@simon One thing I noticed on his intro video is that he mentions that "ActivityPub support will let people come to Threads and move later to other servers".
For all the talk about rejecting Threads, maybe we can look at this as a chance for business and influencers to have a stepping stone out of the walled gardens? First, go to threads then create their own instance.
Also, I'm really wondering what type of moat Facebook could build to avoid this.
Next steps I predict for the #threads invasion: It will be one-way for most instances, meaning they can receive posts FROM threads, but will not be allowed to SEND replies or posts to them. Threads/Meta/Facebook will claim "protecting" their users etc. They will offer a way though. Some selected Instance admins will be offered to be allowed to post to threads when they sign a pledge or something that will dictate rules. They might even offer money in exchange for that "privilege". 1/2
The "fedi freedom" we enjoy now feels a little bit like "you can choose whatever color you want, as long as it is black".
The Fediverse can not remain a forever niche network that stays at single digits of market share. You personally might not feel the need to have business, influencers and celebrities in the Fediverse, but they are the ones that actually determine the success or failure of a social network.
Defederating with threads is just a way of putting our heads in the sand. If we really want "fedi freedom", we need to find a way to fight them and find a way to subvert their plans.
feels a bit wasteful for every Mastodon instance to keep a copy of the same file. some redundancy and decentralisation is good, but i wouldn't mind splitting the bill for storage with a few other instances.
how about an S3 proxy that deduplicates files to save space on copies? just store by hash instead of file path and have a key-value map so it looks like a file system to the Mastodon instance. one such map per instance connected to the shared storage pool.
you might even design it so it moves files away from shared storage and to instance-specific storage if only one instance needs that file, so you're only sharing the cost of shared files.
@thor Are you familiar with IPFS? It's basically what you are describing, a content-addressable file system.
I think I could implement a service like what you are asking, but to be honest it's the kind of thing that only makes sense if there are already enough customers willing to come together for this, or if you have enough people willing to foot the extra costs initially and only start saving after more people join in.
It troubles me that U.S. Political machines and institutions are bypassing truly open and democratic federated platforms and instead gravitate to corporate outlets.
@kellogh I kind of see OP's point, if I see "fact" as a value that is constant and can always be verified, and "true" as a value that can be acceptable if it falls within a well-known margin.
To illustrate: a broken clock is right twice a day, but a working clock is always even if its time has been initially set to a few minutes behind the "correct" time.
OP's mistake is in thinking that GPT is only useful if it provides "facts", when most people are okay by just getting "acceptable truths".
@kellogh my point (and perhaps OP's) is that LLMs can provide you results which may be "acceptable truths" a lot of the times, but these results will never be grounded on reality. As you said, to establish something as fact we need to be able to verify it, and LLMs simply can not do that.
If someone wrote "A broken clock can never give you the right time", would you be upset as well or would you try to carve out a defense based on semantics?
If your only criticism is about his "redefinition of fact", then I'd say that you creating a strawman to argue instead of just looking for a better argument.
I guess a much better response to "ChatGPT can not give you facts" would be along the lines "All models are wrong, but some are useful", not "haha, you used 'fact' wrong".
Step 3 of my evil plan regarding #fediverser and the #redditmigration has been executed. Anyone with a reddit account can go to https://portal.alien.top to claim their account at the alien.top #lemmy instance, and when they do so it gives you a list of your current reddit subscriptions and recommends the corresponding lemmy community.
Now, on to build and extend the lemmy communities so that we have more recommendations to make.
I de-activated my Twitter account today. I had decided to keep it without posting a while back, just in case anyone would try to use my handle to write weird stuff and impersonate me, but I realized there’s no way I’m ever going back to Twitter and posting anything there.
If someone impersonates me, well, since Twitter has become so ridiculous and toxic, I’m sure people will accept that it’s not me talking.
I wasn’t using this account, and hadn’t for something like a year, so, bye « X »!
@thelinuxEXP I'm not writing or following anyone there, but I'm not deactivating yet because I'm planning to develop a browser extension that act as a bridge to the Fediverse and help people migrate.
@denzilferreira network effects are a powerful thing. The longer you stay, the less reason they have to leave. The sooner you show them that their audience has moved elsewhere, the quicker we can get rid of Twitter.
Now with more and more #instances upgraded to version 4.2.0 of #Mastodon, you can compare full text #search on different ones: Having multiple accounts, I did – and yes, the differences are rather big.
Once again it seems clear, the bigger your instance the better for finding content in the #fediverse. Especially for journalists, this also implies, that an instance by your organization might not be the best idea. Something like journa.host could make more sense.
Instead of forcing journalist to have multiple accounts, wouldn't it be easier to have one separate search engine that aims to see all the fediverse? It could even be plugged in directly into the client's interface.
@feditips@Zeugs@mho@jwildeboer@tchambers No, one server that is affordable even by an independent software developer (such as myself and my business) and that could offer a service that is almost a commodity.
If any of these service providers tried to go rogue or evil, market forces would peg them down rather quickly.
These are implementation details which are orthogonal to the architecture.
Personally, I'm of the opinion that we shouldn't pretend that information in a social network can be private or shielded, and we should educate people that everything posted in the internet should be treated as public information.
I know that this is not a popular opinion though, so a search engine could be made opt-in.
@feditips@Zeugs@mho@jwildeboer@tchambers@FediFollows there is no privacy being "sacrificed" here, that's my larger point. If the Fediverse ever becomes big enough, someone will index it. Having it "opt-in" is like asking "pretty please leave me alone" to 3-letter agencies and Big Data miners. Do you think they'll honor it?
Those that need real privacy should not even be on Mastodon and should use only provably secure communication channels.
@feditips This is a better argument to have, as long as we don't claim it's about privacy. Privacy is indeed a binary attribute, but I'd agree that the "availability of public information" can be an important attribute of a search engine.
Even still, come to think about it, I don't see how a search engine that limits itself to opt-in content can ever be successful in a world where the fediverse catches on. People will jump ship to a search engine that shows everything as soon as it opens up.
I remember as a kid, a long time ago, at some point I realized that bathrooms were always segregated by gender. I thought about it, and it made no sense to me. So I asked the adults why that was so, and I got back some watered-down mumble jumble about what today we’d call the danger of sexual assault. I thought about it more, and that explanation made little sense to me, either. (If someone wanted to assault, why not go in the other door?)
@J12t because "going to the other door" is already a violation of the norms, works as a deterrent and can be guarded from outside in the public view, while it's a lot harder to guard a place where malicious actors can walk inside "freely", people are supposedly more vulnerable and expect privacy?
Somewhat related: do you see a need for gender-segregated locker rooms in the gyms, or should we get rid of those as well?
Regarding “back to the office”: Why is the commute the employee’s burden anyway? Make it part of the work time and have at it requiring people to come to the office. Three hours commute? You get 5 hours in the office.
Employees are available immediately at home but if they’ve required in the office, the clock starts when they leave home. You rent their time, your choice to spend it on travel.
