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Comment by bob29 | Hacker News Reader

The Fediverse is an interesting social experiment testing the hypothesis of whether the ad revenue/profit motive of twitter, and the subsequent algorithms that maximize engagement, are the primary source of toxicity and other negative qualities of social media that have been documented recently (social dilemma et al)

Interestingly, the* (see edit) Fediverse data point seems to show that really none of Twitter's problems are solved when its the user's paying and admining the servers themselves.

EDIT: only my conclusion based on personal experience and expectations, encourage anyone to look for themselves

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Plenty of problems are solved. They may not be ones you care about, but they're not "really none". Anecdotally, the instances I know of take a much harder line on moderation of transphobic content than does mainstream social media, which is something desired by some communities and made possible by heterogeneous moderation policies; "no ads" is a problem solved in of itself; no QTs gets rid of about 70% of the "dunking on this bad take" posts relative to Twitter; lower stakes discoverability means people express themselves differently; content warnings make your feed more manageable; etc. etc.

What's a QT in this context? Are cuties getting banned from Mastodon?

Quote Tweets.

Quote tweets. Basically retweeting someone's disagreeable tweet to you followers and adding some scalding commentary.

So this proves that much stricter regulation and censorship can be maintained effectively in a decentralized setting.

It proves that you can have community standards when you actually have a community.

A big advantage of decentralization is that it doesn't try to impose a single worldview on everybody. If libertarians want to have an instance where they talk about how taxation is theft and communists want to have an instance where they talk about how capitalism sucks and moderates want to have an instance where all ideas are welcome but personal attacks are not, they can all do those things at the same time.

Exactly this. But there are a set of people who enjoy or feel the need to engage in combat with other schools of thought, either as validation or because of genuine desire to proselytize; and there is a subset of those people that believe that everyone should be forced into a single arena where the strongest ideas will prevail and thereby clearly delineate 'right' and 'wrong'. One of the major advantages of the Fediverse right now is that trying to do this is harder, plus there already are such arenas in the form of Twitter and Facebook. To me the complaint about 'bubbles' is usually from these believers in the school of trial by combat that are frustrated by their inability to impose this philosophy on the Fediverse. Which means it is working as designed...

> One of the major advantages of the Fediverse right now is that trying to do this is harder

Even in the Fediverse, I think these folks would just make their own instance. I wouldn't be surprised in the least if an instance was made to represent the "marketplace of discussion". I just wouldn't want to join it myself.

Also much looser rules as well; sex workers, for instance, have a lot more freedoms to post their content in a lot of the Fediverse. Different instances have different rules.

Sure, this supports better bubbles. Sex workers and evangelicals will be nicely separated from each other, so will be Nazis and Jews.

Like in real life, where you select friends and acquaintances, and do things that are interesting to you, and don't tolerate trolls in your physical life.

I mean, that can actually foster higher quality debate and discussion. Like in a political discussion page, you would expect that users debate in good faith, and kick those who don't.

Facebook and Twitter seem to just devolve.

Hacker news is also largely the same with downvoting and significant moderation... And as a result it has higher quality discussion.

Being open minded and thoughtful does not mean listening to just anyone...

For me it's analogous to walking away from someone objectionable. If it was censorship they wouldn't be allowed to say it. But they still can, at least somewhere in the fediverse. Just not necessarily to me.

Exactly.

I'm an instance admin and set moderation rules that appropriate for me and my users. If I do a bad job of it, those users are free to go to another instance with policies that they like better. As a result, I don't have to make some one-size-fits-all monster that pleases no one.

> heterogeneous moderation

Does this mean users sort themselves into filter bubbles rather than having algorithms do it for them?

Yes

There's a bit more interest in specific shared interest servers (like writing, being a Roman Catholic, being a furry, photography for example), so while yes they are bubbles, they aren't necessarily organised around holding specific political views. Also you can join multiple servers.

Also there are benefits of the bubbles in this context as while you may not be being exposed to all content, nasty groups can't as easily spread content as they get blocked by most servers, so I think it does reduce radicalisation.

Also, within servers that don't block each other, you can bring on federated content from any of them, and that can actually be horizon broadening too, but not in the frequently antagonistic way of Facebook or Twitter. At least in my personal experience.

No. "Filter bubble" is a term with a particular meaning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_bubble

Mastodon displays content only chronologically, so it's not a relevant term.

Now, do people's choices of social association determine what they see? Of course, but... it's social media, so that's priced in, frankly.

That's a good point. Any social media that doesn't pair you up with random strangers is going to put you in a bit of a bubble because you choose who you're going to hang out with, both online and in real life.

