We've hit 1M monthly active users | Hacker News Reader

We've hit 1M monthly active users

mastodon.social

249 pointsdoener146 comments

I was just looking up some github issues and noticed that the @username@domain.tld format is not supported by GitHub's markdown parser, instead of linking to their mastodon profile it highlights everything but the leading '@' as an email address. I wasn't sure where I would submit the issue for this and used to be I would go to twitter to shout my bug reports at the organizations official handle.

So I thought, maybe GitHub is on mastadon and I search, here are the usernames that come up:

  @github@hello.2heng.xin
  @GitHub@mstdn.social
  @github@mstdn.jp
  @GitHub@mastodon.social
  @github@m.gretaoto.ca
  @GitHub@me.ns.ci

The last one uses a :verified: macro in the username to place a blue checkmark next to their name, another uses :github: to place the github logo in their username.

Pretty interesting that you get to buy a domain name to solve the global username problem and have as many elonmusks as you like (for the viewers at home, impersonating elon is now a ban-able offense), but as for proving identity, when editing my mastodon profile and I see an option to verify that I control whatever links I post below my bio, by sticking an anchor tag in that webpage linking back to my mastodon profile. Smart, instead of being deemed worthy of a celebrity checkmark, you just prove you're the owner of X website.

> So I thought, maybe GitHub is on mastadon

If it was, then surely it would be something like @mastodon@github.com or @official@github.com? Just like with emails, you wouldn't expect official emails to be somewhere else.

And no, that doesn't mean everyone needs a full blown Mastodon server, I think just some sort of ActivityPub relay or a more lightweight server implementation would do.

> If it was, then surely it would be something like @mastodon@github.com or @official@github.com?

How would you even run Mastodon on a domain that is also expected to be an actual website? AFAIK it doesn't even have a DNS record to point it at a different address.

Edit: Apparently the answer is "Webfinger". https://docs.joinmastodon.org/spec/webfinger/

It’s a good question. Does activitypub something like mx lookups or does it rely only on A/AAAA?

I want to run an AP server on my own domain so I can post from me@mydomain.tld but I want to retain my normal static homepage on my domain.tld…

I have a friend doing that on Masto.host using https://masto.host/mastodon-usernames-different-from-the-dom.... Works well.

> impersonating elon is now a ban-able offense

impersonating anyone is a "ban-able offense", and should have been from the get-go. there have been tens of dozens of accounts i've personally reported over the years. all were banned a few hours after. if you don't mention you're a parody expect people to report your account and to get a ban.

"To be fair", it always has been. For years there's been instances of verified accounts changing their name to someone else "as a bit" and getting hit with the ban hammer.

It's always been kind of wild that verified users can just change their username and keep the tick (of course, goes against the whole seasonal name thing twitter enjoys...)

A bit related: If you want to show the verified status for GitHub on your Mastodon profile, here is how to do it:

https://jan.wildeboer.net/2022/06/Quick-Fix-Verified-Mastodo...

Courtesy of https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jwildeboer

It's a problem, but for all the problems with Mastodon I try to think of the equivalent problems with email (since I think it's the analogous for federation). What keeps you from having github@example.com for your own domains?

I like their solution! every mark gets to be @mark and every jess can be @jess, as to which joe you are, just link to site you have control of to prove it.

It's just a matter of expectations and messaging to all the users they're onboarding all of a sudden, but email is a good analogy, in fact if you control your email domain and your own mastodon instance, they could be one in the same address!

Ultimately, email has a wider societal understanding that the domain doesn't necessarily do much in the way of identity verification like Twitter does even though they're both free to the public. Mastodon has more trouble with this because it looks more like Twitter than email.

Nothing, as you know, and many here (including me) do that or similar. It does occasionally confuse or upset the less tech-savvy 'github's who wonder why or how they're name is in your email address.

It seems to be tempting fate to call them "monthly active users" when almost half of them have a week-old account. What percentage of these accounts will still be active in a month? I also remember places like Voat bragging about their spike in traffic any time there was a sudden influx of people from Reddit. Just because people sign up, doesn't mean they will actually become regular users.

im more wondering about their net promoter score, actual onboarded per month vs churned per month

nit: AFAIK, "net promoter score" is derived from polling users with the question "how likely are you to recommend this product?"

I think what you're describing (churned over onboarded users at month M) is the "churn rate".

Doubt anyone care, it's not a for-profit endeavour, there is no one interested in buying them out that will ask them for that kind of stats.

