Mastodon.social is known as a big source of harassment, but other instances are as well, but blocklists are also reactive and don't contain newly spun up harassment instances. (Who often also block everyone but their target just so only the target can see and report them).
So yes better moderation and moderation tools are needed, especially from the flagship instance. And trust us we have suggested concrete steps to them, they have all been systemically ignored.
When a racist or other type of unacceptable comment is posted one is able to do something about it. Remove the comment and reprimand or block the sender.
An instance that is clearly a hotbed of hate spreading individuals will indeed be de-federate. That is very effective to block the reach of those comments.
This is how the #fediverse works and how things work on any other online platform.
When they ran into abusive bigots, people dismissively told them to block them themselves or find another instance. They explained why this wasn't enough and were ignored, so they left.
The main question here is, does bsky handle abuse like bullying and racism differently? Is it better, the same or worse?
People complain about moderation on #mastodon, I ask which instance the complaints are about. Without this exact information it is not possible to pinpoint the root cause of the problem.
@alterelefant while I love that Mastodon is federated, I hope we get to a point where the main mastodon.social server acts like a direct competitor to Bluesky, where people can plug-and-play their way into Mastodon with 0 friction.
Requiring people to pick an app and a server should not be done up front. Get them onboard in the most frictionless way possible — they can always switch to a different app or a different server down the road.
Over here, people kept telling them they were overreacting, that they should just find another instance or block people themselves. Bluesky takes a more active role in shutting down abusive bigots.
"If you don't like it, do your own!" is a very Mastodon statement, and is why people don't choose Mastodon or the Fediverse.🤷🏿♂️
If I go to buy a car, and I tell the salesman, "Hmm, I wish it had more trunk space." The salesman might say, "Sure! Hold on one minute!" and go to the back room, and come back with some sheet metal, some cans of paint, an airbrush, an arc welder, and a grinder. With a big grin he says, "If you don't like the trunk, you can build your own! Modify your car! It's allowed!"
No.
I'm not modifying my car. I don't want to be an automotive engineer. I just want to drive to work and back.
Rather than start welding, I will just go to another manufacturer, and buy a car that is similar but with more trunk space.
This post is about moderation and safety on Mastodon.
@mekkaokereke @schmaker @mastodonmigration I think a lot of people do not understand that for people in certain marginalized groups, things can get very ugly very quickly, and it should not be up to the victims to fix the problem.
But I also remember people being very critical of requests for alt txt & CWs.
It seems that some users want all freedom & no responsibility.
Using the fediverse requires more thought & effort than elsewhere, about who we follow, how we find them & how we avoid stuff that we don’t want to see. But in return, we’re not deluged with ads & stupid suggestions & other rubbish.
OTOH, if people of some minority groups find that this doesn’t work for them without a disproportionate amount of effort on their part, then we need to do better.
Because Content Warning is the wrong word. And because the whole Fediverse system of making the poster responsible for all of the personal tastes of the reader is silly.
If I post "Sigh... Got pulled over on the way to work, again. Driving while Black, episode 3,989." then some Mastodon clown will say, "Can you CW posts about racism? That disturbs me! Also, put a 'US politics' label around it. Racism like that is a US problem, and we don't have racism here in my idyllic European mountain town!"🤡
No.
I'm not going to CW every post about my Black life.
Fact 1: Most white folk online don't care about what happens to Black people.
Fact 2: Many Black people experience microaggressions constantly.
This winds up with the Mastodon experience for Black people being constantly annoyed by strangers about why you should content warning everything.
@mekkaokereke @tofugolem @schmaker @mastodonmigration That is an excellent example of people wanting everyone to use CWs to make their online experience pleasant (& awfully bland) for them, while suppressing the needs of anyone to be able to rant about their experience of life. It reeks of privilege.
I think the CW issue has largely disappeared because people are using hashtags & filters instead. And I must admit that I’m less likely to bother opening something with a CW when they occasionally appear.
Whatever system is used, it prompts people to think about others.
