Stephen Downes

Why don't media and journalists like Mastodon? I think that it's because it lacks an algorithm. Various 'representative' voices are not privileged in the name of, shall we say, 'balance'. Scott Jenson raised this issue in the most provocative way possible: "Is #mastodon becoming an echo chamber? This post from @carnage4life has me questioning our community... I *know* people here don't want this to be a classic social media-clone but we'd *like* journalists to be here right?" (I added the link to Dare Obasanjo's post; in classic journalist fashion Jensen doesn't link to the source, so it becomes 'his' story). I like Mastodon founder Eigen Rochko's response: "I'm not interested in following any 'AI people'. That doesn't make it an echo chamber. We don't need equal amounts of people who love puppies and want to kill puppies, not everything needs to be equally represented." The whole thread is well worth reading (even some of the oh-so-Mastodon digressions). Especially this point: "Literally anyone can spin up a server and talk about anything/try to get more folk to listen... But other folk have to want to listen to whatever they are saying. Servers and individuals can just decide not to. No one is guaranteed an audience, just the ability to speak." Via Laurens Hof.