Nice to know, Mastodon right now is still a completely different platform, it feels more personal, a place where is still possible to discover the interesting hacking project someone is doing on their own and where people have less qualms about posting unpolished/experimental stuff. That's how it should be in our field.

It has not been like this on Twitter for... years.

Whatever culture existed on Mastodon will be drowned in the Eternal September to come. Every website feels more personal when there's only 50,000 people there.

You will still find small specialized instances however it get popular globally.

At least it will be more similar to Eternal Septembers on internet forums than whatever happened to centralised social networks. If an Eternal September happens in your instance and you dislike the after-effects you can just... Move without losing much.

> If an Eternal September happens in your instance and you dislike the after-effects you can just... Move without losing much.

This is not obvious to me. Don't you lose a whole lot in that scenario?

There's a local makerspace that uses PeerTube for its video projects. A lot of it is old public domain movies and stuff inspired by less old things still in copyright.

https://vod.newellijay.tv/

https://mountaintown.video/videos/local?s=1

You probably heard about it recently if you subscribe to Tedium: https://tedium.co/2022/10/21/new-ellijay-tv-diy-tv-network/

> It has not been like this on Twitter for... years.

it has always been like this on twitter. you just need to follow the right folk.

> where is still possible to discover

How?

You can browse the local timeline from the web interface, which is one way. Assuming you've joined an interest where people who have similar interests hang out that's a good discovery mechanism.

Then there's cross-instance #hastag searches which can be used to find things.

You discover things when people you follow boost them or (if you're on an instance that's not too big for it to be usable) you see them on the federated timeline.

So.. Not so different from twitter then. I see hack projects and experimental things quite often because of the people I follow.

the experience is quite a bit different from twitter. a good mastodon server has mods , admins, and a community who moderate.

the signal to noise ratio is significantly better—maybe a decent comparison would be to compare here (hn) and a default sub on reddit with very little moderation—sure, you _can_ find interesting gems of a dialogue on the little moderated reddit sub, but your odds are significantly higher of finding good conversations here on hn. very very different experience.

> a good mastodon server has

Yes. The problem is finding such a server. And then finding content outside that server.

In addition to what has already been said, choose the right instance and explore the WAY SMALLER local timeline. It's a bit hard to find the right instance though.

Currently the "Create account" button for many instances (including https://mastodon.social) just silently redirects to https://joinmastodon.org/servers.

This is probably because these instances have closed registration either completely or are invite only for now.

Many new users must be confused by this. It would be much better to redirect them to a page that explains that this particular instance is not accepting new users right now and that they could check back later or simply choose a different instance at https://joinmastodon.org/servers.

> It would be much better to redirect them to a page that explains that this particular instance is not accepting new users right now and that they could check back later or simply choose a different instance at https://joinmastodon.org/servers.

On mastodon.social, this is exactly what I get when clicking "Create Account": A short paragraph saying that registrations on mastodon.social are closed right now, and a link to joinmastodon.org/servers.

Interesting. I tried it on iOS Safari and there I still only get the redirect - no message. On desktop Firefox however, I see the message too.

>1,124 new Mastodon servers since Oct 27

Wouldn't be more appropriate to say ActivityPub servers? ActivityPub is the underlying protocol of Mastodon which is only one of the many available implementations. I have encountered numerous Pleroma users on the federated timeline lately.

https://activitypub.rocks/

this is what "web3" and decentralization should be, not endless blockchain applications

It’s mildly amusing to me that after VCs poured billions into a decentralized blockchain-based web, the twitter exodus is here and web3 isn’t really even part of the conversation.

> the twitter exodus is here

any numbers? from the numbers i've seen, twitter is doing quite well.

What numbers are those? I didn't think anything was public, and probably never will be now that the company is privately owned.

I just know anecdotally, I've been a long-time Twitter user (user id #1661), and the current mood on my feed reminds me of the Digg-Reddit exodus. It's not about the raw numbers (yet), it's about who's leaving and who will follow them.

You're not doing well when you fire 50% of your workforce.

Twitter is losing $4 million dollars a day, according to Musk himself.

Make no mistake, Mastodon is making history right now: At this point no matter what happens next many many people will stay in the fediverse. Interesting times!

> At this point no matter what happens next many many people will stay in the fediverse.

i'm very skeptical. it has that "use a linux pc" feeling.

let me put it like this: does anyone believe it will dethrone tiktok? or whatsapp? or facebook? or even twitter? unless something major changes (e.g. a single node that has everything and everyone on it) i'd wager there's a 0% chance of that happening. but more people will surely use activitypub. the problem is the numbers will still be tiny.

