Mastodon Is Like Twitter Without Nazis, So Why Are We Not Using It?

  • "We" are not using it for the same reason nazis are not using it: because hardly anyone's there. It needs critical mass first. Once that happens, nazis/trolls/etc will find their way there too, I'm afraid.

  • Twitter addicted journalists have started to perceive their tweeting as one of the most important aspects of their job. This is not good for journalism or society.

    You know what a better solution to Twitter problems would be than "clean" Twitter? No Twitter. Just drop it. This is a problem not a solution.

  • First time I've heard of Mastodon, but I really hope it takes off. Social networks are now too integrated into modern life to be completely owned by private corporations.

  • Why is this flagged?

  • If we use it, the nazis will come.

    PS: this reads just like a big old advertisement.

    PPS: the scrolljacking is real on this page.

  • There's a popular adage that technology only becomes useful when it starts being used for porn. The reason is that, when the technology was thought up, the idea was not to use it for porn, but for something else. However the fact that the porn industry has independently found the technology useful, despite it not being targeted at them at all, shows the true potential of the technology.

    The same can be said about social networks, except swap porn for nazis.

  • Since it's decentralized that means there wouldn't be an effective way to ban someone from the network without consensus. Anyone, "Nazi" or not, would be free to post offensive content without a central authority policing users as is the case with Twitter. I don't think this is actually a solution that certain users and most advertisers want.

  • Why on earth was this flagged?

  • What I would like to see from any of these FOSS alternatives to Twitter is a way to import your existing Twitter archive.

    I don't know if it's colossal arrogance, or colossal stupidity that makes so many developers launch their "Alternative to Hugely Successful Product X" without giving people any way of bringing across their existing "Product X" content, that they may have spent years creating.

  • So it's twitter with less content.

  • how unoriginal, yet another story conflating Trump with Nazis. how easily is HN manipulated

  • Who is worried about nazis? Really? Any why take any default political stance as a medium. About as smart as voat's strategy of going the opposite direction.

  • So, you complain about Twitter's inherent lack of freedom, then offer an alternative which "bans nazis"? Given the frequency with which internet debates end up invoking Godwin's Law, that sounds even worse than what it's trying to replace. Who decides who's a nazi?

    I'm also confused by the distinction (or relationship) between this and GNUsocial. The article seems to suggest that Mastodon is an instance of (or at least compatible with) GNUsocial. The Mastodon FAQ seems to suggest it's a completely separate and incompatible thing.

    FWIW, there are already several longer established GNUsocial-based almost-clones of Twitter out there, offering more than Mastodon seems to. Personally, I use Quitter, to scratch my FOSS 'twittering' itch:

    https://quitter.no

  • Nazi, noun -- A person with a opinion "we" do not like/agree with.

    See also: libertarian, classical liberal, conservative.

    Update: -3 points for mocking the world view of, apparently, a shit ton of people these days? Damn...