I think I’m not alone that Mastodon is giving me the ick
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It contributes to a culture of NOT being like the incumbent instead of a culture of existing alongside the incumbent. Another example would be Reddit clones like Voat and, sometimes, even HN.
When I was a pre-teen, I was banned from NeoGAF, the massive gaming forum, and joined a forum that was basically a bunch of NeoGAF rejects. While I enjoyed it at the time, it could never be its own stand-alone gaming community and, a decade later, still wasn't. Sometimes you had to know about NeoGAF and its current events if you wanted to fit in and understand content on the splinter forum, yet the splinter forum also would want you to believe they weren't in fact chomping at the bit for more NeoGAF/evilore drama.
Mastodon reminds me of that, especially after Musk's purchase of Twitter where Mastodon became even more toxic and gleefully adolescent in its anti-birdsite-isms.
I know nothing about 4chan much less its early days, but maybe 4chan didn't have the "at least we're not Something Awful" culture, or maybe it was unique enough to attract enough new blood that had no clue what Something Awful was.
> I want to focus on the last point because this has definitely been a contributor to my recent ick. I’ve noticed a few folks getting frankly, horrible about people moving back to Twitter recently and I think it’s a bit unfair.
I think it's a bit unfair to say that "Mastodon" is giving you "the ick" when you really mean that a few folks on Mastodon are giving you the ick.
I'm on Mastodon, and I haven't seen this at all. I'm not saying it doesn't exist — a bunch of crap exists on every social network — I'm saying that the author seems to be guilty of stereotyping the platform.
> People relentlessly calling Twitter the “birdsite”
Twitter users have been calling Twitter the birdsite since forever, so I don't get the criticism of Mastodon. Maybe now though we'll start calling it the dogsite.
I've been on Mastadon since before Musk said anything about buying Twitter. I never viewed it as a Twitter replacement, but I never spent much time on Twitter to begin with.
I think a lot of people came to Mastadon to look for "Twitter but not Twitter". That's never going to exist. Not in decentralized form, not otherwise.
I don't agree with this at all. Most of my following and followers are on other instances, and that seems to be true of them too, unless you happen to be on the biggest instance mastodon.social, which has a disproportionate number of total Mastodon users, but as a result also doesn't have much of a "community" is such.
New Mastodon users, especially Twitter refugees, tend to sign up for whatever instances happen to be available for signup at the time.
Last time I played with anything remotely similar to a federated social network, it was Jabber/XMPP.
Most people seem to be just fine continuing the normal shitposting and whatever on Twitter.
Now obviously you need moderation on large discussion platforms. The disproportionate effect of trolls can't be ignored, but it is possible and even easy at times to go overboard and create a space where nothing of value can be discussed. It's the sort of thing you see when people are complaining that a space feels stuffy and corporate.
But more seriously, you don't have to have the intention to offend to run afoul of overly restrictive policies. Even worse this can create an atmosphere of fear that stifles discussion. Self censorship is the most insidious form of censorship.
I don't have the intention to offend because I don't find value in offending people. Most of the people I follow on Mastodon are game developers, programmers or nerds of some sort. A lot of those people are also gay or trans or furries or any number of easily targeted demographics. I don't refuse to respect their pronouns or try to debunk their gender identity or whatever out of fear of the system but because I'm not homophobic or transphobic. Because I don't seek conflict wherever I go.
>Even worse this can create an atmosphere of fear that stifles discussion.
It doesn't though, there's plenty of discussion on Mastodon as far as I can tell. No one seems to be fearful about it. Not wanting to have the conversations you want to have isn't the same as being afraid to have them.
>Self censorship is the most insidious form of censorship.
Self censorship is maturity, it's potty-training and big-boy pants for the mind. Your assumption that the only reason anyone would have to exercise restraint and self control being fear is inaccurate. The most effective arguments I've come across counter to my own beliefs have been presented with an implicit respect for me as a person, civility and reason. People who go out of their way to insult me or twist my words in bad faith because they're chasing endorphins rather than ideas aren't liable to convince anyone of anything.
And yes, you have to follow the rules of the house. That's not oppression, that's society. If you don't like it, feel free to spin up your own Mastodon with blackjack and hookers, like Trump did.
And even though twitter now isnt like Twitter before, its still much much more alive than mastodon. The only nieches that are active on mastodon are tech people and some governments and absolutely nothing else. No sports, no news, heck even tech is smaller, and of course, want to search for something? Good luck.
I agree with the author, the whole thing distanced me from Twitter, tried fediverse but it ain't there mate.
By this argument, Hacker News is irrelevant.
You're forgetting furries and kink-adjacent folks.
But I find the platform itself exceedingly irritating. The UI is horrible.
However, post-acquisition, I just don't give a fuck anymore. That's the only way I can put it. Since I stopped doom-scrolling Twitter, my mental health is that much better for it, and doom-scrolling was one of the worst things I did during the pandemic and the war beginning.
I don't even care to check out Mastodon. I think all these echo chambers are negative. I don't even really go on any kind of social media anymore.
I don't miss it.
Sounds like a guy with principles.