I try to hashtag discussions of US politics, because as a
... pokaż więcej
@mekkaokereke @tofugolem @schmaker @mastodonmigration That is an excellent example of people wanting everyone to use CWs to make their online experience pleasant (& awfully bland) for them, while suppressing the needs of anyone to be able to rant about their experience of life. It reeks of privilege.
I think the CW issue has largely disappeared because people are using hashtags & filters instead. And I must admit that I’m less likely to bother opening something with a CW when they occasionally appear.
Whatever system is used, it prompts people to think about others.
I try to hashtag discussions of US politics, because as an Australian, I fully appreciate that not everyone who follows me, particularly Australians, wants their feed dominated by the often idiotic antics of politicians in that country.
And I hashtag stuff about neurodivergence, because while everyone could benefit from learning more about it, not everyone is as interested as me.
And stuff that might really trigger some people.
And alt txt? Why not make the whole thing nicer for people with visibility issues? My app will do it for me, although I always check for accuracy & to reduce the overly saccharine tone that has become the norm. And doing this, or writing my own, often makes me more appreciative of the image.
@Susan60 @tofugolem @schmaker @mastodonmigration Once I point this out, you won't be able to unsee it: People from all over the world use social media, but most of the people that complain about "put CWs around your US politics posts! No one wants to see that!" are from The UK, EU, Australia and New Zealand, or other "predominantly white, but not the US" places. This is the same trend as "We don't want to hear about you Yanks!" that was on Twitter.
@Susan60 @tofugolem @schmaker @mastodonmigration Missing alt-text is again, the fault of bad UX. There are so many features that can make it lower friction to add good alt text, and none of them have been implemented.
* If I post an image that I posted before, and I previously posted it with alt-text, the box should auto-populate with the previous alt-text so that I can make edits to it.
* If I post an image that someone else has posted before, same thing.
* If someone posts an image without alt-text, and I reply to that post with the same image posted again, but with alt-text, it should be possible for the original poster to just read it and be like "Yeah sure!" and click "OK" and have the alt-text provided by me apply to their image.
@mekkaokereke word! The alt text experience deserves improvement.
Currently I may post 30 posts in a day, and then someone who follows me for this content will complain why I do not add alt text 100 percent of the time.
It is like bringing free cake to the party and then someone complaining the cake has no frosting.
If someone posts an image of a red house in a forest, they should not waste time describing that — an AI system should.
Let's wrap it other way - user is choosing from two ways of soc-neting at this moment: 1. Here you have commercial soc-net. We will sell your data, check your bedroom and wrap ad shit around your face with zero-to-none moderation. And you have nowhere else to go! Enjoy! 2. Here you have free soc-net without any ads being run and funded by volunteers. And if you do not like how we manage it, you can either choose other one or make your own. Welcome abroad.
I'd definitely go for 2 :)
And actually - buying a car lately somewhat matches the case 1: "You want a car that's not sniffing on you? GTFO our dealerships! Every single one!" :)
@schmaker @mastodonmigration @mekkaokereke They did exactly what you suggest. They left Mastodon for Bluesky. This is why Mastodon stopped growing and Bluesky started growing more rapidly.
Moderation matters.
If moderation falls below a certain threshold, the result is always Nazis and pedophiles. Just look at 4Chan or Twitter.
@tofugolem @schmaker @mastodonmigration @mekkaokereke Bluesky isn't the success story you think it is and is not growing by any meaningful metric. It is on track to fall under 5 million MAU before the end of this year according to the public stats. It seems like more people went over to Threads which I doubt should be praised for the moderation either...
That says daily although it is a lot higher number for daily than the stats I'm using (currently 1.32M) which you can find here: bskycharts.edavis.dev/edavis.d…
Support independent journalism in your countries, vote in elections, have the courage to speak out against populists/radicals.
The EU should reject software from large corporations and look to companies from the EU or FOSS. We can see how, in unstable situations, all these corporations can threaten the entire union, and that is dangerous
According to their list a Mastodon or Peertube instance hosted in the US would be considered "European alternatives". We know it is an absurd, but then we do not need such a list. Those who need it, will not understand the difference.