Filter bubbles are more pernicious than that because even if someone has a large and diverse social network, search algorithms can shoehorn them into a smaller bubble where it's much harder to get a diverse set of honest information when a viewpoint is challenged by that social network. It's an orthogonal concern to social bubbles unless that individual doesn't use search engines to consume content, instead getting it all curated through a facebook feed or similar.

For example, a borderline far right extremist might consume a bunch of OAN and Breitbart type sources so the search engines begin to cater their results for that demographic. When a sudden event happens like the Capitol riots, their results might look like a bunch of Q conspiracy crap when they search for "capitol riot" instead of more honest media sources that might be enough to do a self-deprogramming (I'm not sure if filter bubbles have become so extreme, just throwing out a hypothetical). Even if they have a bunch of friends respectfully pointing out the faults in their logic, the filter bubble might make it impossible to do the independent research that would cement a reversal.

mountainb had a very good explanation from a few days ago:

> 'Bubbles' are a pejorative way of just saying 'local communities.'

Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25777814

filter bubble has to be the worst word ever invented. What people actually apply this label to today is certainly almost always people exercising freedom of association of people aligning along common interests. Every political organisation, every civic group, every church, every coherent community by definition is a filter bubble, and that's a perfectly fine thing. As Madison put it

"Extend the sphere, and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens; or if such a common motive exists, it will be more difficult for all who feel it to discover their own strength, and to act in unison with each other. Besides other impediments, it may be remarked, that where there is a consciousness of unjust or dishonorable purposes, a communication is always checked by distrust, in proportion to the number whose concurrence is necessary."

One difference perhaps is that the term as used typically refers to algorithmic associations defined for, and out of the control of the user.

When you choose what Fediverse instance you use, or what other people to follow, you're getting what you asked for. When it's something else based on ad targeting and an opaque mechanism, it's a bubble you're in without your informed input.

Madison wasn't describing an opaque algorithm feeding back based on your actions to optimize for something against your best interest or desires.

“Virtue signaling” is a much dumber and worse term. “Hypocrisy” is a more coherent and useful concept and we’ve been using it since a Jewish religious leader popularized it thousands of years ago. “Virtue signaling” is hypocrisy without the hidden vice. It just means “I don’t like the values you endorse” but in nerd speech.

It's not the same, bubbles refer to the epistemological aspect, you can be part of local communities but don't let them be your only source of knowledge.

In reality what you call "filter bubbles" is how human existence was for our entire history before social media, even on the internet

IRC, Internet Forums, BBS' etc where all often topic centrist and heavily moderated by the community members of those communities. The "platforms" of those days where the underlying software and protocals not a for-profit company.

phpBB, vBullitien, freenode, etc etc etc

That was IMO the golden age of the internet. Modern Social Media "platforms" have brought about the Poo Age of the internet.

HN is somewhat of a throw back to that golden age as well

before the internet you had social clubs that were every topic driven, a Community Sports League, a car club, a motorcycle club, LAN parties for gaming, even In Person physical Linux Users groups....

This and sibling comments make good points about improvements it has made. I edited my comment to be less universally judgemental.

My experience is based on a pretty generic unknown low drama instance, that doesn't really block or get blocked, instead relying on users to mute/block/instance block themselves per-account. So initially I saw a lot of ugly things, the usual culture war topics discussed without nuance or compassion, bots and spam, etc.

The Fediverse solves the problem of authoritarian silencing.

It doesn't solve the human inclination to share strong emotions with likeminded people, and to exclude and punish people who make you mad or sad. That causes many good things, but not in absolute terms, it seems.

What we don't have is a Taleb-like model for anti-fragile speech under new tech. Is there a mix of social speech that includes "trans criticism" that makes trans people stronger, or encourages social cooperation even with the 'transphobic'? Is there any circumstance where "sticks and stones" helps, or are we rejecting that totally?

"Critics" are free to make their own instance and invite people on, but they are not owed a debate by trans people who are just trying to socialize and live their lives.

Yeah, I don't think you can compel debates. I'm sensitive to arguments about bodily integrity and complicity. People are exercising a right to exclude voices they don't want to hear.

But new tech lets us do it so well. And all-day, every-day people self-sort into silos, and then get a steady stream of "facts" about pedophile rings and pee tapes. QAnon seems like a problem of having too much power to self-sort, not a problem of "unmoderated free speech."

Is there a healthy amount of "hate" that makes us stronger, like mental exercise? If we don't owe it to them, is it in our own interest to give more to those who hate us or disagree strongly?

> The Fediverse solves the problem of authoritarian silencing

I would say it "addresses" the problem but you can't solve it. Battling powerful classes of people, whether businesses or governments, will be a constant fact of life. No resting or your laurels.

Agreed. I'm kind of pricing in DNS as a public good that can't be cut off.

Can elaborate on what you mean by antifragile in this context?

