Hey there! Figured I’d share here since my main instance, Lemmy.ml, seems to be really broken right now. I published an article today focusing on some of the myths and misconceptions Mastodon users have spread over the last few years, with some critical analysis and debunking.
Let me know if you like it!
A few of these are interesting and accurate (email comparisons), a few are pretty obvious and widely distributed already (privacy challenges), a few are a bit of a straw man argument (not sure “algorithms are bad” is a thing) and a few I’d caveat a little bit (quote tweets).
Going through all that would mean a whole response piece, though, so I’m more than happy to vaguely nod and move on.
It’s gotten diluted over time with each wave, but algorithms are bad was a strong stance on mastodon servers since its inception. It was one of the first “big” things touted about mastodon. Each wave brought more people from twitter that didn’t care about that or actively disagreed with it so you don’t see the argument as much
Well, the idea of the original post is that ALL algorithms used for any reason are bad, and the retort is to explain that a chonological feed is still a (simple) algorithm and use that to “well actually” a distinction with proprietary algorithms.
Which is fine, but nitpicky. I’d think most Masto users get that, or at least take no issue with the obvious explanation. For all I saw the majority of the response to BlueSky’s idea of an algorithm marketplace where you pick and tune how your feeds are sorted was relatively well received.
But as always around here I don’t doubt that with a different set of follows and even usage times the pushback on principle may be more frequent or obvious. It just hasn’t been my experience and I think the “what algorithm actually means” bit is a bit deceptive.
I think for most people talking about algorithms, the problem isn’t an algorithm, it’s “The Algorithm”.
The distinction is that everything on a computer screen is displayed using an algorithm, but The Algorithm is instead this sinister thing that arbitrarily displays things for the benefit of the company rather than the benefit of the user.
An Algorithm might show posts by upvotes or by comments or by some combination of the two, or by time, or by some combination of the three. The Algorithm will show stormfront posts to black people because it drives engagement. On Youtube for example, a thumbs down is just as acceptable for the purposes of The Algorithm as a thumbs up.