If I go to the gym, my health won't improve instantly. It's a long-term, complex process involving diet, exercise, and sleep. Step by step, we can make better and better decisions.
If you have a better list (one that will last longer than a month and that someone will pay to maintain and update), please share it with me
@8petros If your comment is not constructive and is not useful to others, why discourage others? What does it give you? You can make better decisions and spread positivity
It would be really nice if somebody there could set aside their personal career goals for a moment and speak some truth to power about how messed up this is.
When we each act independently then the eye of sauron can focus on the detractor. Democracies need to start acting in synch and/or serially so the eye can't focus on us individually. Make sauron's head spin until it pops off.
The US should be abolished and sovereignty returned to individual states, so that governments can better represent their people. This makes far more sense.
So, logically, Trumpistan should be abolished to return democracy to individual states, so that state governments can better represent the people. Small scale democracy does work better.
Why many EU officials are still on Twitter, when the platform's owner wants the EU to be abolished? And when Medvedev of all people supports it, that's the icing on the ugly cake.
And worth noting that the US is still buying Uranium from Russia to fuel the existing fleet of reactors. No doubt Mr Musk, Gates and the rest will want more russian fuel for their SMRs.
I still cannot understand why moderate people stay on his platform. I can’t even understand why EU politicians are on his platform. If every EU politician leaves that platform he loses all his leverage and has no more power over them.
And saying you stay because you want to know what he says keeps legitimizing his opinion. Just leave. It really really really is that simple.
I don’t feel it’s about weak or strong people but about money and everything associated with it. However we feel about what’s righteous or not. People at the top are currently not thinking in a way of non-monetary values.
I guess now is a great time for the EU to do to US social media what it did to US chloride chicken: don't allow its distribution to protect the citizens from the poison.
@david_chisnall it is an interesting thought. And I agree something needs to be done to move politicians out of the commercial vice.
However, this particular suggestion would probably not be possible, because people move in and out of politics. So a non-politician may get to a million followers on X or Facebook, then start a party, and then lose this social media platform.
No politician will ever vote for legislation like that.
That explains the onboarding process. For bots it's easier to onboard a #mastodon instance than it is to onboard #bsky. Check.
Regarding the actual moderation process. What does bsky do differently? Do they apply censorship before a post is shown by proactively searching for keywords that match a certain list or some weighted pattern matching that takes the age and reputation of an account into account?
@david_chisnall Plus, we must take into account that populists and radicals will simply ignore the requirements and publish content where they can spread propaganda. This will put honest politicians at a disadvantage.
In addition, a large number of people ‘do not follow politics’ and only see random posts in their feed that someone shares. If there are fewer posts from good people, this will also have a negative impact
@kravietz It would be interesting to know to what extent bsky is effective in catching racist or bigotry posts at an early stage? Do they have mechanisms in place that 'soft' censor posts? How high is the false positive rate and what intervention is needed to get a post to show up. What false negative rate are we looking at and how does reactive moderation affect future catchment of unwanted posts?
@kravietz 🦇 where exactly and how does it solve the problem? Doesn't Bluesky also have federation with multiple and arbitrary entrypoints (I think they call these PDS) so you also can join with your own server? It is just running your own instances for BS seems not very popular.
Sajber - Janne
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Tofu Golem
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Randahl Fink
in reply to Tofu Golem • • •Tofu Golem
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •See other response.
Mastodon needs big changes in moderation to attract certain major minority groups to seriously compete with Bluesky.
But your observation is noted.
8Petros [$ rm -rv /capitalism/*]
in reply to Tofu Golem • •Mastodon is a software, not an instance. If you want hardcoded platform-wide moderation, you wili get another Bluesky, thank you very much.
If you don't like Mastodon (as I don't), you have a plethora of platforms, including my favourite #Friendica and some novelties like #bonfire or #ghost.
But fediverse and centralised moderation won't go together.
like this
Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷, Marton👾, Plsik (born in 320 ppm) 🇨🇿🇺🇦🇵🇸 i Frank Heijkamp like this.