Taleb wrote a book called "Anti-fragile," which comments on three kinds of systems:

* Fragile systems try to avoid disorder, disruption and/or shocks.

* Robust systems stand up to shocks, but don't change.

* Anti-fragile systems respond to shocks and disruptions to improve, to become stronger or more creative. It's close to the idea of "eustress."

The human body can avoid all exercise and stress, but it becomes sickly and fragile. Ideally, humans regularly seek out more and more stress to grow stronger.

It seems we're in a loop of responding to stressful speech by squelching it and avoiding it -- admittedly, through free choice, and not government action. But, like people trying to get healthy by avoiding exercise, we're getting sick in our silos.

(The silos, to be fair, aren't stress-free. There is a lot of anger and sadness in them. But shutting out all the unwelcome voices seems to be making people more fragile in the real world, not less.)

I am aware of how Taleb defines antifragile... I've read the book.

>"What we don't have is a Taleb-like model for anti-fragile speech under new tech."

What do you mean here? And how does it relate to "trans" speech in particular?

It doesn't relate specially to trans speech; KixiQu's comment above observed that fediverse instances seem to moderate out transphobia more than Twitter. Then JL6 asked if fediverse is moderating itself into a silo.

I'm saying moderation and exclusion are traditional tools in responding to offensive speech in private fora. But moderation and exclusion can become too good. We've seen right and left choose into bubbles big enough to sway elections with outrageous false claims.

The Twitter and AWS response to bad speech generated by free-choice silos is to enforce their own, bigger silencing or moderation policy. I'd like to find ways where people can grow, adapt, and cooperate more when they encounter hostile, offensive, or untrue beliefs or speech online.

Ah I see that you responded to a different thread in this one! That requires someone to read an entire tree of comments instead of the family stack. This branching problem is also the curse of slack btw... I'm not sure anyone has solved the context dependency problem especially well except maybe with hyperlinks.. :)

Anyway... I see a similar outcome in both the fediverse and the conglomerate with respect to consensus. In one aspect you have downvotes and in the other you have downvotes. The ties that bind are friends maintaining connections and then, well interests.

I'm not sure how antifragility fits in here or if it is relevant and what it actually means in this context. Do you mean "the body politic"? It's an interesting hypothesis but I don't see an evidence for it.

The bigger question is the "tyranny of the majority", "the tyranny of the minority" and "the loudest voice and the squeaky wheel of appeasing". To jump to a sibling thread, the fediverse does solve the authoritarian problem which seems to be a good thing which was analogous to the decentralized internet.

In the fediverse Trump tweets would still exist.. but would they have the same impact?

Anyway, lots of PhDs will be written on this subject. If you are so inspired cite this comment one day and all of my HN posts will have been worth it!

So in your "fragile" framework, black Americans should routinely deal with Jim Crow supporters on the basis of should their humanity be acknowledged? It seems like, true to HN form, that people are trying to make new buzzwords to describe systems that we've already seen in a bid to concern-troll certain viewpoints back into the discussion.

Yup. I repeated this enough that I ended up making a term for it. 'The "magical decentralization fallacy" — the mistaken belief that decentralization on its own can address governance problems. What do I mean by governance problems? Things like misinformation and harassment.'

(https://aviv.medium.com/the-magical-decentralization-fallacy...)

Great article. Especially how you tie decentralization to governance, which is actually the issue at play. The decentralization argument to me often feels like it framed like the only choices are a mercurial monarchy (Facebook) or balkanization (Fediverse). Enjoyed your ideas on alternatives.

Very interesting points, lead me to your twitter account. I've been thinking a LOT about the intersections of thought police, censorship, big tech, the polarization of America, and more.

I saw your tweet here: https://twitter.com/metaviv/status/1349073861476823040?s=20

It got me to thinking. Cumulatively, reddit seems pretty high up on a lot of the scores. So, say you were to create a new hypothetical social network and use reddit as a base.

Some of the lower points it gets is for safety, encouraging humanization of others, strengthening local ties, show reliable information...

I'd say being able to network with people you know, while remaining anonymous in certain "contexts", like for example sharing a story in /r/askredditafterdark it may not be a real shit post, or anything bad but it could be embarrassing.

Having one verified account, with aliases/contexts you can switch to for different purposes would be a way to have better safety.

Encouraging humanization of others. What if instead of moderation teams, there was some reward mechanism like steem or hive, and everyone who wanted to be rewarded could randomly be on "jury duty". Every post would be randomly juried by members of a sub, and it'd simply ask the questions:

* If this is news, does it seem factual? * Does this represent hate speech? * Does this belong in this sub?

That last one, might be something everyone can answer and an algorithm would choose what to allow or prune.

