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Comment by Waterluvian | Hacker News Reader

Mastodon is software for running federated social networking servers. Are you perhaps referring to a specific server or community?

It’s quite possible to join a server that focuses on a specific hobby and generally avoid any of that horribleness.

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Except the way the fediverse works, instances can ban instances, and there are parasocial lists set up to keep track of “bad mastodons”, and if your instance allows people to follow anyone from a “bad” instance you are also bad and refused federation, effectively locking you out of the network.

That’s what makes mastodon so insidious. If you (as a mod) allow anything that other instances disapprove of, you and your site is excluded.

I know what Mastodon is. What you say is true for every social network, you can find your little niche that works for you. I'm speaking in broad terms about the general culture.

> What you say is true for every social network, you can find your little niche that works for you

It's not true for Twitter, which uses it's algorithm to force high-engagement outrage into your feed

Unless you simply switch your feed to "following" instead of "for you", in which case you see every Tweet from only the people you follow in chronological order. Until recently Twitter would periodically switch you back to "for you", even if you had it set to "following". After a recent change, however, this is no longer the case. Why anyone would choose to allow Twitter to decide what Tweets they see, instead of choosing themselves, is beyond me.

What do you mean by “broad terms about the general culture”?

Are you saying that the average user of any Mastodon server is “evil and disturbed?”

No, a meltdown is not the day-to-day culture, but it's definitely a fringe activist network.

That is quite ugly. I’m sorry you’ve had that experience but I’m telling you: check out other servers. They’re really quite different and you’re in no way forced to engage in subcultures you’re not interested in. If you keep running into the same smell every where you go, it might not be that all of Mastodon is smelly.

It’s kind of like Reddit. There’s all kinds of slimy subreddits, but I just don’t join those and I never see their content or discourse.

That is just utter rubbish.

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