Tofu Golem
in reply to 8Petros [$ rm -rv /capitalism/*] • • •That is exactly why so many minority users left Mastodon for Bluesky.
Randahl Fink
in reply to Tofu Golem • • •@tofugolem While I think that is a welcome and sound ambition, if we look isolated on what creates growth in the social media space, I think Mastodon primarily needs more visibility.
Most people I ask her in Denmark have never even heard of Mastodon — and our population is very online.
I want to contribute to this, so it is my ambition to make a video about the need for and importance of Mastodon.
Mastodon Migration
in reply to Tofu Golem • • •If only there were a solid decentralized non-US public social media platform.
Tofu Golem
in reply to Mastodon Migration • • •@mastodonmigration
Mastodon is not likely to pick up steam without big changes to moderation. Bluesky pretty much took the wind that should've been in Mastodon's sails.
And further, I really want a competitor to YouTube. YouTube is super fascist-friendly, and I am getting sick of it.
Arkadiusz Wieczorek
in reply to Tofu Golem • • •Tofu Golem
in reply to Arkadiusz Wieczorek • • •I have not done any comparable to YouTube yet. Any suggestions?
Arkadiusz Wieczorek
in reply to Tofu Golem • • •Tofu Golem
in reply to Arkadiusz Wieczorek • • •Would rather an entirely different platform. YouTube is a Nazi safe-space with multiple “pipelines” designed to herd people into fascism.
Arkadiusz Wieczorek
in reply to Tofu Golem • • •@tofugolem well, each platform has deviations
@mastodonmigration @randahl
Tofu Golem
in reply to Arkadiusz Wieczorek • • •Nazis are a bit more than a “deviation.”
Arkadiusz Wieczorek
in reply to Tofu Golem • • •Schmaker
in reply to Tofu Golem • • •It's not #Mastodon, it's #Fediverse and we will never get further unless we finally figure this out.
Imagine you couldn't send e-mail from @gmail.com to @yahoo.com .. why do we tolerate this in social networks and walled messengers?
It does not mean we do have to win or something. All we need to be is viable alternative for people, who figured out someone is puppeting them...
Tofu Golem
in reply to Schmaker • • •@schmaker @mastodonmigration
Those moderation changes need to happen to promote wider adoption. It is holding the platform back.
I remember earlier days of this platform when there were more minorities around. I remember their complaints before they left.
Schmaker
in reply to Tofu Golem • • •Not sure how English part of Fedi acts like, but local (Czech) part is definitely moderated well
And here comes the biggest benefit - you do not like moderation of your instance? Do your own! :)
Tofu Golem
in reply to Schmaker • • •@schmaker @mastodonmigration
That solution was not good enough for people in certain marginalized groups.
Telling them to “go find a better instance” when they were being abused led to a large number of them fleeing Mastodon for Bluesky.
Frank Heijkamp
in reply to Tofu Golem • • •@schmaker @mastodonmigration @randahl
Lillian Violet
in reply to Frank Heijkamp • • •@alterelefant It doesnt matter as moderation is reactive and hosts easy to spin up (and the biggest instances being open registration). A lot of the harrasment is invisible to other people as well, like happening in DMs or being moderated before you see it. But it doesn't really matter that much that things are moderated if you already received and saw the harassment. And defederation is also not an option because that's basically suggesting segregation as a solution.
Mastodon.social is known as a big source of harassment, but other instances are as well, but blocklists are also reactive and don't contain newly spun up harassment instances. (Who often also block everyone but their target just so only the target can see and report them).
So yes better moderation and moderation tools are needed, especially from the flagship instance. And trust us we have suggested concrete steps to them, they have all been systemically ignored.
@tofugolem @schmaker @mastodonmigration @randahl
Frank Heijkamp
in reply to Lillian Violet • • •@GLaDTheresCake That is indeed how moderation works.
When a racist or other type of unacceptable comment is posted one is able to do something about it. Remove the comment and reprimand or block the sender.