Alternatively, there could be opportunities for people to flag content. Which would all get put in a weekly mega-thread, where there's no commenting just voting on flagged content, whether to redeem it, or Perma-ban the post from the sub. If someone else reposts, it'll automatically just be banned.

On your account profile you can choose to put your location. This allows you to filter and see only content people within certain radii of your location, or your specific city or state or province. Essentially, you can jump into a "nearby users" context.

Subs also would have marketplaces built in, and that and ads would be the way it's monetized. However, no tracking cookies just topical/sub-Reddit ads. These could feature local or shipped goods/items or event tickets.

Another thought is what if you created something like Wikipedia meets archive.org. Essentially every news/blog post gets archived per revision. Then there'd be an API to essentially "characterize" links. Give them context and a single source of truth that other social networks, federated instances, etc. Could use, whether something is "fake news", etc.

The biggest issue I see with that is how you convince people from either side of the political spectrum to "believe" the fact-checking of said sites. The best would probably be allow pros/cons for each link with descriptions, then the user can follow a footnote and see why 60% say it's true, and 40% say it's fake. Say Pat Robertson says it's "fake news" and "Paul Graham" and some Nobel prize winning scientist says it's true.

Could have professional scores as well to a link like 65% of athletes say true, 85% of scientists, 75% of actors, 33% of theologians, 55% of politicians, 65% of news anchors, 75% with a college degree, etc... Could use AI too, maybe to give it a base score like: Article appears to lean 55/45 left:right.

All that data for these "painted links" could be used when new submissions come in to determine things like does it fit the category, etc... The problem with misinformation I think is not enough context. Having more and more context on the information that's out there can help combat the misinformation.

Your solution is a very interesting take on the issue, and it is definitely worth giving it a try.

It reminds me of Aether (https://getaether.net/) which has an interesting moderation process: Everyone receives all the content, and some mods also distribute a list of what should be hidden. This keeps the traditional system of human moderation, which will tend to become monopolized by a group of people, but this group of people must do what the users want because it is really easy to demote them. It's not exactly multi-centralization as you define in your article but rather centralization with a very powerful check

> Interestingly, the Fediverse data point seems to show that really none of Twitter's problems are solved when its the user's paying and admining the servers themselves.

It doesn't really tell you that until it becomes a more dominant form of social media. Otherwise most of the users there are also users of Twitter and Facebook, where they go to get radicalized and pick up nonsense conspiracy theories and vitriol which they then bring everywhere they go.

Also, you're wrong and most parts of the Fediverse are already much less toxic than most of Twitter.

And notice that you would otherwise expect the opposite of this if the major platforms are booting off any significant number of actual asshats for legitimate reasons, who then move to invade any alternatives. The relative success with which most decentralized alternatives have fended off this onslaught is a very good sign.

Perhaps "toxicity" has always been found on computer networks, consider 1990's Usenet. What is different now is that Twitter, Facebook, etc. are "monetising" web usage, any sort of usage (e.g., purely recreational, non-commercial usage), by selling web users out to advertisers, not to mention political campaigns. Imagine if all Usenet usage had been carefully surveilled with all possible deomgraphic and behavioural data collected whereupon the people doing this surveillance proclaimed "we are a startup" and tried to "services" to advertisers or political organisations.

"Centralisation" makes surveillance much easier, hence "decentralisation" is percieved as a panacea. It also helps to curb the viral spread of low quality information. As long something makes surveillance and data collection more difficult, it is helpful. Because when the surveillance is no longer easy, the profit motive should decrease. The data collection frenzy should start to fade. We can close this ugly chapter in business and get back to real work.

Twitter, Facebook, Google, etc. want centralisation. They need sustained, heavy web traffic, lest they could not make money. They still do not have a legitimate, viable "business plan" outside of surveillance, data collection and perpetuating an online ad circus.

The smart way to deal with all of this is to pass laws regulating the collection and usage of data on web users. Unfortunately leadership today is at crisis levels, corruption is on the rise, so this may not come anytime soon. In absence of legal protections, web users must fend for themselves.

Personally I kind of lost confidence in the non-viciousness of the microblogging fediverse, when Wil Wheaton got driven off of it because he got upset at being trolled by someone.

> The Fediverse is an interesting social experiment testing the hypothesis of whether the ad revenue/profit motive of twitter, and the subsequent algorithms that maximize engagement, are the primary source of toxicity and other negative qualities of social media that have been documented recently (social dilemma et al)

that's not why it was created

think of the fediverse like social media parallel to email. you can create your account on someone else's service (e.g. gmail or yahoo) or self-host your own service.

Nothing is preventing a server from putting ads in their service. It would be like protonmail or gmail jamming ads down your throat. but because it federated like email, you can leave. its not centralized, but its still owned instances.

> interesting social experiment

A social experiment where people from the variable group randomly and freely wander into the control group?

I don't think so.

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