There might be hundreds of millions active users for the big apps, but I have been a part of an active and lively social network (general, not specialised) site with a few thousands users and one could already see powerful network effects emerge. Which is why I think mastodon does not have to dethrone anyone. The only thing that is needed is to acquire enough users that it will be self-sustaining. That would probably need a few million active worldwide users. It's not completely impossible, because right now there are enough people sensitive to one-platform problems, thanks to Zuckerberg and Musk.

If that happens, the big platforms have a big problem.

It's not like Mastodon is some new upstart where we can only speculate on its sustainability. I've been on there for years and there's always enough going on to keep me coming back.

To me, in term of audience and scale, mastodon is to Twitter what hacker news is to Reddit. Smaller, less toxic, easier to moderate.

I'm enjoying it, I've joined mastodon.nz which is a good choice if you are a kiwi, there is also a new dotnet.social server if you are into .NET

I think we are in a bit of sweet spot where there isn't that many people that you can follow many of the feeds ( though on some instances people have been saying it is too much ). Lot of talk of "yay, no algorithm" but actually, I think I want one, but one that works purely to find the content I likely want.

>there is also a new dotnet.social server if you are into .NET

They should've called it C Hashtag.

How does Mastodon work? It says you can't register on mastodon.social anymore because it's too big. If you sign up on different server, can you still interact with people on mastodon.social and other servers...?

I wrote a blog (aimed at newcomers) about the Fediverse/Mastodon with the upsides and challenges: https://j11g.com/2022/11/07/welcome-to-the-fediverse/

Yes. For federated, think email. Only everyone's inbox is a feed.

Better: you get a local and federated feed, as well as the feed for who you follow. Local is just the server you're signed up to. Fed is "the world" and your follow feed is just that.

Yes, it's like e-mail. You can even interact with people from other platforms thanks to ActivityPub.

Yes you can

Can anyone tell me what happens if an instance is blocked by another instance?

Say I'm on a big instance, mastodon.social for example. And I follow someone who is self-hosting a single user instance. But they say something that some people don't like and my instance is not federating them with anymore. They are blocked. What happens? I won't be able to see their posts? Do I have to move to another instance which still didn't block them?

-----

I'm thinking about this for a while but I feel the whole network will have a peer pressure to avoid guilt by association which I'm not sure is a good thing

Yes. I've had to do this a couple times when the instance I was on was blocked by the instance I was moving to before the migration function would work. However, unless something changed, this same indirection means a post can make its way around to instances blocked by the instance the post is on.

This is wonderful! I’ve certainly noticed a lot of activity on one of my recent mastodon posts. Is it appropriate to drop our mastodon tags here?

I’m @tlalexander@queer.party and I’m a trans robotics engineer from the Bay Area, developing an open source farming robot (see my HN profile for details).

Feel free to reply to this with your fediverse handle! Also is anyone on cohost or other platforms like that? I’ve seen some friends join cohost and I submitted the application form.

I'm digital_carver@qoto.org

I don't understand the appeal of things cohost. It just seems like "twitter, but this time we're good guys, we swear!" Which, even if true right now, will certainly change if they get popular and become influential, because the pressures and incentives are too great. It takes some fundamental difference (like federation) to provide at least some safeguards against that.

For one, I'd love it if people posted their Mastodon handles here. Mine is @stavros@mastodon.social.

For two, and this is just out of curiosity, what's the reason for mentioning you're trans? I don't mention I'm cis when I introduce myself, it seems like nobody should care.

They also mention that they're a robotics engineer, why should anyone care about that? Because most of the world isn't robotics engineers, so it's a useful thing to know for people who are also robotics engineers or are interested in robotics.

Humans connect via points of commonality, especially ones that aren't so widely shared.

I don't know, if we were on a LGBTQ forum, I'd probably ask the same question about the "robotics engineer" bit, whereas the trans bit would be normal to mention.

I do see your point about points of commonality, I'm just curious why it was just that one and not hobbies, etc then. I just don't think that being trans should be pointed out as being "niche", I'd rather it was just your gender and we forgot about it.

People attach different levels of importance to different parts of their identity. While some trans people may wish to only state their gender, or not even their gender, when introducing themselves to find community, for some other people being trans is an important part of their experience, and they would like to share it in order to make it easier for other trans or queer people to connect with them.