An instance that is clearly a hotbed of hate spreading individuals will indeed be de-federate. That is very effective to block the reach of those comments.
This is how the #fediverse works and how things work on any other online platform.
@tofugolem @schmaker @mastodonmigration @randahl
Tofu Golem
in reply to Frank Heijkamp • • •@alterelefant @GLaDTheresCake @schmaker @mastodonmigration
That's the problem.
When they ran into abusive bigots, people dismissively told them to block them themselves or find another instance. They explained why this wasn't enough and were ignored, so they left.
Frank Heijkamp
in reply to Tofu Golem • • •@tofugolem How is this different to lets say Bsky? I try to understand what Bsky does different?
@GLaDTheresCake @schmaker @mastodonmigration @randahl
Randahl Fink
in reply to Frank Heijkamp • • •@alterelefant the onboarding experience is simpler on Bluesky. All friction affects market share.
@tofugolem @GLaDTheresCake @schmaker @mastodonmigration
Mastodon Migration
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •@alterelefant @tofugolem @GLaDTheresCake @schmaker
Certainly true.
Frank Heijkamp
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •The main question here is, does bsky handle abuse like bullying and racism differently? Is it better, the same or worse?
People complain about moderation on #mastodon, I ask which instance the complaints are about. Without this exact information it is not possible to pinpoint the root cause of the problem.
Onboarding on bsky is easier because it's not federated. There is only one bsky. Where #mastodon has thousands of instances.
@tofugolem @GLaDTheresCake @schmaker @mastodonmigration
Randahl Fink
in reply to Frank Heijkamp • • •@alterelefant while I love that Mastodon is federated, I hope we get to a point where the main mastodon.social server acts like a direct competitor to Bluesky, where people can plug-and-play their way into Mastodon with 0 friction.
Requiring people to pick an app and a server should not be done up front. Get them onboard in the most frictionless way possible — they can always switch to a different app or a different server down the road.
@tofugolem @GLaDTheresCake @schmaker @mastodonmigration
Frank Heijkamp
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •@tofugolem @GLaDTheresCake @schmaker @mastodonmigration
Jeff Turner ⛵
in reply to Tofu Golem • • •Tofu Golem
in reply to Jeff Turner ⛵ • • •@jetsoft @schmaker @mastodonmigration
They didn't come back, so obviously they found a better, safer space over there.
Over here, people kept telling them they were overreacting, that they should just find another instance or block people themselves. Bluesky takes a more active role in shutting down abusive bigots.
Schmaker
in reply to Tofu Golem • • •If abusive biggot is not moderated, then it's good reason to change instance, that's for sure.
Not sure how picking Bsky is better for them as I do not expect much better moderation there, but I may be wrong
Tofu Golem
in reply to Schmaker • • •They found better moderation at Bluesky. That is why they never came back.
mekka okereke
in reply to Schmaker • • •@schmaker @mastodonmigration @tofugolem
"If you don't like it, do your own!" is a very Mastodon statement, and is why people don't choose Mastodon or the Fediverse.🤷🏿♂️
If I go to buy a car, and I tell the salesman, "Hmm, I wish it had more trunk space." The salesman might say, "Sure! Hold on one minute!" and go to the back room, and come back with some sheet metal, some cans of paint, an airbrush, an arc welder, and a grinder. With a big grin he says, "If you don't like the trunk, you can build your own! Modify your car! It's allowed!"
No.
I'm not modifying my car. I don't want to be an automotive engineer. I just want to drive to work and back.
Rather than start welding, I will just go to another manufacturer, and buy a car that is similar but with more trunk space.
This post is about moderation and safety on Mastodon.
Tofu Golem
in reply to mekka okereke • • •I think a lot of people do not understand that for people in certain marginalized groups, things can get very ugly very quickly, and it should not be up to the victims to fix the problem.
Looking for explanations…
in reply to Tofu Golem • • •@tofugolem @mekkaokereke @schmaker @mastodonmigration
I have never had any issues with moderation… probably because I’m a white woman.
