@jburnmurdoch @t0nyyates I think that one model we are likely to see is institutional servers, as the German gov't has already set up. Running a Mastodon instance on corporate iron, along with the webserver and SMTP. The FT might well run one for all its journalists.
@ejoftheweb @jburnmurdoch @t0nyyates
The German Data Commissioner is advocating that all public bodies should leave Facebook (and presumably Twitter) and use open platforms instead.
Various German bodies and authorities have already created their own Mastodon servers, as have many EU agencies and the Commission.
@lennardvanotterloo @ejoftheweb @jburnmurdoch @t0nyyates
The tide against big tech appears to be well and truly turning.
@ejoftheweb @zleap @lennardvanotterloo @jburnmurdoch do we know much about BlueSky yet?
@t0nyyates @zleap @lennardvanotterloo @jburnmurdoch no, except that Dorsey has said it will be a protocol as Twitter should have been. I am not sure how that gets monetised though or what happens to the IP...
@ejoftheweb @lennardvanotterloo @jburnmurdoch @t0nyyates
But if it forces changes for the better then that could be a good thing.
So if bluesky is a project to develop adecentralised a protocol, why not just use Activity pub, and use the money to invest in the development of Activity Pub
@zleap @lennardvanotterloo @jburnmurdoch @t0nyyates How do Dorsey's billionaire chums get richer from that? Open protocols should be curated by the IETF - and documented in rfc's
@zleap @ejoftheweb @jburnmurdoch @t0nyyates
I believe the plan for Dorsey/BlueSky and Musk/Twitter is not to compete but to collaborate. https://davetroy.medium.com/no-elon-and-jack-are-not-competitors-theyre-collaborating-3e88cde5267d
That would probably mean competition between Twitter-BlueSky and Mastodon (or any other ActivityPub service).
@lennardvanotterloo @ejoftheweb @jburnmurdoch @t0nyyates
I think we should not worry too much and focus on what we are good at, develop what we have here, expand.
Given that all the services we run just work nicely together, it could be hard to compete. We can iron out the issues and just make things better.
@zleap @ejoftheweb @jburnmurdoch @t0nyyates Agreed. Also, nobody so far (perhaps Reddit to some extent) has been able to solve the moderation problem.
That is a largely an economic problem as you need heaps and heaps of staff to keep a platform attractive but no business model so far has made that affordable. I believe FB spends about 90% of its mod resources on English so in Burmese or Amhari people can run amok to genocidal levels.
@lennardvanotterloo @zleap @ejoftheweb @jburnmurdoch maybe AI improvements will make this affordable at some point, some years hence.
@zleap @ejoftheweb @jburnmurdoch @t0nyyates
Perhaps this decentralised model to moderation (which is sort of what Reddit has) that Mastodon and friends have turns out to be solution.
@lennardvanotterloo @zleap @ejoftheweb @jburnmurdoch maybe there are actually diseconomies of scale, or at least there are not currently economies of scale. Basically needs eyeballs on offending text and judgement. Currently.
@t0nyyates @lennardvanotterloo @ejoftheweb @jburnmurdoch
Yes, humans do a better job in many cases, as they can bring in real life experience, but can also on the opposite side, bring in their own prejudice.
Like being a jury member in a court, you have put everything to one side and focus on the case being tried.
@lennardvanotterloo @ejoftheweb @jburnmurdoch @t0nyyates
Hope so, no system is perfect, but what makes a system better is to reflect on issues, learn and implement changes to help make it more effective.
@lennardvanotterloo @ejoftheweb @jburnmurdoch @t0nyyates
Not to mention the mental heath effects on these moderators as they seem to be exposed to some very nasty content.
@zleap @lennardvanotterloo @jburnmurdoch @t0nyyates I don't necessarily agree. I think big tech will pick up the mastodon ball and run with it. It's quite possible that Dorsey's Bluesky project will do so.