That makes sense, thanks.

I post a lot about being trans and about trans issues. Trans people like to stick together because there is a part of society that doesn’t understand issues relevant to us, and that can feel alienating. So by being in community with other trans people we feel better. I want trans people to follow me and other trans people are much more likely to follow someone if they’re trans.

But also because I’m trans, and that’s going to upset a small number of bigoted people who will refuse to follow me, and that’s how I’d like it. And since I post about being trans they’re going to find out eventually, and be a problem on my feed.

Ahh OK, that makes sense, thanks. So it's for filtering as well.

Here is my Mastodon handle: @dom96@mastodon.social (I still feel like I should instead link directly to my profile, isn't it easier to follow then? https://mastodon.social/@dom96).

Definitely new to Mastodon. If anyone has any good instance recommendations I'd appreciate them :)

> isn't it easier to follow then?

Not on mastodon.social, unfortunately. (Unless the reader also happens to be on that same instance.)

In most other instances, linking to the profile would allow us to click on the follow button on that page, login to our instance in the new window that pops up, and follow you from there. mastodon.social uses this new UI that doesn't do any of that, instead just tells you to copy-paste the address into our instance's search bar (opening it ourselves).

So @dom96@mastodon.social is not any different from https://mastodon.social/@dom96 in this case - in both cases we have to do the same thing, paste it into our instance's search bar, to be able to follow or interact in any way.

Ooh good point! I should try that form in the future thanks.

I'm @ora@mastodon.lol though I'm debating starting my own branded instance.

Does Mastodon have less moderation than any other social media platform? Not looked into it deeply, so please let me know. From what I understand the instance/server owners are in charge of moderations, and a users network is a network of users from various servers.

Will Mastodon allow parody and scam accounts? Or is it on a server by server basis? Does each server have different published TOS? There used to be Christian counterstrike games servers, would there be the equivalent mastodon servers?

I guess its still in early adopters with wide eyes on best behaviour at the moment. Has it been built with the lessons learnt about moderation that Twitter has shown when celebrities like Opra bring in regular people into the system?

Your question is somewhat ill-posed since it isn't a platform but a network. A node on a network can allow parody and scam accounts, at which points other nodes are free to refuse to federate with it.

Every instance has its own moderation, so parody, scam and Christian counterstrike accounts will be allowed on some instances, but not on others.

Instances can choose to federate with each other, so it's likely no one will federate with scam instances.

> Or is it on a server by server basis? Does each server have different published TOS? There used to be Christian counterstrike games servers, would there be the equivalent mastodon servers?

Yes. In most cases, yes. And possibly.

You know how a lot of content on some social media platforms is just "arbitrage" from another platform? And to copy, rather than link? (This pattern goes back decades, whether from conscious growth-hacking, or naturally.)

Maybe Mastodon will take off better if this starts happening more.

Right now, I have an account, but there's not yet anything in my feed worth logging in for. But I'm still occasionally checking a Twitter URL that someone mentions, because that's where content is concentrated.

It's good to see an alternative getting a chance to shine.

I signed up as a Patreon just to show a little support. I don't use social media much, but interested in watching how Mastodon evolves.

Apparently twitter sees about 206 million DAILY active users (don't know about bots...), so that puts this mastodon stuff into perspective.

tiktok has 1 billion monthly active users. whatsapp is at 2 billion monthly.

Looks interesting but rather clunky when you are from one instance and want to comment or boost content from another instance - not as seemless as I had expected.

I thought there was a centralized identity server where all instances connected to like Discord but each instance seems like standalone island in the great big sea.

That works for something like Minecraft Realms where one company controls it, sells licenses, and moderates things. This is more like email. It wouldn't make sense for Google to control identity for Zoho, Fastmail, Outlook, and your home email server.

What was OAuth then for ???.

A secure, non-proprietary alternative to authenticating with Facebook/Twitter/Google.

How can mastodon even scale once you get into millions of users? Won’t a popular server be completely destroyed?

Vertical scaling will hit a limit; eventually you scale by adding more unpopular servers instead.

How are the different timelines populated? Local: the public (?) toots of your home server (eg. @<username>@<host>); Federated: how is this one populated? And then, depending on the app, there's also the home overview (?) This is all a bit confusing...

Home is your personal feed from people you've followed (including their boosts/retweets).

Local and Federated are sort of the "Explore" page (on Twitter) equivalent, except it's chronological instead of algorithm-selected.

