Hi there. In these times, folks are becoming more aware on how the social media companies are tracking their activity online, and selling the data for AI training purposes. They’re getting tired of being sold to third parties as a product, instead of being the customers or users of these platforms.
Sadly, Mastodon is losing its chance to become a real alternative to this business model. Why? Because the majority of users, me included, are no less sick and tired of online radical politics, regardless of orientation, being forced 24/7 upon them. They just want a friendly conversation on life, job and hobby topics… and perhaps also opt-in from time to time on the denser subjects of social and political issues. Mastodon claims to be ad-free… but in fact, the majority of contents over there can still be considered political ads disguised as personal takes.
An example: I went to instances.social, picked up spanish language… users and content were just the default. And this was the very first entry coming out:
“Todon.nl is een radicaal linkse anti-autoritaire Mastodonserver. Wij verwelkomen anarchisten, socialisten, (klimaat)activisten, LHBTQIA±personen, milieubewuste mensen, intersectionelen, antiracisten, antifascisten, antikapitalisten, veganisten, piraten, mensenrechtenactivisten, enz. Als ze maar radicaal, links én anti-autoritair zijn”.
The default instance on most of the Mastodon apps for the phone, is equally focused on radical politics in the feed, and its not reflective of the interests of the general public as a whole, but rather alienating. This is a boon to Zuckerberg and Musk… not to the majority of users, open source, or internet privacy. It is not surprising, given this fact, that Mastodon moderators have repeatedly tended to ban the users for the most perplexing reasons (likely because of not being politically radical enough). Regardless, not the way an alternative to the mainstream social media should ever be.
Everybody should be able to enjoy a conversation in a wide array of controversial topics if they desire to, but users should be able to opt-in, not being forced-in. Unless this changes, so that Mastodon becomes a truly welcoming site (even for the people who’re sick of ideology being fed into their throats, which are many), there’s no chance for it to become the alternative to commercial social media that it aims to be.
Since Mastodon doesn’t have an algorithmic feed, it’s up to each of us to make the most of our interactions. That’s priceless. (Although I get that radical politics as the first thing a new user sees can turn they off.)
What matters is not whether or not mastodon takes off. What matters is whether or not Fediverse takes off
Now as far as your political experience, I can say my last two instances have had very little to no political content. My current instance is my own, and we outright do not allow political shit lol
But even when I was on mastodon.social, I did not have lots of political content, I wonder who you followed or what hashtags you followed that were politically influenced?
Are there political servers? YES! Just as much as theres servers about cats, coffee, reading, art… There’s servers for anything, this is WHY you pick a server, you have the freedom to be part of a community of your choice and filter out junk you dont care about!
I promise you politics exist on every single social network.
Mastodon’s home feed does not show you something you did not follow (unless someone you follow boosts it)
And even then, the filters feature is dope AF, I have a filter for common political terms, and youtube/twitch links cause I dont really care for peoples live notificationsMy experience is very curated, and very in line with what I want to see 👍
Didn’t bother reading the whole thing.
The underlying misunderstanding of anyone who looks at anything Fediverse, not just Mastodon, is that it’s like any of the centralized options. It’s not.
Yes, you can connect and follow other people on other serves, yes their political ideas, no matter how extreme, will be there. But it’s no different than X/Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, or anywhere else in that regard.
Where it is different is that it’s something you or I can use to build our own community with our own ideas and leanings, and connect with or disassociate from those we don’t want to.
Its a more interconnected version of the old Forum softwares, or Content Management System blogs like WordPress or Drupal.
No. When you pick up the default or official instance from the phone app, you expect a bit of everything but not, in any case, a political room. Why was I directed to a radical Mastodon instance in the index? If I changed no settings, just went with the default.
I have studies in social sciences, talked to sociologists, anthropologists… if this dose of politics on Mastodon is making me gag, I can only imagine the reaction of average people, who will make their minds about it from the first impression and default settings. Sorry, but sometimes less is more.