But I also remember people being very critical of requests for alt txt & CWs.
It seems that some users want all freedom & no responsibility.
Using the fediverse requires more thought & effort than elsewhere, about who we follow, how we find them & how we avoid stuff that we don’t want to see. But in return, we’re not deluged with ads & stupid suggestions & other rubbish.
OTOH, if people of some minority groups find that this doesn’t work for them without a disproportionate amount of effort on their part, then we need to do better.
mekka okereke
in reply to Looking for explanations… • • •@Susan60 @tofugolem @schmaker @mastodonmigration
Requests for CW are usually nonsense from white people. I ignore almost all of them.
Because Content Warning is the wrong word. And because the whole Fediverse system of making the poster responsible for all of the personal tastes of the reader is silly.
If I post "Sigh... Got pulled over on the way to work, again. Driving while Black, episode 3,989." then some Mastodon clown will say, "Can you CW posts about racism? That disturbs me! Also, put a 'US politics' label around it. Racism like that is a US problem, and we don't have racism here in my idyllic European mountain town!"🤡
No.
I'm not going to CW every post about my Black life.
Fact 1: Most white folk online don't care about what happens to Black people.
Fact 2: Many Black people experience microaggressions constantly.
This winds up with the Mastodon experience for Black people being constantly annoyed by strangers about why you should content warning everything.
Looking for explanations…
in reply to mekka okereke • • •@mekkaokereke @tofugolem @schmaker @mastodonmigration
That is an excellent example of people wanting everyone to use CWs to make their online experience pleasant (& awfully bland) for them, while suppressing the needs of anyone to be able to rant about their experience of life. It reeks of privilege.
I think the CW issue has largely disappeared because people are using hashtags & filters instead. And I must admit that I’m less likely to bother opening something with a CW when they occasionally appear.
Whatever system is used, it prompts people to think about others.
I try to hashtag discussions of US politics, because as a
... pokaż więcej@mekkaokereke @tofugolem @schmaker @mastodonmigration
That is an excellent example of people wanting everyone to use CWs to make their online experience pleasant (& awfully bland) for them, while suppressing the needs of anyone to be able to rant about their experience of life. It reeks of privilege.
I think the CW issue has largely disappeared because people are using hashtags & filters instead. And I must admit that I’m less likely to bother opening something with a CW when they occasionally appear.
Whatever system is used, it prompts people to think about others.
I try to hashtag discussions of US politics, because as an Australian, I fully appreciate that not everyone who follows me, particularly Australians, wants their feed dominated by the often idiotic antics of politicians in that country.
And I hashtag stuff about neurodivergence, because while everyone could benefit from learning more about it, not everyone is as interested as me.
And stuff that might really trigger some people.
And alt txt? Why not make the whole thing nicer for people with visibility issues? My app will do it for me, although I always check for accuracy & to reduce the overly saccharine tone that has become the norm. And doing this, or writing my own, often makes me more appreciative of the image.
mekka okereke
in reply to Looking for explanations… • • •@Susan60 @tofugolem @schmaker @mastodonmigration
Once I point this out, you won't be able to unsee it: People from all over the world use social media, but most of the people that complain about "put CWs around your US politics posts! No one wants to see that!" are from The UK, EU, Australia and New Zealand, or other "predominantly white, but not the US" places. This is the same trend as "We don't want to hear about you Yanks!" that was on Twitter.
Lots of interesting theories as to why this is.
mekka okereke
in reply to mekka okereke • • •@Susan60 @tofugolem @schmaker @mastodonmigration
Missing alt-text is again, the fault of bad UX. There are so many features that can make it lower friction to add good alt text, and none of them have been implemented.
* If I post an image that I posted before, and I previously posted it with alt-text, the box should auto-populate with the previous alt-text so that I can make edits to it.
* If I post an image that someone else has posted before, same thing.
* If someone posts an image without alt-text, and I reply to that post with the same image posted again, but with alt-text, it should be possible for the original poster to just read it and be like "Yeah sure!" and click "OK" and have the alt-text provided by me apply to their image.