Local is just what you said, public toots from your instance.

Federated has the known public toots from other instances. These are the ones that are known to your instance because someone in your instance follows either (a) the person that posted it, or (b) a person that boosted it.

Nice for the ruby on rails community. Twitter wasn't able to make it scale, mastodon is.. 2.5k open issues (which 600 are bugs) <o>

Is this average monthly active users? And over what period?

I hope the normative people exiting to Mastodon convert out of using social media altogether and enjoy the much needed mental health respite just like the previous batch who went off to Gab and god knows where. Although, I'm not holding my breath - it would be the height of irony to see them coping with the "horrors" of the wild west that is Mastodon. Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

No federation without representation!

I fear the flame wars will only increase. Maybe the internet is just not for everyone.

Seconded. Seeing some articles written by people signalling that they don’t like Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover, by announcing that they’re migrating to Mastodon makes me wonder why they don’t just step down from their digital stage altogether and join the rest of us.

I suppose they’ll need to pen an article about it first to let us know.

I'm not really a seasoned user of either, but my take for now:

1. Mastodon has different dynamics than Twitter. Rather than throwing a bunch of stuff I didn't ask for in an effort to boost "engagement", Mastodon just gives me exactly what I asked for. This results in a slow moving feed of nothing but what I subscribe to. I like it.

2. Mastodon seems to have a much better content/noise ratio and to be better moderated. I don't want to be surrounded by hateful people. I'm not looking for a "public square". I'm looking for pleasant and useful interactions.

That's more or less my argumentation on the "EU Voice" thread (and for sure being down-voted to death :))

I don't like EU signalling that Elon Musk is bad for the democracy, while the other people there were good. That was never the case.

I don't think EU should spend money and time on that (unless the EU politicians step down from Twitter and stop to see that as our virtual Agora)

What does the EU instance have to do with any of this? The instance started before there was any talk of anyone buying Twitter.

edit: HN won't let me reply, so:

I had a whole comment written, but you deleted and remade before I posted, and I lost what I wrote.

But the gist is, no, the existence of the instance alone has nothing to do with Musk.

It could possibly have nudged them to speed up existing plans, but that's not the same as "EU signalling that Elon Musk is bad for the democracy." It's them signaling proprietary social media under the influence of a non-EU power is bad for democracy in the EU.

This is one of the possible failure modes they hoped to avoid by exploring alternatives to commercial social media. The conversations are long-running and high-level.

For example, from 2019: https://ar.al/2019/11/29/the-future-of-internet-regulation-a...

> I had a whole comment written, but you deleted and remade before I posted, and I lost what I wrote.

Looks like I had twice the same comment, and I had to delete one, sorry.

did it start before end january? That's when Musk started it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33504670

HN hype

And Canada saw uptick in move to canada searches after Trump. A lot of the most vocal are still in the States. The twitterati are addicted to drama and outrage - in a brilliant move Musk provides them both. They can't get their act clean - if they could twitter wouldn't be cesspool to begin with.

My hunch is that a move to Canada is a lot more complex and laborious than creating a mastodon account.

But at least they'll apologize for that.

Twitter's a cesspool if you go straight to the default feed, the same way you might say that NYC is a cesspool if you go straight to Times Square.

"How much is Twitter a cesspool" is a question that the advertisers are asking, because they care about brand safety. You wouldn't ask someone on HN what they thought about Twitter, because you'd have selection bias.

The twitterati are addicted to drama and outrage

Which is why it's weird Musk didn't see this shitstorm coming. I neither agree nor disagree with what Musk has done and plans to do with Twitter, but it seems incredibly obvious he should have rolled his changes out slowly over a period of months.

Elon, as head of the twitterati, is also addicted to drama, which is why he wants to make as big and dramatic a change as possible in a very short time.

> The twitterati are addicted to drama and outrage

the amount of new people who have overrun my fedi timeline with Twitter discourse initially corroborates that. of course, i can't discuss this on my fedi timeline without adding to it (so i complain about it here and do my best to mute '#twitter', '#elon' etc over there). i do hope that my new neighbors will come to see this space as its own unique thing rather than "twitter but not twitter.com" though. i think this has mostly been true with the previous influxes.

>And Canada saw uptick in move to canada searches after Trump.

This actually didn't happen. I can't find the article now, but the Canadian government agency that handles immigration was making changes to its IT infrastructure the day of the 2016 US presidential election; this was the cause of the "Canadian immigration website overloaded after Trump election" headlines.

