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Comment by kixiQu | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

> 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.

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.

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