Etc
Randahl Fink
in reply to mekka okereke • • •@mekkaokereke word! The alt text experience deserves improvement.
Currently I may post 30 posts in a day, and then someone who follows me for this content will complain why I do not add alt text 100 percent of the time.
It is like bringing free cake to the party and then someone complaining the cake has no frosting.
If someone posts an image of a red house in a forest, they should not waste time describing that — an AI system should.
@Susan60 @tofugolem @schmaker @mastodonmigration
Panic at the Trishco 🕊️
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •So use the Ice Cubes app. It has that capability.
Lars Hansson
in reply to mekka okereke • • •Randahl Fink
in reply to Lars Hansson • • •@romabysen Ivory for Mastodon on Mac makes Bluesky on Mac look like a kid's toy. @ivory
@mekkaokereke @schmaker @mastodonmigration @tofugolem
Schmaker
in reply to mekka okereke • • •Let's wrap it other way - user is choosing from two ways of soc-neting at this moment:
1. Here you have commercial soc-net. We will sell your data, check your bedroom and wrap ad shit around your face with zero-to-none moderation. And you have nowhere else to go! Enjoy!
2. Here you have free soc-net without any ads being run and funded by volunteers. And if you do not like how we manage it, you can either choose other one or make your own. Welcome abroad.
I'd definitely go for 2 :)
And actually - buying a car lately somewhat matches the case 1: "You want a car that's not sniffing on you? GTFO our dealerships! Every single one!" :)
Tofu Golem
in reply to Schmaker • • •@schmaker @mastodonmigration @mekkaokereke
They did exactly what you suggest. They left Mastodon for Bluesky. This is why Mastodon stopped growing and Bluesky started growing more rapidly.
Moderation matters.
If moderation falls below a certain threshold, the result is always Nazis and pedophiles. Just look at 4Chan or Twitter.
ikuturso
in reply to Tofu Golem • • •Randahl Fink
in reply to ikuturso • • •this source says 3.5 million DAU on Bluesky according to Forbes.
backlinko.com/bluesky-statisti…
@tofugolem @schmaker @mastodonmigration @mekkaokereke
Bluesky Statistics: How Many People Use Bluesky? (2025)
Backlinko Team (Backlinko)ikuturso
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •That says daily although it is a lot higher number for daily than the stats I'm using (currently 1.32M) which you can find here: bskycharts.edavis.dev/edavis.d…
@tofugolem @schmaker @mastodonmigration @mekkaokereke
bsky users total (Munin :: edavis.dev :: bskycharts.edavis.dev :: bsky users total)
bskycharts.edavis.devDistante
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •European alternatives for digital products: european-alternatives.eu/
Let's take small steps in the right direction.
Support independent journalism in your countries, vote in elections, have the courage to speak out against populists/radicals.
The EU should reject software from large corporations and look to companies from the EU or FOSS. We can see how, in unstable situations, all these corporations can threaten the entire union, and that is dangerous
European Alternatives
European Alternatives8Petros [$ rm -rv /capitalism/*]
in reply to Distante • •Those who need it, will not understand the difference.
like this
Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 i Frank Heijkamp like this.
Distante
in reply to 8Petros [$ rm -rv /capitalism/*] • • •@8petros We need to start somewhere.
If I go to the gym, my health won't improve instantly. It's a long-term, complex process involving diet, exercise, and sleep. Step by step, we can make better and better decisions.
If you have a better list (one that will last longer than a month and that someone will pay to maintain and update), please share it with me
Distante
in reply to Distante • • •8Petros [$ rm -rv /capitalism/*]
in reply to Randahl Fink • •like this
Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 i Julian ♪🌻🥥🌴♫ like this.
Joost De Cock
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Paging @EUCommission
It would be really nice if somebody there could set aside their personal career goals for a moment and speak some truth to power about how messed up this is.
@randahl
Leeloo
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Fardels Bear
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Sweet Home Alaberta 🇨🇦 🇺🇦 🏳️🌈 🏳️⚧️ 🇲🇽
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Toni Aittoniemi
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •@randahl@mastodon.socia Only the neoliberal religion explains this. It doesn’t make any sense otherwise.