>~~A lot of the most vocal~~ 100% are still in the States.

FTFY

Mastodon is not much more than a nerdy echo chamber.

You do realize you posted this on HN?

I do. And I am a nerd myself. This does not absolve me (or "us") from being self-critical.

I generally do not enjoy social media that much, but if there is one interesting thing about it, then it is being able to read and discuss about topics with a broader spectrum of society. I do not want to talk to people who will only echo my own thoughts and believes.

I am happy the far left is moving away from Twitter. The less extremism, the better.

This is positive.

Just like the worst of the right moved to Gettr, now (hopefully) the worst of the left moves to Mastodon.

That will make Twitter a better place for everyone who is interested in actual information and discussion.

I am really liking the way Twitter is going now! Even started using it regularly.

Twitter trending is still a flood of racism and altright dog whistles, that hasn't improved at all recently

There is actually a surge in racist content on Twitter at the moment:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/10/28/musk-tw...

According to Yoel Roth these were targeted attacks.

https://twitter.com/yoyoel/status/1587230924554399744

Qui Bono? No wonder that WaPo blows this up.

Should probably point out that the trending tag is targeted to you personally.

Like when people obliviously complain about seeing ads for 'gay sex' on Google not knowing it's targeted specifically at them because of their browsing habits.

I (straight man) keep seeing ads for feminine hygiene products, dildos, and sexy womens underwear. Also, ads for managing enterprise IT systems. I have no use for any of that stuff.

Maybe the targeting just isn't as good as the people selling their ad tech make it seem.

And that answers the question why 50% of Twitter staff were let go.

I don't use Twitter, I was talking about random web ads that I believe are served by Google (or companies that Google bought). Maybe they should fire half their staff too.

This implies that the algorithm identifies people who engage in leftwing politics and targets rightwing hashtags to them. I suppose that magnifies rage-engagement.

The (new) left is often just as racist/bigoted as the far right, sadly.

Rubbish

And this is an example of a “bubble“.

I was a (European) lefty my whole life. I lived on all continents for many years. Now back in Europe, I was shocked what the left has become. Full of bigotry and racism. I call it the “new left”.

Gladly, an increasing number of people seem to notice.

Interesting, I would like to know specific examples. Genuinely curious.

This is an interesting interview about a study done in the UK for the British government, and the reactions the researchers faced.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AYGfNVtZvzA

Not sure if that’s the kind of thing you were asking for?

Not sure either, not in the mood to sift a video for clues. :)

What am I expected to find there? Antifa-style attacks on a finding they don't like?

My twitter trending is from UK, and is apparently mostly about soccer

I hardly believe that, because in the UK people play football not soccer :)

They play many kinds of football, of which one is soccer

Trending/For You always has one rightwing hashtag on it, often repeatedly, no matter how matter how often I click "not interested"/"this is harmful" and add it to muted.

"not interested" doesn't seem to work for me at all, no matter how many times i click it the trend almost always just reappears on refresh, sometimes even higher than it was before.

Not for me. Weird.

All I see is retro computers, math, and concept art.

You can find terrible things anywhere, you can watch Jordan Peterson instead of 3blue1brown if you want to, but that's really up to you.

“up to you” … But is it really? Isn’t that the question?

Reminds me of a line by Ken Kesey:

If you’ve got it all together, what’s that all around it?

Well, we could argue about the filter bubble and algorithmic amplification, which can be (and often are) terrible things -- however, as it stands right at this moment, as far as the individual is concerned, you can still, mostly, choose what you see -- the algorithm will just show you more of whatever you clicked, rather than trying to steer you to something.

The Algorithm is still arguably a terrible detriment to society at large, but I think one can still find use in twitter and see very little of what one doesn't want to see. That may cease to be true sometime, perhaps even soon, but it works at the moment if you are judicious with who you follow.

Not really.

Most of the people you refer to are not even genuinely left-wing, they just flaunt the aesthetic. Scratch the surface and they are fully invested in capitalism.

Real leftists are out there doing grassroots organising, running unions, setting up cooperatives, making positive contributions to their communities. Not shitposting on Twitter with hammer-and-sickle emojis in their profiles.

Yes, but that goes into “no real Scotsman” territory.

Left and right are both broad and misused categories. Intelligent political debate shouldn’t use either, really.

The right also has a history of recruiting stereotypes to instigate flame wars to boost their grifts.

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