When Meta launched their new Twitter competitor Threads on July 5, they said that it would be compatible with the ActivityPub protocol, Mastodon, and all the other decentralized social networks in the fediverse “soon”.
But on July 14, @alexeheath of the Verge reported that Meta’s saying ActivityPub integration’s “a long way out”. Hey wait a second. Make up your mind already!
From the perspective of the “free fediverse” that’s not welcoming Meta, the new positioning that ActivityPub integration is “a long way out” is encouraging. OK, it’s not as good as “when hell freezes over,” but it’s a heckuva lot better than “soon.” In fact, I’d go so far as to say “a long way out” is a clear victory for the free fediverse’s cause.
Threads is pretty blatant about censorship and sharing of user data. They use terms like “a friendly space” and “convenient” to sell it to users. So you’re actually losing something by jumping ship from Twitter. The one positive for Musk era Twitter was an attempt to reduce censorship, but the crazy things the company did otherwise far outweigh it.
One of the shitty things profit driven social media sites do is curate content to create a more advertiser friendly space. It even extends to special interests and government interests. I mean what do you call that when public information is curated by the government. I sure as hell don’t want my US government telling me what I can and can not discuss in a public venue.
In the USA there’s a little thing called the first amendment. Granted these are companies and don’t necessarily have to adhere to civil rights in the same way government agencies do, but in effect they’re doing the same thing. The US government should absolutely not be coercing these US companies into censoring content, which they are.
🙄 “Saying slurs on a private forum is mah god-given right!”
There’s plenty to criticize about Twitter and Threads, but the unmoderated parts of the internet are cancer.
Also pretending that Elon doesn’t remove things he doesn’t like is a joke.
I could have made that a lot longer, but I just wanted make a few points without creating a wall of text.
Of course there’s garbage you don’t want to see in a community. But the difference is there’s an actual human being I entrust to the task of removing it (the moderator). If I don’t like how a community is moderated, I can go to another community. Mods make these calls for the sake of quality and topicality of their particular community, not because of some ulterior motive.
This is in comparison to an institution of some kind using keyword algorithms to mindlessly remove intelligent discussion only because it may be against some kind of predetermined policy. The US government does this. They have official agents placed within the staff of major social media outlets for this purpose.
The only thing I said about Musk is that it’s a positive he tried to reduce censorship. I never implied that he removed censorship altogether. Twitter is still guilty of curating content same as the others. However Threads has flat out stated a full tilt censorship agenda.
Can you provide some evidence for your claim of US agents on staff for censorship purposes, as well as elaborate on which speech you believe is being removed?
99% of the time I see people upset about ‘censorship’ of online spaces, they’re mad about far-right hate-speech or dangerous misinformation.
Well I’m not wikipedia here, just going on things I’ve read in past. You can either believe it or not believe it, suit yourself.
In the pre-internet days it was a well known fact that major media outlets in the USA had federal officials on staff to put the kibosh on issues of national security. That criteria has since broadened. For anyone that still watches news media on TV they can see for themselves the stories that never get past the editorial desk.
I’ve read claims of the same federal scrutiny happening for large social media outlets. These are USA companies operating in the USA so they fall under jurisdiction. They’re certainly not going to advertise that’s the case. I don’t doubt this is happening for a second and in their own best interest they keep it on the downlow.
I’m not sure I understand the comment. You meant 99% of those complaining are posting hostile shit? If so, it’s the 1% that post intelligent and legitimate counter arguments we need to allow a voice. It’s not uncommon for legislation to push through under the guise of some public benefit that further erodes our civil liberty. As US citizens we need to be vigilant about that kind of thing or we’re just throwing our freedom away.
So, nothing that any of us can research for ourselves? Odd. Well known facts shouldn’t be hard to cite…
Well known facts from the pre-internet days, no less. You know, back when everything was recorded in physical books. Sadly all of those records have been lost. Tin foil hat sad face.
Please please please provide evidence of this one.
No? You’re not going to respond with any evidence at all about anything you said here? Come on man. What a let down. Why do you even write this stuff then?
Unless those moderators are getting paid, you are just benefitting from unpaid labor and externalizing the costs of running the community onto volunteers.
That’s why I’m not against algorithmic moderation. The work itself is never going to be paid labor unless social media is nationalized, so it must be automated.
Reduced censorship, so long as what you’re posting paints musk in a positive light, doesn’t upset him, and so long as it’s mostly racist.
Reduced censorship. Lol. No man, just no.