And tbh. This monopoly shit ain’t even neoliberal anymore, just plain technofeudal.
oneloop
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •katzenjens
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •WvOostveen
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Denys
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Plsik (born in 320 ppm) 🇨🇿🇺🇦🇵🇸
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Waidler
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Шуро
in reply to Waidler • • •@Waidler No, not yet.
@Randahl Fink
Randahl Fink
in reply to Шуро • • •Because then Medvedev could not be on X?
@waidler
Graeme 🏴
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Jerked Gherkins
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •GJ Groothedde 🇪🇺
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •N0tSure
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Rynach
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Matv1
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Before these two posts together, any european leader still using X could have been considered merely careless oportunists.
How do you regard elected officials still using X after this?
C. Hackman
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Paul Sutton (zleap)
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •SellaTheChemist
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Tom DB 🦣
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •I still cannot understand why moderate people stay on his platform. I can’t even understand why EU politicians are on his platform. If every EU politician leaves that platform he loses all his leverage and has no more power over them.
And saying you stay because you want to know what he says keeps legitimizing his opinion. Just leave. It really really really is that simple.
Randahl Fink
in reply to Tom DB 🦣 • • •Tom DB 🦣
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Christian Gudrian
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Skookumchick
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •andybrwn
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Thierry Van Kerm
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •And each of the 50 US states would also be be off on their own 😂
Boycott!
Thierry Van Kerm
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •cupz
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Randahl Fink
Unknown parent • • •@david_chisnall it is an interesting thought. And I agree something needs to be done to move politicians out of the commercial vice.
However, this particular suggestion would probably not be possible, because people move in and out of politics. So a non-politician may get to a million followers on X or Facebook, then start a party, and then lose this social media platform.
No politician will ever vote for legislation like that.
Frank Heijkamp
Unknown parent • • •@kravietz Interesting insights.
That explains the onboarding process. For bots it's easier to onboard a #mastodon instance than it is to onboard #bsky. Check.
Regarding the actual moderation process. What does bsky do differently? Do they apply censorship before a post is shown by proactively searching for keywords that match a certain list or some weighted pattern matching that takes the age and reputation of an account into account?
@jetsoft @mastodonmigration @randahl @tofugolem @schmaker
Distante
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •@david_chisnall Plus, we must take into account that populists and radicals will simply ignore the requirements and publish content where they can spread propaganda. This will put honest politicians at a disadvantage.
In addition, a large number of people ‘do not follow politics’ and only see random posts in their feed that someone shares. If there are fewer posts from good people, this will also have a negative impact
The Penguin of Evil
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Tofm2 🇫🇷 🇺🇦 🇪🇺
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •loops.video/v/cue8bby37G
n816
2025-12-08 11:16:40
Frank Heijkamp
Unknown parent • • •@kravietz It would be interesting to know to what extent bsky is effective in catching racist or bigotry posts at an early stage? Do they have mechanisms in place that 'soft' censor posts? How high is the false positive rate and what intervention is needed to get a post to show up. What false negative rate are we looking at and how does reactive moderation affect future catchment of unwanted posts?
Any reliable information is welcome.
@jetsoft @mastodonmigration @randahl @tofugolem @schmaker
Шуро
Unknown parent • • •@kravietz 🦇 where exactly and how does it solve the problem? Doesn't Bluesky also have federation with multiple and arbitrary entrypoints (I think they call these PDS) so you also can join with your own server? It is just running your own instances for BS seems not very popular.
@Schmaker @Mastodon Migration @Randahl Fink @Tofu Golem @Jeff Turner ⛵
Tofm2 🇫🇷 🇺🇦 🇪🇺
in reply to Randahl Fink • • •Marcel Abraas
in reply to Tofm2 🇫🇷 🇺🇦 🇪🇺 • • •Tofm2 🇫🇷 🇺🇦 🇪🇺
in reply to Marcel Abraas • • •